LosPadresForest
By Andrew Madsen, Forest Public Affairs Officer
This year marks the 60th anniversary of the Wilderness Act signed by President Lyndon Johnson on September 3, 1964.
This enabling legislation created the National Wilderness Preservation System and established 54 wilderness areas in 13 states. Today the System has grown to include 806 wilderness areas in 44 states and Puerto Rico. Within California there are now 149 wilderness areas ranging in size from six to 3.1 million acres and totaling nearly 15 million acres.
September 28 also marks the 40th anniversary of the California Wilderness Act of 1984 which created more than three million acres of new wilderness across the state and established the Dick Smith and Machesna Mountain wilderness areas in Los Padres National Forest.
The Act also expanded the San Rafael Wilderness by 2,750 acres while transferring 430 acres from the San Rafael to the Dick Smith Wilderness.
Hiker on a trail in the Dick Smith Wilderness Area (Photo by: Flemming Bertelsen, US Forest Service)
Richard “Dick” Smith was an avid outdoorsman, author, illustrator, sculptor and environmental reporter for the Santa Barbara News-Press in the 1960s and 1970s.
Smith spent large amounts of time in the Santa Barbara backcountry on horseback exploring these rugged landscapes. He played an instrumental role advocating for legislation creating the San Rafael Wilderness in 1968 and, following his death in 1977, the Friends of Dick Smith petitioned lawmakers to dedicate a new wilderness area in his honor.
In 1984, the 64,700-acre Dick Smith Wilderness in eastern Santa Barbara County became part of the Wilderness Preservation System.
The Machesna Mountain Wilderness Area is located 25 miles east of the city of San Luis Obispo and is comprised of 19,760 acres in the La Panza mountain range. The Bureau of Land Management oversees a small portion of the wilderness, and there is a 1,500 acre Research Natural Area devoted to the study of a unique strain of Coulter pine. This wilderness boasts high peaks, chaparral, oak woodlands and conifer forests. Prairie falcon and tule elk live in this wilderness.
The Machensa Mountain Wilderness Area (Photo by: Brian Lucido)
