“The Ranch,” by Drew Kampion, ran in the November 1968 issue of SURFER. This version has been slightly edited.

A lone surfer sits in a deep blue slick, watching the sun inch down toward golden hills. A light offshore drifts over the smooth water. Outside a shadow rises in the calm and approaches silently. The wave peaks, blackens with mercuric gloss. The surfer strokes, marring the perfect surface, and drops to the bottom of the wave. His board hisses slightly in the silence till the curl throws out behind him and cracks loudly on the flats. The rider carves a white arc up into the hollow black section that forms ahead, sneaking under the white explosion and arcing his cutout till he comes to rest once again in the oily solitude. A dream wave? Sure, San Augustine!

On any day, during any swell, the most perfect waves imaginable can be had here: by any of the eighty members of the Santa Barbara County Surf Club, which controls the exclusive surfing rights to the fifteen miles of fantastic coastline between Point Conception and Gaviota. Anyone else must rely on boats or some other more imaginative device to gain admittance, and even then the hassle of entry and exit, and the general aura of hostility that abounds within the petty rivalry of the SBCSC and the outside world, make surfing at Trestles on Camp Pendleton, by comparison, seem like the easiest thing in the world.

The history of the area is both involved and interesting. The fifteen miles of surfable coastline have, for some time, been owned by the Bixbys (north of Cojo) and the Hollisters (south of Cojo), and although the area is presently in real estate limbo, it is still spoken of in terms of the Bixby Ranch and the Hollister Ranch.

The Hollister property was originally acquired by Col. William Welles Hollister before the Civil War, mostly in the form of Spanish land grants which included the Lompoc, Mission La Purisima, Salsipuedes, Las Cruces, San Julián and Nuestra Señora del Refugio. The greater part of this property was held together by the Hollister family over the years and today it is the fourth largest single landholding in Santa Barbara County. The Bixby holdings are smaller and information on the properties is kept quiet by the Bixby Co., of Long Beach. However, their land was acquired in much the same way as the Hollister spread.

In 1966, the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors adopted a resolution urging a Federal study into the feasibility of creating a national seashore out of the Hollister coastal properties. However, their proposal lost impetus with the creation of a national park on an alternate site: the Channel Islands Monument on the tiny island of Anacapa.

In 1967, the Santa Barbara County Planning Commission proposed a study on the possibilities of zoning the Hollister coastal claims and the rest of the Santa Barbara coast for recreational purposes. This would limit the growth of the oil concerns and power facilities that are threatening to stifle the coastline. Mention was also made at this time of a possible road along the coast to Point Conception.

The latest word to come from the Hollister holdings is that the Ranch has been sold to the Macco Realty Co. of Los Angeles for a reported $7,500,000. Not included in the Macco deal were the Las Cruces, Salsipuedes and Winchester Canyon ranches. This does, however, mean that Macco is in control of the vast majority of the Ranch beaches. And this is where things stand as of this moment.

The Hollisters, when they owned the entire Ranch, wanted it to be used for recreational purposes. With this in mind they gave access in the late '50s to the Sportsman Hunting Club. This club, in turn, was divided into smaller clubs, one of which was the surf club. Reynolds Yater, prominent Santa Barbara surfer and board manufacturer, first surfed the Ranch in 1959 and became the original president of the surf club. “I had some trouble getting 30 guys together to form the club,” Rennie says, ‘‘but I finally did and we became an affiliated club within the Sportsman Club.” Then the Sportsman Club split up and Yater went to Dr. Clinton Hollister and received his permission to form a surfing club as a non-profit, independent organization. The newly-created Santa Barbara County Surf Club then purchased its own lease from Hollister.

‘‘This was the time when surfers were involved in a lot of senseless vandalism. The Santa Barbara Surf Club took charge of preventing vandalism on the Hollister lands,” says Yater. “We paid for our own insurance and for a permanent gate guard for the Hollister lands.”

Still president and an active and frequent surfer at the Ranch, Yater says: “The surf on the Ranch is by itself. In the winter the lower half is best, from Lefts and Rights south, and in the summer the north is best, from Lefts and Rights on up.”

Another frequent Ranch visitor is ex-Club president Arland Knight, who aptly expresses the Club’s stand on surfers and information seekers: “I would be out of line if I let anything out about the Ranch,” says Knight. “We’ve had enough trouble along that line already. I prefer you didn't write the article. The less said the better. Also, if any member of the Club cooperates with the article his membership would be in jeopardy. That’s the only way we've been able to keep it as good as it is on the Ranch.”

