Seven Falls and Three Pools

Santa Barbara front country

Map link.

The past weekend's rains may or may not promise a bit of water flowing over the local waterfalls. There were a couple soaking rains at the beginning of the season, but the middle of the rainy season has seen nothing significant. I was in need of a hike, having not done anything for too many days, so I decided to go up to Seven Falls, a popular destination not too all that far up. While I was looking for a short hike, I decided to leave options open for more hiking after the falls by printing out a bit of map before going. Some folks hike all the way up to Tunnel Trail along the creek bed, some go up Cathedral Peak, just a short way away, and some head up Jesusita, and those are just the more obvious options.

I got near the end of Tunnel Road and parked in a large lot-like area rather than playing with parallel parking. There were some particularly bad parallel parkers up along the street begging for tickets in what is fabled to be a well ticketed area. I had to walk a little bit further, but the point is exercise, (and seeing new things). This time, the sign at the end of the road pointing to Seven Falls makes a little more sense.


The end of the road, for the car driving public. Many choices for where to hike from here. Today, it's a chain of waterfalls.


There's a little fog out around the island today.


The bridge over Mission Creek along Tunnel Road/Trail.

Crossing the bridge over Mission Creek, I come to the first point where a choice is to be made. From here, the road continues along the mountainside while a use trail makes its way up the creek. One route drops right down into the creek bed while another stays high and dry along the right side of the creek. I turned up the trail that pushed through the vegetation. Of course, quickly, there was poison oak to dodge. The vegetation was so thick that it is hard to see the creek below, it is only heard. Then a bit of trail dropped down. I continued high, but then my route got to a rock and dropped, although a little less steeply.


Part of the short and narrow rock canyon along the upper portion of the section of creek between Tunnel and Jesusita trails.

By then, I was about halfway along to Jesusita. Trails continued a little up on the right side of the canyon, but there were more trails between creek and high trail. I ended up spending a little more time in the creek as I went upstream.


Multicolored sweet peas that happen to be in front of a waterfall.

Reaching Jesusita, there are more choices. I could turn back, but that would be a rather short hike. I could follow Jesusita up to Inspiration Point and anything beyond. I could climb up Cathedral Peak, although I wasn't sure then where that trail would be. I kept to the creek to continue up to Seven Falls. The trail crossed over at this point and stayed up along on the left side of the creek. People also choose to go right up the middle of the creek, too. Many use trails went higher, but I tended to stay level until higher was my only choice. Then I dropped into the creek and went a short way up, mostly on the right hand side, to get to the falls.


A few little falls along some hard rocks.


The lizards were out in force.


I found one of the power poles of which a few can be seen still standing, occasionally with wires, up Tunnel Trail.


I noticed a newt (or probably a salamander) in a pool and as I watched it swim and glide, I found two more in the same pool often hiding behind rocks, but then moving again and visible.


More newt (or probably salamander) gliding along in the water.


The sunflowers and sweet peas and hemlock and... weren't the only things in bloom. There's also the sycamore.


A small cascade of falls, maybe three or four feet high at the most, just before getting to Seven Falls.

Reaching the falls, I climbed up to the top of the first one where someone was already sitting. They told me about how one navigates through these waters, over this section here and around there and hugging a rock over there, but it's fine, just don't fall in, but it's too high right now to do it. They turned back and another group came up. One of their number was exploring ways to go up while another tried to see if he could do the same path the first group told me about. He didn't feel they could either. We had a brief bit of commotion when one noticed a snake swimming through the pool below. It was just a garter, but it was winding back and forth over the deep water like so many poisonous snakes in other areas do. Continuing with thoughts on getting to the pools above, I told them that there were major use trails heading up the right side back a little bit, but they felt those went off somewhere else. They took off up a slide on the right side that some people have clearly gone up. I dropped down to the bottom of the lowest, biggest fall, and watched a frog trying to climb the fall. The group came back down not too much later, disappointed and went on down. I followed shortly.


Lovely big Us where the water has managed to break through particularly hard layers of rock and wonderful bowls in the softer rocks between. This doesn't look like quite as many falls as advertised.


