Identity Crisis : Little-Known Channel Islands Park Seeks More Visibility and Visitors

Thirteen years after Channel Islands National Park was established off the Ventura coast, park officials are beginning to admit that it has an identity problem--few people know anything about it.

This summer, the National Park Service plans to survey park visitors to help decide how best to raise the pristine, five-island chain from its ranking near the bottom of a list of least-visited parks in all of California.

Despite its rugged campsites and ragged cliffs, despite the attraction of 10,000 seals breeding on its cobbled shores and lush, ocher kelp forests thriving in the crystal-blue ocean around it, Channel Islands National Park has fewer visitors than any national park in California, save Devil’s Postpile near Mammoth Lakes.

Despite its proximity to one of the world’s largest metropolitan hubs, fewer people visited Channel Islands National Park in all of 1992 than went to Joshua Tree National Monument in a single month--even though the desert preserve is nearly twice as far from Los Angeles.

“The park service has never been very good about marketing,” Park Supt. C. Mack Shaver conceded recently. “The park service only in the last five years has started talking about it above the table. Marketing always smacks more of ‘Let’s try to make money,’ rather than, ‘Let’s try to sell what we’ve got.’ ”

The park service survey will ask Channel Islands visitors how they learned of the park and how the service could increase its visibility, he said. The park service also is working on a master management plan, which could include ways to make the park more accessible--and enticing--to the public.

And in the future, the service may even allow establishment of a small-scale bed-and-breakfast hotel on Santa Rosa Island or Santa Cruz Island to attract more visitors, Shaver said. Currently, the park service offers only campsites for visitors.

But that sort of plan will have to wait until the park service gains full control of its share of the islands, he said.

After selling Santa Rosa Island to the park service in 1986, the island’s former owners--the Vail and Vickers Co. cattle ranchers--retained the right to use the land for another 25 years.

And ownership of Santa Cruz’s eastern end still has not been completely resolved. Shaver said the park service has been working for nearly 15 years with Francis Gherini to buy his interest in a piece of the island’s east end.

Finally, the park service must persuade potential visitors to overcome the biggest obstacle--the sea.

“People aren’t used to going (to national parks) by boat,” Shaver said, glancing through the window of his Ventura office at the string of islands in the distant mist.

“They’re so used to driving their car or their Winnebago, and getting out, and there they are,” he said. “They get here to the Visitor Center, they find out it’s going to take a day and the boat’s already left and then they have to rewrite their vacation schedule--and maybe they don’t go.”

While 3.8 million people visited Yosemite National Park last year, 300 miles from Los Angeles, only an estimated 55,500 visitors ventured onto the Channel Islands National Park, barely 70 miles away from the city.

A far greater number of tourists--an estimated 166,800--stopped at the Channel Islands Visitor Center on the mainland, then went home without ever reaching the islands.

By contrast, thousands more traveled a similar 20-mile distance from the mainland last year to Catalina Island, which is one of the Channel Islands but not part of the park. Attracted by the hotels, bars, old casinos--and wilderness trails--more than 800,000 people boarded luxury cruise ships, fast-moving ferries and helicopters bound for Avalon, Catalina’s main harbor.

The islands in the park, however, were previously owned by ranchers, conservationists and the Navy. They never were developed like Catalina, and the park service’s mission is to preserve them as wilderness.

While the privately owned Scorpion Ranch on the east end of Santa Cruz Island offers a dozen bunkhouse beds, flush toilets, solar-heated showers and a kitchen, most of the island accommodations tend toward bare ground and pit toilets.

There are no-frills campsites on East Anacapa Island, Santa Rosa Island, San Miguel Island and Santa Barbara Island. Campfires are forbidden (although stoves are allowed), and park service camping permits are required. Although the permits are free, Island Packers, the Ventura-based concessionaire that takes visitors to the islands, adds from $11 to $28 to its boat fares for handling campers’ gear.

