Sometimes it is good to pause for historical perspective and consider what existed in the past and what has been lost. From the late 1970s through 1988 I traveled through Madulce Station many times. It was a unique location in the Los Padres as I think these pictures will amply demonstrate. The photographs in this set were taken in 1983. I was convinced they still existed and on a recent trip to Ojai, California I found a box that had not been opened since sometime before 1990 and, well, not only were the old prints inside, but also a complete set of negatives. These shots are scans from the original negatives. The pictures are arranged in the order they were shot, except for the first picture, which was taken in the morning after spending the night in the cabin and was the last shot on the roll of film. When I heard the cabin was destroyed in an arson fire in 1999 the feeling of loss is difficult to describe without a descent into unseemly pathos, so I will just leave it at that. The destruction wrought by the Zaca fire in 2007 was similarly difficult for me to process. To finish on a positive note, the current advocacy for Los Padres hikers through efforts that demonstrate a perfect synthesis of adventure and scholarship is unprecedented in my memory. I say more about that here, where I have also posted a number of old Los Padres hiking pictures. Finally, I have recently returned to hiking the Los Padres after a nearly 25 year absence and am writing a blog where I discuss then and now with words and photographs: The Los Padres Expatriate Hiker.