Hot Springs Trail — Santa Barbara, fire conditions?

[M F]

Hello — was thinking of hiking the coast connect trail section of the hot springs trail from santa barbara to tehachapi. Wondering what the sitaution is since there was a fire in 2018… Anyone know if its Ok to hike through or closed?

[Diane “Piper” Soini]

Where are you getting this trail information? I ask because my boyfriend who uses Facebook found some guy’s facebook page that has all this erroneous information about trails in Santa Barbara. I specifically recall there was something about Hot Springs trail that was complete bullshit.

Hot Springs trail is accessible from East Valley Road in Montecito and it goes a short distance up into the mountains to the site of an old resort near a hot springs. The trail is partly an easement and partly a dirt road and it’s not damaged from the fire or debris flow. There are routes that branch off of it, such as a route that goes up and meets Cold Springs trail (which is damaged) and another route to Saddle Rock and McMenemy trail (which are fine).

These are all day-hiking trails and if you start a hike at Hot Springs and intend to go to Techachapi, you are about 150 trail miles away and will have to concoct your own bunch of connections to get there.

[Miner]

I think he is refering to a guys attempt to create a future national scenic trail (currently not recognized by anyone) that visits various hot spring locations in the west as it heads NE to Canada in Idaho The goal is to be a thru-soaker and soak in all the hotsprings along the route vs just being a thru-hiker. Met the guy at the ALHDA West conference in 2016 who was promoting it and a guy (Buck30) who ended up hiking it in 2017.

It definitely is more of a route in many places than a trail though it uses a much existing trail as it can. Scroll down the Los Padres NF Alerts/Closure webpage to see what closures are still in effect. Just off the top of my head from what little of the route I know of, I think an issue with hiking it in the near future might be the high water levels in the Sespe Wilderness from all the rain we keep having.

[Terry Sparks]

<p style=”text-align: left;”>Hi Diane,  it’s a little confusing for us locals with the Hot Springs Trail but Miner is correct, the Hot Springs Trail in Montecito is also the start of the Hot Springs Trial that runs through California, Nevada and Idaho and is 2400 miles. Along the way it takes you to 100 or so hot springs to soak in. There are four guide books for the route, I bought the Idaho section to get its information for a hike from the Arizona/Mexico border through Utah and to the Idaho/Canada border.</p>

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