The Backyard Stories, Dispatch Four: Nick Brown
This article originally appeared on Trail Runner
The Backyard Stories is a new podcast and written column, in partnership with Protect Our Winters (POW), following athletes and local food advocates who are deeply invested in their home ecosystems – their backyards. Read the introduction here.
This story is about where the coastal mountain ranges of Southern California meet the Pacific Ocean, south of Santa Barbara. The land between the top of the mountains and the waves crashing below is a tangle of orchards, highways, vineyards, densely populated urban areas, sprawling estates, and trails.
These are some of the best trails I have ever run.
Last year, I was assigned a story featuring farmer Nick Brown, whose family has been growing subtropical fruits on the foothills of these coastal mountains since 1871.
What struck me about Nick's story was the way he wove together what being in agriculture means for him: the physical and financial risks, the sacrifice of time, the unending joy he takes in fruit, and what it feels like to work under the raging power of nature. As if hearing a myth unfold, he told me stories of earthquakes, mountain lions, class 3 scrambling to fix irrigation pipes, and most suspensefully, wildfire.
This stretch of coastline is a place that brings up memories of my own athletic striving. In 2015, as an emerging trail runner, I came to know this area as a proving ground, while also a source of injury and acute illness. After a few strong races in my home state of Wisconsin, my husband and I packed up the truck and drove our family to the west coast so I could race on dry trails in the winter, our only time of year we could be gone from our farm. With my second baby still nursing, I got my first out-of-state podium finish at the Sean O'Brien 50K. We went back four years in a row for the 50-mile and 100K events, which included a win, a DNF, and a solid attempt at a Western States Golden Ticket. The fifth year, wildfire engulfed the course, and I haven't raced there since.
When I asked Nick about his backyard, he told me that, technically, he doesn't have a backyard because he lives in an orchard. We agreed that Los Padres National Forest could be considered his backyard, which borders the farm on one side. This 1.75 million-acre stretch of public land is the third largest National Forest in the state of California, with elevations that go from sea level up to nearly 9,000 feet.
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Nick owns and operates a direct-to-consumer fruit delivery business called Rincon Tropics, with fruit harvested from the 600-acre family orchard he helps manage. Rincon Tropics took off during the pandemic. His family's farm has been very active in farmer's markets in Southern California, but when the pandemic put selling in-person on hold, Nick shifted to a home delivery service. He had no idea the amount of support he would get from his farmer’s market customers, chefs, restaurants, and food writers. And that is how I met Nick.
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