San Ysidro

Santa Barbara Front Country

Locate the trailhead.

For a short hike with a little bit of water falling at the end, we selected to wander a little way up San Ysidro Trail just behind Montecito, oddly close to the road by the same name. Although then there was a right at East Valley Rd. and a left at Park Lane and keeping right at a Y with East Mountain Dr. after turning north on San Ysidro. The road ends at the trail since someone has decided the rest should be a private road these days.

The trail meanders past a few houses and then follows the road shortly before going back to the more general trail-ish style of travel. The trail follows a stream along up the mountain.

A bit of stream along the trail.

There's quite a number of lovely looking swimming holes, this one looked about the best.

A slight bit of falls along the way. Further up there's more, but it's rather hard to see even as you are there.

Of course there's a bit of pretty flowers along the way.

A couple little flowers along the way.

Just a bit short of two miles along the way is the destination, the falls. It's a bit taller than the little things along the way. The stream split shortly before this and we seemed to be taking the bit with the smaller amount of water, but it is quite pretty all the same.

Most of the length of the falls, growing quite a lot of of plants along the path of the falls.

The pool at the bottom of the dribbling falls. It's a bit deeper than it looks. Came right up to the bottom of my shorts and was a bit cold for wading in and finding that out.

©2008 Valerie Norton
Posted 7 June 2008