Bored Over Winter Break? Beginner Hikes in Santa Barbara

Anna Pollock:

With winter break rapidly approaching, many of you will be jetting off to foreign lands, hightailing it back home to hang with high school friends, or otherwise getting out of here as fast as possible. For those staying in the area, you’ll witness your local haunts shut down: no more parties on DP and many I.V. restaurants will be closed due to a lack of business.

Don’t despair! The Santa Barbara area has limitless amounts of cool stuff to keep you busy, especially for you outdoorsy people out there. Yeah, it’s gonna rain a little bit, but next time you look out the window and see the sun peeking through the clouds, take advantage of the opportunity to go exploring. For starters, here are three cool hikes not far from Isla Vista that offer beautiful vistas, a great workout, and good, clean mountain air:

Coal Oil Point and the Ellwood Butterfly Preserve is a good way to start your new life outdoors. Right next to Isla Vista, Coal Oil Point is a nature preserve to protect a wide variety of endangered species and coastal habitats. If you start at the corner of Storke and El Colegio, you can walk down around the Devereux Lagoon and into the beach dunes and bushes in the preserve. Once at the beach, turn right to wander on down to the Ellwood bluffs and the Ellwood Butterfly Preserve for the butterflies that migrate there every winter. This isn’t really a hike, but it’s right next to Isla Vista and a great way to get some fresh air in between work shifts or studying for finals.

The Jesusita Trail starts in the foothills above the Mission, and works its way about 3.5 miles up to Inspiration Point. An alternative route starts further up the trail and gets to Inspiration Point in under 2 miles. If all you’re looking for is a stunning view of the Santa Barbara coastline, you used to be able to take the short way, but it’s closed from the last fire. The long way, however, offers a relatively flat wandering through a wooded area, then a more traditional mountain climb to get to the view. This hike, while not exactly a hidden gem, is easy to get to, not very physically demanding, and does end at a pretty sweet spot.

Blue Canyon is, as its name would suggest, a canyon. The hike begins at the top and descends down into lush greenery and a nice little creek. Highlights include an enormous meadow four miles in, and a small campsite with some apple trees leftover from when the site was an old homestead. For the seasoned hiker, go all the way down to that meadow; a shorter option would be to stop at Forbush Flat two miles down for a nice lunch at the campsite’s picnic tables before heading back up to the top. The trailhead in and of itself is worth seeing: perched up on E. Camino Cielo Road, it offers a great view of Montecito, Santa Barbara, and Goleta. On overcast days, you’re high enough up to be out of the cloud cover, contemplating a spooky world of fog and strange shapes down below. A word to the wise: since the hike starts up top and goes down, it’ll seem really easy. Avoid the temptation to go too far down and remember you’ll have to climb back up!

The hikes here are far from “off the beaten track”, and are geared towards those of you just starting to explore the Santa Barbara area and looking for new stuff to do. For the more seasoned explorer, a great site to check out is http://www.santabarbarahikes.com. They offer accurate descriptions of a lot of hikes to do in the Santa Barbara area. So if you’re “stuck here” over winter break, grab a buddy, a bottle of water, and a comfy pair of shoes, and get ready to discover!