This is testimony as to why Ranch information is so scarce, or so misleading.

However, stories do filter out of the Santa Barbara area about what goes on within the mysterious confines of the sacred Ranch. Many of these have to do with the waves, how they break, when they break, and where to find them if you just happen to be passing through the area in a boat or whatever. Here are the main spots traveling north out of Gaviota.

 The name comes from the sharp, jagged rocks that line the beach like stalagmites. These are definitely problem when the surf is smaller, and for this reason the spot is not often surfed. However, when the place gets big—and it gets as big as anywhere on the Ranch—the thick right slides take the surfer clear of these obstacles. It has been surfed in the ten- to twelve-foot range and will hold an even larger swell with excellent form.

 Good right slide point with buildup inside. Good fall and winter spot as it works almost exclusively on west and north swells. Upper Drake’s is the outside indicator for Drake’s and is also a very hot spot.

Little Drake’s (Crumple Car; Santa Anita):

 Super hollow right-breaking, best on a high tide. Can get thick and frightening. Good on big south. Excellent winter scene. A prominent local calls it reverse Pipeline.

 The best-looking point on the Ranch, but kinda sectiony and not always makable. Usually best in summer.

 The most consistent spot on the Ranch: the right is short but hollow, and is ridden more than the left. A good summer spot, there are often warm offshores here. Closes out when large. Says Tom Morey, Ventura board manufacturer: “There’s a mechanical phenomenon up there that manifests itself as Rights and Lefts.”

 Short right, a peak and point combination; one of the glassier spots on the Ranch due to the heavy kelp beds. Has a hard-breaking end section that can plant a surfer nicely on the reef. Better with size; best in summer.

 Not to be confused with Rights and Lefts; one of the better beach surf spots, with the left offering a semi-point situation. A super-hollow scene with right after left after right after left.

Gato Canyon (John’s Pond, Lake Inferior):

 Good beachbreak, but inconsistent, and besides, if you’re riding here when it’s good, you could be somewhere else and have it better.

 Point and reef. The reef breaks a half-mile outside and is seldom good. The point is a super south swell break and can hold 12 feet with no sweat. It’s a throwing-out wave, and when it’s good, rides are possible from Cockroach all the way through the Cojo break. Pinwheel curls spin within themselves.

 Outside and up the beach from Cojo, but when holding up on big swells Cockroach to Cojo can be made. Barely. Like Cojo, a south swell event.

 A short but high-quality right slide. Sometimes slow, sometimes fast. Takeoff generally steep and hollow.

 Bob Cooper says, “It’s really neat!” A sand bottom, right slide point, Governments offers the longest ride on the Ranch, extending up to a half-mile on a good day. It will hold any size south swell and has frequent offshores. In the winter, the north swells have to wrap hard to get in here and the result is smaller surf.

What lies beyond the guards and the restrictions are twelve major spots and dozens of beach breaks and off-and-on peaks with some of the best surf on the coast. The guards do their thing well, too, however, and the restrictions are very restricting. But surfers who have tasted Ranch perfection are forever victims of its Siren call. Stories that filter down from the Ranch seem to carry a predominant theme of disaster or near-disaster.

Almost everybody that has taken a boat to the Ranch has met with some sort of mishap. “Often guys come up in boats and break down in Ranch waters,” says Yater, who gets to drive in. “Bad kelp is all over the place. When it’s nice, it’s as nice as anywhere, but when it’s windy, it’s the windiest place on the coast.”

Tom Morey has a tale of woe from the Ranch. He bought a leaky little boat for $50. He had his glasser glass the bottom. That cost $300. Then Morey forked out $125 for an Evinrude. Next, he, Richard Deese, Pete Robinson, and Dale Herd went up to Gaviota. It was late in the morning when they launched, and the boat trip up to the Ranch was against a strong wind and chop. After checking several spots they saw nothing that looked good and decided to beach the boat and rest. On the beach they met a Club member who only said: “Don’t step across the mean high tide line,” so they motored back to Gavioto, hoisted the boat, and watched as one, two, three, the lines all snapped and the boat dropped upside down against the bottom of the pier.

“Everything was in the boat,” says Morey. “The reserve motor, the Evinrude, our boards, lunches, shoes, clothes. As it turned out, though, all we ended up losing was a one-foot diameter hole in the bow and the keys to the truck.”

On his next trip to the Ranch, after paying $130 to repair the Evinrude, the driveshaft cracked just 100 yards out of Gaviota. The engine is now beyond fixing and the boat still sits behind Morey’s shop. “I’m asking $50,” sighs Tom.

