Santa Barbara Watercourse Beckons

A pleasant party spent yesterday up Mission Canyon visiting noted Seven Falls and afterward eating a tempting picnic dinner in a romantic spot on the creek’s bank. To reach these falls requires some active climbing, able-bodied sliding and skillful swinging ...

--Santa Barbara Daily Press, 1887

Seven Falls has been a popular destination of Santa Barbarans since before the turn of the century. The seven distinct little falls found in the bed of Mission Creek are still welcoming hikers.

Tunnel Trail was used by workers to gain access to a difficult city waterworks project launched by the city of Santa Barbara. Workmen burrowed a tunnel through the Santa Ynez Mountains to connect the watershed on the backside of the mountains to the growing little city. Braving floods, cave-ins and dangerous hydrogen gas, a crew labored eight years and finished the project in 1912.

This easy family hike in the foothills above Santa Barbara follows Tunnel Trail, joins Jesusita Trail for an exploration of the Seven Falls along Mission Creek and winds up atop Inspiration Point for sweeping coastal views.

Mission Creek provided the water supply for Mission Santa Barbara. Near the mission, which you’ll pass as you proceed to Tunnel trailhead, are some stone remains of the padres’ waterworks system.

Mission Creek also flows through the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden, which is well worth visiting because of its fine displays of native California flora. Paths lead through chaparral, coastal sage and succulent environments to a Mission Creek dam built by the Spanish friars.

A ramble through the Santa Barbara foothills combined with a visit to the mission and botanic garden would add up to a very pleasant day’s outing.

These days, despite a wetter-than-usual winter, Mission Creek is but a trickle; however, by late winter or early spring the creek should become a more inspired watercourse.

Directions to trailhead: From U.S. 101 in Santa Barbara, turn inland on State Street and proceed through the center of town to Mission Street. Turn right and drive past the historic Santa Barbara Mission. From the mission, drive up Mission Canyon Road, turning right for a block on Foothill Boulevard, then immediately turning left back onto Mission Canyon Road. At a distinct V-intersection, veer left onto Tunnel Road and drive to its end. Park along the road.

Note: Bearing right at the above-mentioned V intersection brings you to the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden.

The hike: From the end of Tunnel Road, hike past a locked gate onto a paved road, which soon turns to dirt as you leave the power lines behind and get increasingly grander views of Santa Barbara. The route makes a sharp left and crosses a bridge over the West Fork of Mission Creek. Below the bridge, little Fern Falls cascades into a handsome pool. This is where the tunnel from Gibraltar Dam exits the Santa Ynez Mountains to supply Santa Barbara with water.

Beyond the bridge, you’ll hike a short distance under some handsome oaks to a junction. (Tunnel Trail angles northeast, uphill, leading three miles to “the sky road,” East Camino Cielo.) You join Jesusita Trail and descend briefly, but steeply, to Mission Creek.

At the canyon bottom, you can hike up creek into a steep gorge that was cut from solid sandstone. Geologically inclined hikers will recognize fossilized layers of oyster beds from the Oligocene Epoch, deposited some 35 million years ago. In more recent times, say for the last few thousands of winters, rain water has rushed from the shoulder of La Cumbre Peak and cut away at the sandstone layers, forming seven distinct falls and several deep pools. If you decide to hike up Mission Creek, be careful; reaching the waterfalls--particularly the higher ones--requires quite a bit of boulder hopping and rock climbing. Even when there’s not much water in the creek, it can be tricky going.

Option: To Inspiration Point. From the creek crossing, Jesusita Trail switchbacks steeply up the chaparral-cloaked canyon wall to a power line road atop a knoll. Although Inspiration Point is not all that inspiring, the view from the cluster of sandstone rocks at the 1,750-foot viewpoint is worth the climb. You can see the coastline, quite some distance north and south, as well as Catalina and the Channel Islands, Santa Barbara and the Goleta Valley.

Tunnel Trail

Tunnel Road to Seven Falls: three miles round trip; 400-foot elevation gain.

Tunnel Road to Inspiration Point: five miles round trip; 800-foot elevation gain.