Favorite Photo Location: Channel Islands National Park

Words and Images by QT Luong  |  August 2024

The park consists of five islands, each with its own distinctive personality and environment. They have been compared to the Galapagos Islands because of their extensive marine life, nesting seabird colonies, and 145 species of plants and animals found nowhere else in the world. I enjoy the diversity of landscapes, which besides craggy headlands, coves, and pristine sand beaches, also include canyons, mountains, and unique forests.

The reason why this remarkably bio-diverse and beautiful island paradise is so uncrowded is that a boat trip is required. The park concessionaire, Island Packers, provides transportation to all the islands out of the Ventura and Oxnard harbors. Reservations are wise, especially on summer weekends. Once you step out of the boat, there is no transportation or services, so you must be self-sufficient. For overnight stays, designated primitive campsites are available, and I pack for camping trips as I do for backpacking, with the addition of a separate photography backpack.

Weather

Located in Southern California and tempered by the Pacific Ocean, the Channel Islands offer year-round mild weather, although there are seasonal variations and the conditions can often fluctuate within a day from calm to breezy and warm to chilly. Spring can be fiercely windy, and early summer overcast. Late summer and early fall are the most consistently sunny and warm months and offer a smooth crossing. Winter may bring rainfall, but also brilliantly clear days between storms.

Photo Experience

Only a one hour crossing from the mainland, East Anacapa Island and Santa Cruz Island can easily be visited as day trips, which is what most do. Because of the length of the crossing and the distance from landings to the most interesting sites, I am not keen on day trips to Santa Rosa, San Miguel, and Santa Barbara Islands. However, if you are interested in photographing the abundant marine life, the boat trip could be rewarding by itself – 20% of visitors do not land.

The destination of the vast majority of visitors to the park, Santa Cruz Island is the largest island in California. The ferry schedule lets you spend most of your day trip on the island. This leaves you enough time to hike to fjord-like Potato Harbor (5 miles round-trip) along a spectacular coastal trail and maybe also to kayak (possibly with an outfitter) to beautiful sea caves near Scorpion Harbor, the best beach on the islands. Santa Cruz’s wooded campground is the nicest on the islands and staying there let me photograph Potato Harbor at sunset and Scorpion Harbor at sunrise.

Surrounded by dramatic craggy cliffs, diminutive East Anacapa Island is the island closest to the mainland. Its two miles of trails can be hiked in an hour. Being able to stand at Inspiration Point at sunset and then from sunrise to midmorning, both times with different but great light, made it well worth camping despite the lighthouse’s foghorn. The aptly named viewpoint offers possibly the most spectacular view on the entire West Coast.

Best Times

Boats run year-round to the Anacapa and Santa Cruz Islands. The transportation schedule for the other islands has varied over the years, but always excludes December and January for Santa Rosa Island and some more months for San Miguel Island and Santa Barbara Island. The islands are greenest at the end of the winter, when wildflowers bloom, before turning yellow sometime in April and then turning brown until the next winter. The coreopsis blooms for a short period from mid-March to mid-April, making it my favorite time to visit the land, but this is not possible for all islands. Late summer and early fall’s tranquil seas are favorable for water activities.

Contact: National Parks Service, https://www.nps.gov/chis/index.htm.

See more of QT Luang’s work at instagram.com/terragalleria.