Morey has been surfing at the Ranch sporadically over the years. “I first drove up in 1954,” Morey remembers, “when Rights and Lefts was known as ‘Turn Left at the Cow’.”

Things have changed up there. The Ranch itself hasn't changed much, but the access problem has become more and more complicated. If a surfer is without a boat he has to rely on other means of entry. The Club members aren’t even allowed to bring guests, so there are only about eighty people in the 

One of the favorite illegal entries is along the railroad tracks from Jalama. Surfers either walk or bike in from Jalama. They leave their bikes in the bushes and walk to the beach at Government. However, if they are nabbed by the guard (at present Shaun Claffey is the full-time guard there) they are frequently marched all the way down to Gaviota where they must arrange some sort of transportation so that they can get back up to Jalama, rebreak into the Ranch, and retrieve their bikes without getting re-nabbed. All this comes on good authority from would-be Ranch surfers who have been nabbed and re-nabbed.

Other tales of inventiveness abound. Like the time Joey Cabell, Bobby Patterson and Bosco Burns drove their VW bus into the Ranch in the dead of night and made it down to the beach where they were met by Club members. Rather than risk a trip out through the main gate and a fine, the fearless threesome chose to make a run of it down the beach. Luckily it was an exceptionally low-tide night, and they made the impossible trek through the treacheries of Razor Blades, crashing along the shore, shooting four-foot shorebreak wherever they went, and finally performed the feat to end all feats: shooting the rocks at Gaviota in a VW bus. The informant who gave us the information notes that this was a once-in-a-lifetime possibility. They were, however later caught and fined $105 each. A sad result for such a great effort.

Some people aren’t so lucky. Club members often fall victim to the Ranch’s elaborate sand trap system, and several cars have been lost when they have bogged in the soft sand at low tide, and their owners have looked helplessly on as the tide inched closer and closer and finally swallowed their cars. Many a Ranch surfer, taking advantage of the smooth beach for a close look at the surf, has spent frantic hours trying to get his car unglued and away from the incoming tide. A Ranch tractor might tow out your car for a price, if you can find your car by the time you’ve found the tractor.

According to former Club member Bob Cooper, the only practical way a non-member can get into the Ranch is by boat Even then, Cooper says, it’s hardly worth the effort because of the obvious ease with which disaster can occur.

Occasionally people other than members are allowed in. The librarian at the 

 notes that a group of Hippies was allowed to visit the Ranch for a weekend last year, but they didn’t want to leave again once they got settled. “They had to get rid of them finally,” the librarian whispered, “the health problem, you know.”

Greg MacGillivray, aging lens artist, also reports that he was let into the Ranch on an expedition paid for and sponsored by the makers of the Hollywood movie 

. Greg notes that when the caravan of movie trucks pulled in to set up for filming, the only inhabitants of the area were a few hippies living in a shack who were beyond rational thought and reacted in paranoid fashion to the rare influx into that remote area.

Otherwise, for the most part, the area remains tightly sealed. Steve Bigler is taking tours into the Ranch in a small boat and others are doing the same, much to the chagrin of Club members, who would rather see the place stay the way it’s been: closed, quiet and somewhat sacred. “Arland Knight is the mafia,” says one Ranch frequenter. “He’s a gung-ho Club man and he doesn’t like trespassers.” Nor does Arland seem to be alone, for most members of the Club, quite understandably, perhaps, are quite content to have the spot to themselves.

Oddly enough, some people on the outside like it that way, too. Morey, for instance: “It’s nice to have a place where you have to connive and your imagination to get in. It adds something.”

Nonetheless, no matter how entrenched Club members are in Ranch, sooner or later the property will be subdivided and put to some more “civic-minded” use.

Rumors are afoot that a marina may be built from Point Conception south, turning the area into a beautiful harbor with zero waves. There is also the possibility that the zone may be subdivided into private lots and even the Club members would lose access. Then there is the hopeful possibility that the whole coastal area might be turned into a national seashore and thus be open to everyone. The Santa Barbara County Surf Club alone will not win the fight against the spreading marina mania and surfers who have never surfed the Ranch aren’t about to fight to keep it open to surfing when they have no access to it anyway. Only by allowing surfers to use the surf will support grow to keep the Point Conception area a beautiful, natural coastline where dredges and cranes are never seen.

Meanwhile, though, the microcosmic conflict goes on: surfer against surfer, while off to one side the marina lovers and developers breath easy at our lack of unity.

[Photos: Ron Stoner, John Severson, Greg MacGillivray]

“THE RANCH,” BY DREW KAMPION (1968)

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