Romero Canyon Road

Santa Barbara front country

I thought a little bit more about where I might take my mom that was both interesting and mild enough for her. My conclusion: the upper section of Romero Canyon Road, although the distance and the deceptive nature of going downhill first gave me pause. The distance is not that much too long and turning around can always be done early. She agreed to it and so we drive up to Romero Saddle and start on our way.

Checking out the road much lower than we will be going.

The first half of the road route is actually fairly flat with a little bit of climbing. The northern slopes are all adorned with a little bit of show, or probably a bit of leftover frost from the evenings. Passing through a saddle out of the canyon, we finally start on our way downward at the gentle road slope. The recent rains have left the road in the exact same shape as before with a line of dirt between the brush growing up and a few rocks from old rock slides.

Rounding a corner around the mountain on the road.

Making sure mom knows we can turn around at any time if it feels like we have gone down far enough does not encourage her to stop, so we continue to drop. The road twists inward, then outward again and finally we come around to one of the best views out here. We started with a minor slot of view down the canyon, then we could see out over Goleta a bit, but we finally come around for a view around to Carpinteria while still having the view of Goleta.

Out at the point, the view stretches from east to west along the coast.

Looking into the sun to Goleta.

Layers of sandstone and composite in local rocks.

Turning around, we spot a plaque on the rocks left by someone who must have loved this view greatly. We turn and start climbing. Although things are feeling long for mom by the time we get back to the saddle where the climbing is completely finished. The GPS says the sun will set out over the water in 5 minutes, so we wait for it to happen. The sun does not seem to know the schedule and stubbornly stays above the horizon. The GPS has not accounted for the terrain, of course. Behind us, the moon rises.

The moon is getting close to full.

Mom thinks she will be sore tomorrow, but seems to have liked the route as we finish.

*photo album*




©2015 Valerie Norton
Posted 12 January 2015