That first waterfall, coming into a nice, deep pool.


Go little froggie, go! This frog climbed and rested and slid back and wandered over to the dry areas and back and got about 1/3 of the way up before going too far into the stream and falling back.

I went up one of the more distinct trails heading upward and eventually came to a branch where people clearly went across a lot and up a little. I took the main route and got to a huge trail headed up a ridge. I suspected it was the trail up Cathedral Peak, or "somewhere to the west" to the disinterested party that wasn't getting to their pools, and decided that was a perfectly good destination for now too. Not too far up, another flat trail lead off, this one a little bigger than the one I'd come along. I took it and it crossed over the barrier made of the hard rocks and dropped back down to the creek.


The bit of the canyon that is Seven Falls, seen from above and illustrating why it's a difficult point to pass.


A flowering bush along the path.


The Seven Falls. From this angle, they look more like a few round pools.

I came down near another waterfall. I went back down the creek to see the top of the Seven Falls.


This waterfall proved difficult to pass on the way up and worse on the way down.


Tall narrow cuts can result when the water follows the layers.

Coming back up, I had to try to find a way around the fall. The only obvious path of use was up a rock to the left of it. Here, there were some very nice foot holds and hand holds, but they got smaller as I went up the rock face. Eventually I reached out for a hand hold and found it was a small dent, perfectly aligned and didn't feel like the others that were natural but had been dug into the sandstone. There was nothing else to grab for that one last handhold, so I went for it. From there, I was able to get onto a wide ledge that annoyingly narrowed as it neared a slopped bit of dirt. The last part of this I didn't particularly like, but I made it to the dirt safely and could easily go up it to the top of the rock and continue upward.


A bit of the canyon up above the free climb.


A few of the wild sunflowers covering a hillside.

The creek disappeared and reappeared a couple times as I went up. I walked alternately through the creek bed and along paths that tended to the left side of it. Up here, I met only one hiker. She was going faster than me in the creek bed, but I overtook her when using the trails since it was smoother. She was going to Three Pools and then back after a snack. I continued up just a little bit more, checked the GPS which told me that after all this work, I'd only gone 2.5 miles and decided I really wasn't going to get to anything too interesting up there, so turned back too.


The first two pools of Three Pools. The pools at the bases of these waterfalls are quite deep.


A little separated from the other two, this is presumably the third pool in the Three Pools.


This almost captures the depth of the pool. It is deeper than it is wide, but wider as it goes down. It is certainly deep enough to be underwater while standing.


A garter snake that was out sunning itself on the rock. This one did not swim through the water but used the sticks as a bridge.


Back to the lower pools, here is how they look from above.


Of course sandstone has a lot of fossils to be found.


Some tiny purple flowers I found along the trail.


A cave just big enough for someone to lay in carved in the sandstone above the free climb.

Coming to the free climb again, I had a bit of a moment thinking, "Now, how did I get up here, anyway?" Nothing looked good, especially since I hadn't liked the last part. I maneuvered here and there, but nothing looked good, so I backtracked how I got up. I went down the dirt as far as it went, then felt around for something to hold onto while I went along the ledge. I actually did find something to make me feel comfortable, so went out along it. Finding enough grip in that made slot and some natural positions, I was comfortable enough to climb down. As the footholds got bigger, I got more comfortable about it as I went. I don't think I'll be starting free climbing any time soon, though.


Even in a layer, some parts are harder than others allowing these rocks to be carved out from the larger sandstone.

I hiked back up the high trail bypassing the Seven Falls. I came out a little higher on the large trail this time and didn't see it going further with a quick glace. It was probably too quick a glance, because the satellite makes it look like that is, indeed, the trail up to Cathedral Peak. (This is another usage trail, not a maintained trail.) I followed it down, not taking any of the smaller trails that had a more vertical take on proper trail routing. I came out just upstream from Jesusita. Crossing the stream at the top of a large pool where Jesusita crossed at the bottom, I followed the last of the trail up to Jesusita and continued along it back to Tunnel and my car.