During the recent hot weather I did something unusual for me and led a fairly flat, easy hike that was on a normal trail! The San Antonio Creek Trail, starting at Tucker’s Grove Park and ending at the bridge at Highway 154. For the Humanist Society of Santa Barbara. This was on Labor Day.
Unlike most of my hikes that have vistas, this is more of a woodsy hike. With oak trees like this.
The trail is flat, but there are several stream crossings that can be a challenge for some people during wetter times of the year. Here was one of the streams.
But at the point of actual crossing, it was pretty easy going!
Here Merlie and I posed with our neighbor friends at the next crossing.
I was impressed that one of them was on the first hike she had ever done in her life!
A bit further on we came to the main highlight of this hike: A dam. Someone has made a trail that provides easy access to the top of the dam. But it is more fun to walk up the side of the dam! It looks scary steep. But I did a measurement that shows it is about 30 degrees. Steep, but doable for most people. Everyone opted to walk up the dam rather than the trail.
Then we took turns posing for photos on top of the dam.
There is a road that provides access to the adjacent neighborhood.
But we continued on the trail.
On up to a turnout along Highway 154.
We then backtracked a bit and headed under the bridge on 154. The “art” that was there when I last led the hike a year ago seemed to be unchanged. We stopped there for a bit and enjoyed the cool shade.
It’s a bit difficult to see, but someone pointed out these blue loops dangling from the bridge structure. They theorized that people were using these to travel right under the bridge. If you open the image in a new window you can see the detail a bit more clearly.
We then headed back, mostly the same way. But we started the hike at the meadow past the furthest parking lot. Where the toilets are. On the return we turned off and did one more dry stream crossing on a trail that came back to the furthest parking lot.
Tatiana posed just before our final ascent.
This is the sign at the start of this trailhead.
You can see the schedule of all of our local Humanist Society hikes and other events here on Meetup. Everyone is welcome!
https://www.meetup.com/humanist-society-of-santa-barbara/
– Robert Bernstein