The entire eastern tip of Santa Cruz is open for camping, but the remainder of the island is off-limits to campers, and visitors must hook up with a guide employed by its owner, the Nature Conservancy, to hike there.

“This is truly a unique and high-quality experience,” said Jack Fitzgerald, the park’s head ranger, walking through bright yellow stands of giant coreopsis and scarlet blooms of the Indian paintbrush on Anacapa.

“It’s not the same as just driving up to Yosemite. This is an adventure,” Fitzgerald said. “You’re getting on a boat, you’re going offshore, you may or may not see whales, you may not even get there if the swells are too big. The people who come here plan for weeks and months ahead of time.”

Cost, too, remains a deterrent.

While day-trippers can drive straight into Joshua Tree National Monument for $5, Channel Islands visitors must shell out far more for the 90-minute boat ride from Ventura to Anacapa, the nearest island to shore. This season, it’s $20 for children and $37 for adults.

Fares for the four-hour trip to Santa Rosa Island cost $52 for adults, and $7 less for children. Airfare to Santa Rosa costs $75 for adults and $60 for children for the 25-minute flight from Camarillo Airport.

And while private boat owners can moor at any of the islands for free, they must pay landing permit fees of $15 for 30 days for the right to go ashore from most of the anchorages on Santa Cruz Island.

The Nature Conservancy owns and strictly controls access to the western 90% of Santa Cruz Island, but allows volunteers to travel and stay overnight for free in exchange for physical labor.

Visiting Channel Islands National Park “is expensive,” Fitzgerald admitted. “But if you look at the cost of going skiing for a day or going to Disneyland, something you might take your family to that’s a high-quality experience for a day, it’s pretty comparable.”

And even if the park service took responsibility for the boats and planes that carry the public to the islands--which Shaver said is highly unlikely--the cost would not go down, he said.

Channel Islands National Park originated as a national monument, proclaimed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1938, on Santa Barbara and Anacapa islands. They are the two smallest islands in the chain, at barely one square mile each.

In 1980, Congress redesignated the monument as Channel Islands National Park, expanding it to include Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa and San Miguel islands and surrounding waters.

That same year, then-President Reagan’s Office of Management and Budget decreed that “any (government) service that could be provided by private industry must be provided by private industry,” Shaver said.

As a result, Island Packers, which had carried visitors to the islands since 1968, made the sole bid and won the contract.

Mark Connally, owner of Island Packers, said poor weather sometimes discourages park attendance.

In the summer of 1991, an almost endless stream of cloudy days drove the number of riders so low that Connally almost considered folding. This year’s winter season “was the worst we’ve had in ages,” Connally said. “Fifty to 60% of the trips were canceled from the end of December to the end of February. The channel can get pretty rough during the winter.”

And even on the balmiest days, Island Packers sometimes cannot muster enough customers to cover operating expenses.

While warm weekends often pack the boats to capacity, weekdays sometimes see only a dozen or so people boarding an Island Packers boat that could handle 49.

“We run it anyway, for good will,” Connally said. “It’s not worth ruining everybody’s vacation.”

The ride itself can be an obstacle, especially for those with delicate constitutions.

“Some people get seasick,” Fitzgerald said with a shrug.

After the 90-minute cruise to Anacapa Island’s Landing Cove, visitors must step from the boat’s heaving gunwale to a steel ladder leading to the dock, where they must climb 154 steel and concrete steps to reach the hiking trails.

After the two-hour trip to Santa Cruz, the largest of the islands at 96 square miles, visitors must step from the boat to an outboard-powered landing skiff piloted by Island Packers crewmen, who then help them jump to the beach--usually without dampening the passengers’ shoes.

“A lot of people don’t like the ocean,” Connally said. “We try to inform people as much as possible what they’re getting into so they’re not surprised. We lose quite a few older people that way.”

