
This mid-February 2022 morning Hannah and I drive to a trailhead with two possible hikes: the uber-popular Inspiration Point Trail as well as the mysterious Seven Pools, Three Falls Trail, which we have been unable to find since we first came to Santa Barbara in 2014. Perhaps today…
Parking on Tunnel Road among the mansions of Santa Barbara, we are well aware that our car will be towed if it strays beyond the white lines on this winding narrow road into the mountains.

Safely parked, we pass around a rusted metal cattle gate onto the ¾ of a mile of cracked paved road to the trailhead.


Once at the trailhead for both trails, we have a steep climb on a wide fire road until the turn-off to the left for Inspiration Point as well as the Seven Pools, Three Falls Trail.
Figuring we will just hike to Inspiration Point, since we’ve been stymied in the past from finding the Seven Pools Trail, we fortunately meet up with an agreeable twenty-something hiker who gives us directions to the Seven Pools Trail.

And find it we do. But, and there is a big But.

This trail is not for hiking; it is for bouldering. Bouldering is climbing over and around boulders in the creek bed. This past December of 2021, the Santa Barbara area got three weeks of off-and-on rain. A windfall for this parched, drought-ravaged area. That is the reason for the green hills and mountainsides that we see for the first time in years. Fortunately, the rain has filled the pools which helps us identify the trail.


Bouldering up the creek, past a pool here and there, sometimes we stretch between rocks (see Hannah below) and most of the time we are use handholds to get up and over the rocks.

Then a barrier of boulders presents itself and we skirt to a creekside trail that looks like it was made by others who couldn’t handle the boulders either. In time this quote trail narrows and we are fully content wrapping up our Seven Pools Trail experience. We make a quick 180. And, let me tell you, we will never go abouldering again. It’s not a lot of fun. We’ll take hiking instead.

Retracing our steps down the boulder creek, Hannah and I return to the Inspiration Point Trail into the mountains. The trail is easy to negotiate and there is very little chance of getting lost. The switchbacks take us to the top for a 180 degree view of the coastline out to the Pacific and the Channel Islands.



