Sean Jansen grew up surfing the waves at Lower Trestles – but little did he know, there was a struggling species in the nearby San Mateo Creek, the same river that helped create the surf break he’s enjoyed his entire life.
The pristine beach area near his hometown of San Clemente had given him so much, he wanted to give something in return. So he set out on a quest to follow the natural habitat of the California steelhead trout, and raise awareness about why this unique fish is facing extinction, in large part due to human urbanization.
The fish is a coastal rainbow trout, and similar to salmon, it matures in the ocean and then returns to swim upstream in the river to spawn. It repeats the cycle over and over — if it can find a way back up through freshwaters.
“I felt guilty I didn’t know about it, at this wave I surf,” Jansen said. “And I realized this is not the only creek, throughout California, there are hundreds of creeks that have this fish.”
He’s now working with California Trout, a group spearheading efforts to bring the species back from the brink of extinction brought on by the damming up of waterways, pollution, agriculture, climate change, the list goes on.
Jansen said he decided to do a walkabout covering the migration patterns of the trout, from the ocean to the mountains, along rivers that meet the sea. He started in San Clemente up to Pismo Beach, then headed to the San Bernardino mountains, where he would take the Pacific Crest Trail down to the Mexico border, then back up the coast to finish where he started.
The journey started in 2024 and happened over a total of 86 days, an estimated 1,196 miles. He took more than 2.6 million steps, burned 165,745 calories and spent 237 hours and 42 minutes walking.
His final steps this week landed him back in his hometown of San Clemente at T-Street Beach, where his adventure started.
“It hasn’t hit me yet,” Jansen said, as he walked up the beach trail, looking out at the waves rolling in.
The journey didn’t happen in one swoop, rather three separate trips that started on April 15, 2024. He left from T-Street to head up to Santa Maria south of Pismo Beach, stopping at all the rivers the trout are known to live. That segment was 340 miles, taking three weeks.
Then he looped from Santa Maria inland to Wrightwood, then Big Bear in San Bernardino Mountains, another 300 miles that took him another three weeks.
During the summer months, he serves as a wildlife guide at Yellowstone National Park, so at that point he put the trek on hold to get back to work.
He was set to pick up where he left off in the fall of 2024, but fires ripped through the region, closing down several sections of trails he needed to access to finish the journey.
A year passed before he could pick back up in Big Bear, and on Oct. 10, he got a ride up the windy road up to where he left off. And then, again, started walking, taking the Pacific Crest Trail south.
Jansen was familiar with the route, hiking the entire 2,600-mile Pacific Crest Trail, from Alaska to Mexico, in 2015.
He packed noodles and instant meals to cook on a portable stove, used a water filter to drink from streams and rivers and when his body needed a rest, he listened.
He encountered a bear once, he said, but not a big deal – as a wilderness guide, he sees them all the time in Yellowstone and clapped it away. The rattlesnake was more of a scare, he said, striking his walking stick while he traversed a remote area.
There was the mysterious rash that crept over his body, and into his eye, that lasted about two weeks. He’s still unsure what it was from.
But more memorable were all the conversations Jansen had with random people he met, a chance to educate people on the plight of the steelhead trout, the purpose behind his journey.
“For me, it’s all about giving back,” Jansen said. “Nature has given me so much, this is my effort to return the favor.”
The largest recorded steelhead trout came from the San Juan Creek, measured at 34 inches, he said. “These are big fish, they can reach the same size as a salmon.”
The last recorded population number is 170 in all of Southern California.
Jansen carried along with him a steelhead trout stuffed animal, which he named “Steely Daniela” in a nod to the ’70s rock band, and used it as a pillow along his journey.
As he wrapped up his trek, he said one thing he was humbled by was the natural terrain of Southern California’s wilderness areas.
In the mountains, the creeks and rivers the trout can be found in are pristine, he said. But the concreted channels closer to human development are “in pretty rough shape,” he said.
“They are wilderness, protected and they are wild,” he said of the headlands. “But when they get into civilized areas, they are full of pollution and concreted. We have literally stopped the geomorphological processes.”
There have been recent efforts to help the struggling species.
Dam removal projects and stream restoration efforts have gained steam in recent years. A $45 million proposed trail bridge in San Juan Capistrano would remove barriers in Trabuco Creek, helping the trout to travel between the ocean to their spawning grounds in the Santa Ana Mountains.
There are efforts, Jansen added, to remove dams in Ventura and Malibu to bring back natural sediment at the coast.
“How did we not know we can’t control nature?” he said of the concrete that has lined many once-natural waterways. “We tried and failed, and it costs millions of dollars to fix our problems. They are full of sediment or polluted. There’s no benefit. Some are necessary because of flood control. But some are unnecessary and going to be removed in the coming years.”
Jansen said he hopes one day the barriers will be removed and rivers can run free, as they did until the dams and channels were built.
“I hope that we are able to let them do what they do,” he said. “If they give them the chance, they will come back. My hope is the low number of fish can get into the tens of thousands, like they used to be. If we let them, they will come back, it’s that simple.”
If we don’t fix the problems humans created, he said, the next species will suffer, a domino effect that will throw off the balance of nature.
Now, comes the challenging part, he said, going through his photos and writing his experience for a book about his journey and the steelhead trout.
The educational journey wasn’t his first, nor his last. A few years ago, he paddled more than 1,000 miles along the Baja Peninsula to raise awareness for the endangered porpoise, writing “Paddling with Porpoise.” His next adventure will likely raise awareness about the rebounding wolf population in Yellowstone.
For more about his trek, go to jansenjournals.com.