Picture this: It’s the middle of midterms season and you want to tap out from the scramble of cobbling together papers and ploughing through online exams. Take a well-deserved break and walk on the wild side by hiking to the Santa Ynez Falls in Topanga State Park—far away from the screens and notes.
The hike to the Santa Ynez Falls really hits that sweet point between being far away enough from the concrete jungle that you feel genuinely liberated, and being close enough that it’s not inconvenient. The trail is a 2.5 miles round trip with 207 feet elevation gain, which makes it manageable enough for amateurs to hiking like myself.
Here are some safety warnings compiled across multiple sources:
Firstly, there are copious amounts of poison oak growing along the sides of the trail, so be sure to wear long pants! The trail is mostly conveniently anchored by the creek, in that it runs along the streambed. However, it does require you to cross the creek back-and-forth on multiple occasions, so make sure you wear shoes that you don’t mind getting wet, or perhaps bring along a change of socks for your comfort. Along the way, there will be many stray footpaths leading you away from the main trail route, but I don’t recommend taking any of them! Take a look through various testimonials and guides beforehand to avoid getting lost. Finally, while trekking to see the falls soon after rainfall guarantees a more magnificent waterfall sight, it also does mean that the large rocks you’ll have to crawl across will be slippery and difficult to maneuver.
Getting to the trailhead is a relatively simple thirty-minute drive from campus, although you will likely lose mobile signal during most of the trail! Sandwiched between gorgeous houses with manicured succulent-teeming lawns, you’ll be looking for the trailhead at the end of the street Vereda de la Montura.
Right after disembarking from the Lyft ride, five minutes into my journey I was thrown off by the directions listed on the Alltrails app. “What was the result of this,” you ask? I stepped straight into the creek instead of finding the dry trail running alongside the creek, soaking my shoes and socks straight away! It was not very fun. Fortunately, I’d heard someone walking down the dry trail and the glorious sound of feet against crunchy leaves, so I did the sensible thing and trampled through a bush clumsily, making it onto the actual trail.
From there on, the trail was confusing but mostly manageable. Regular guides will tell you that this is a popular trail that’s poorly maintained and there are informal markers along the way eg. a stone chimney. It also weaves through the creek time and time again so you’re crossing back and forth and mostly keeping close to the banks. I was fortunate enough to go at a time where water levels were relatively low, so even if I slipped and fell in, it wouldn’t have been dangerous. All the same, the rocks were slick and the trail kept diverging into those sneaky footpaths.
But the weather was Glorious with a capital G. You’ll encounter a waterfall marker to let you know you’re on the right path. Here’s a fun picture of one of the paths I’d climbed up before realizing it was not part of the trail, and the subsequent view of the creek from above after I’d climbed up said sneaky footpath.
A bigger problem was in fact getting closer to the waterfall. You had to approach it from the mouth of the stream, clambering over the rocks blocking the entrance to where the waterfall met the stream. Here, I intuitively learned how to scramble, which basically refers to using your hands and feet to crawl over. Because I wasn’t being super careful, I did get a few scrapes on my hands when trying to swing over some rocks. From the angle of the picture they look like small hurdles, but they were definitely taller than me—my fault, I’m 5’1. The following pictures are just a stunning combination of canyon rock swirls and the declining afternoon sun lighting them up.
After traversing through the clutter of large slippery rocks, you’ll reach the following view of the 12 foot waterfall. It was basically a tall trickle or a light spray of water. If you’re more experienced, proficient, daring or clad with the right kind of shoes, you could totally attempt climbing up the canyon wall next to the waterfall, since there is a rope and footholds that were chipped in. But as it was, I didn’t like how long I had taken to get there and the sun was going to set soon at about 4:30 PM. So I left, feeling proud of myself for straying outside my comfort zone.
Standing perfectly still along the dry parts of the trail on the way back, I was acutely aware of how loud the sound of my breathing was and how softly the wind rustled through the trees, the muted clicking sounds of bugs close by and how pretty sunlight makes everything look.
You might be glad to know that I made it back to the driveway without walking into any creek beds this time.