The natural assets of the Carpinteria Bluffs make the Nature Preserve an amazing outdoor classroom that hundreds of students experience each year, from pre-school age on up to folks in their nineties taking Adult Education courses.

Each year, around 150 Carpinteria 3rd graders from Canalino, Main, and Aliso Schools as well as Carpinteria Family School take an “Earth Day” field trip to the Bluffs, organized and sponsored by Citizens for the Carpinteria Bluffs in partnership with the City’s Parks and Recreation Department.

This special day features a number of scientific activities for the students that include observing and painting nature with local, well known artists; learning more about harbor seals and sea lions; bird watching; and learning about plants and weeds of the Bluffs. In addition, the students often are asked to help plant additional native plants in areas of the Bluffs being restored.

Using this website, teachers and parents can learn more about the Flora & Fauna of the Carpinteria Bluffs or how to use the Bluffs on Earth Day and throughout the year for field trips as an incredible outdoor classroom.
(Click on “outdoor classroom” above to get to our special Field Trip page for teachers and parents.)

Beginning in early 2010, Venoco attempted to bypass the City and all remaining public environmental review of their application to the City of Carpinteria for a permit to construct a 140 foot high drilling rig on its current onshore site not far from the Carpinteria Bluffs Nature Preserve and the Viola Playing Fields. This oil and gas development project could have serious and signficant environmental impacts upon the Bluffs as well as, of course, upon the greater Carpinteria community. Posing as a so-called “people’s intiative” and using paid signature gatherers, Venoco was able to get their “Paredon Oil & Gas Development Initiative,” later renamed Measure J, on the June ballot in Carpinteria. Subsequently, the community mounted a huge grassroots campaign to defeat this measure. On June 8, 2010, voters of Carpinteria soundly defeated Measure J by a margin of 71% to 29% despite the fact that Venoco, the sole donor to the Yes on Measure J campaign, spent $800,000 in their efforts, outspending the grassroots opposition effort by a factor of almost 10 to 1.

For information on the recent community effort to fight Venoco’s Measure J, go to CitizensAgainstParedon.org.

Our Paredon Project Page will give you more information about Venoco’s earlier proposed Paredon Project, where the project was in the City’s planning “pipeline” before this flagrant Measure J attempt to bypass the public process occurred, and a legal challenge that was made to Venoco’s Measure J.

Artists, bird watchers and longtime Carpinteria Bluffs supporters gathered with current board members of Citizens for the Carpinteria Bluffs on Sunday afternoon, October 25, 2009 to enjoy the Bluffs and celebrate the 10th anniversary of the completion of the Bluffs fundraising efforts. Members of the Land Trust for Santa Barbara County as well as representatives of the City also joined in the low key festivities.

Artists painting along the Artists Passage area of the Bluffs

Native planting work as part of the Sunday celebration



Arturo Tello, Joni Pascal & Ted Rhodes leading the gathering in a special Bluffs version of “This Land is Your Land.”

Citizens for the Carpinteria Bluffs held its tenth annual Sunrise Ceremony on Sunday, March 22, 2009 at 7 AM at the Mishopshno Meadow of the Carpinteria Bluffs. Heavy early morning rain did not keep Local Chumash descendant Julie Tumamait-Stenslie from returning once again to lead our group’s annual informal spiritual observance to renew ourselves and to honor all those who have worked so hard (and continue to work) to save special places like the Carpinteria Bluffs and to make this a better world.

Snow dusts the mountains from a winter storm that also brings much needed rain to the Carpinteria Valley…

Do you have a favorite photo you have taken of the Bluffs that you would like to share with us?
Do you have a favorite story about the Bluffs or about one of your visits to this special place?

Send us your photo (in low resolution) or your story, and we will post them on a “Bluffs Corner” page.

Photo at right: Another work party of community volunteers gathered at the Bluffs on February 3, 2007 to help the City plant close to two hundred natives near the Bailard parking area as well as put in, amidst the line of Tamarisks to the west, 7 Sycamore saplings propagated from cuttings made from Carpinteria’s historic Portola Sycamore.

Want to get involved in helping to restore the Bluffs’ native plant communities? If you are a high school student, this is a great way to earn community service hours.

You are invited to join us at one of our weeding parties, held the first Saturday of each month. We meet at the Bailard Ave parking lot at 1 p.m. Be sure to bring water, sun protection, gloves, and shovels and clippers (if you have them). For more information, please contact Andrea at (805) 684-8077 or by email at carp_parks@yahoo.com.

You can learn more about the Carpinteria Bluffs Management Plan and other on-going stewardship issues regarding this special coastal land by attending the regular meetings of the City of Carpinteria’s Bluffs Advisory Board, a volunteer board created to advise the City on all Bluffs-related matters. For meeting dates and times, please contact Matt Roberts, Director of Parks and Recreation, City of Carpinteria, (805) 684-5405, extension 449.

Photo at left: Max Engelsiepen, Anthony Tornello, and Andy Wills planting one of the Sycamore saplings propagated from cuttings made from Carpinteria’s historic Portola Sycamore.

Spring soccer practice on the Viola Playing Fields,
the eastern portion of the Carpinteria Bluffs adjacent to
the Nature Preserve that is dedicated to active recreation.

Carpinteria’s U-12 Girls All-Star AYSO team practice.

The “Boys of Summer.”
Early evening softball
on the west diamond at the Viola Playing Fields.

Volunteers meet at the Carpinteria Bluffs for the semi-annual maintenance of the Acknowledgement Marker near the Bailard Avenue entrance. Shown helping with the cleaning and waxing of the marker are, left to right, Whitney Abbott, Kathleen Lord, Parks Director Matt Roberts, and Ted Rhodes.

Graffiti Alert:
If you see any graffiti or other damage to the marker or to other features at the preserve, please notify immediately Matt Roberts at the city, 805 684-5405 ext. 449, or contact Ted Rhodes through this website.

Citizens for the Carpinteria Bluffs deeply regrets having inadvertently left off the names of following individuals from the Memorial Section of our Bluffs Acknowledgement Marker:

Maude Armstrong
Michelle Franklin Uellner
Marga Franklin

We plan to include these names on a subsequent commemoratve marker when we are able to complete the public acquisition of the additional 29 acres of Carpinteria Bluffs property that currently remain in private ownership.

We also regret not having more adequately acknowledged, on our marker, the significant contributions of the Dick and Libby Weinberg family of Carpinteria to the Bluffs effort.