Yet none of this stopped a quartet of friends ages 53 to 74 from boarding the Sunfish, an Island Packers cruise boat, for what turned out to be an extremely choppy ride to East Santa Cruz Island.

Seasickness sent Norma Coony, 74, rushing to the rail. But once the Island Packers crew hustled to her aid and later guided her and other visitors on a nature walk through the island’s verdant hills, her heart warmed to the experience.

“I’m not a good sailor, but I’m ready to try anything,” Coony said upon reboarding the Sunfish after her hike. “I loved it. I was surprised. I didn’t know what to expect. The guides were excellent.”

Her friend, Gary Null, said he was delighted with the trip. “They do a good job of getting you to shore without getting you wet,” said Null, 53, of Apple Valley. “They’re a very patient crew. . . . I want to come back next time and spend three days.”

Coony said most of her friends had no idea where the Channel Islands were located. “But I think there are a lot of people in the U.S. who don’t know what exists right in the United States,” she said.

Park service and Island Packers officials agree that ignorance keeps the number of visitors low.

“Not too many people know they’ve got a national park in their back yard,” said Alex Brodie, a naturalist and boat crewman for Island Packers. “The park service--I think they’re more interested in getting it set up as a park and getting it ready for the future.”

No matter who owns the park, though, it will always draw visitors, said Thomas Nathanson, one of the caretakers of Gherini’s property.

“It’s great out here,” he said. “It’s a pretty magical experience for people, being allowed to be in a place where there are no power lines, no cars and a lot of space.”

Greg Aanes, a 37-year-old rocking-chair manufacturer from Bellingham, Wash., said his Santa Barbara in-laws were skeptical when he told them he and his wife and son planned to stay overnight on Santa Cruz Island.

“They can’t figure out why anyone would want to go out there,” he said, salt spray breaking over the bow of the Sunfish and splashing his face as he neared Santa Cruz. “Certainly, it’s a trip for the young at heart.”

Channel Islands National Park--Getting There Two companies have contracts with the National Park Service to carry passengers to Channel Islands National Park. Visitors to Santa Rosa Island have the option of choosing a short flight or a longer, less costly boat ride. Frequency of the trips varies.

COST (Adult/child TRAVEL DESTINATION under 12) TIME* Island Packer Cruises East Anacapa Island $37/$20 1 1/2 hours West Anacapa Island $37/20 1 1/2 hours Anacapa cruise, round trip (no landing) $21/14 3 1/2 hours Santa Barbara Island $49/$35 3 hours East Santa Cruz Island $42/$32 1 1/2 hours West Santa Cruz Island $47** 2 hours Santa Cruz Island (main ranch) $49** 2 hours Santa Rosa Island $52/$45 3 1/2 hours San Miguel Island $62/$50 4 hours Channel Islands Aviation Santa Rosa Island $75/$50*** 25 minutes

* Approximate, one-way times, depending on weather and sea conditions.

** No children under age 10.

*** Children’s rate ages 2-12; infants free.

Visitors to National Parks and Monuments in California Channel Islands National Park, although one of the closest parks to the population centers of Southern California, has nearly the lowest annual number of visitors--partly because it’s hard to get there. FACILITY: VISITORS IN 1992 Golden Gate National Recreation Area: 15,309,338 Yosemite National Park: 3,819,518 Point Reyes National Seashore: 2,579,949 Joshua Tree National Monument: 1,220,539 Sequoia National Park: 968,600 Death Valley National Monument: 869,183 Kings Canyon National Park: 643,196 Lassen Volcanic National Park: 468,011 Redwood National Park: 387,781 Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area: 365,215 Pinnacles National Monument: 191,683 Lava Beds National Monument: 164,132 Channel Islands National Park: * 55,567 Devil’s Postpile National Monument: 44,427 * National Park Service officials report that 222,267 people came through the park’s mainland Visitor Center in Ventura, but estimate that only 25%, or 55,567, made the boat or plane ride to the islands. Source: National Park Service