Sometimes it’s only a few thin bands of water dropping 164 feet. Other times  it’s a gossamer tracery of water more mist than substance. It nourishes families of mosses and ferns growing on its walls. Only after a rain, does Nojoqui Falls aspire to something grander.

The falls (pronounced NAW- ho – wee) are named for a Chumash village “Naxuwi” once nearby.

When my granddaughter asked me what I wanted for my birthday, I said: “A day trip with you.” We talked about where and decided on a drive up the coast and inland to Nojoqui

Falls County Park, and then lunch at one of the good places in the Santa Ynez Valley. I wanted to walk along a creek and possibly even see falling water while it was still spring.

Driving up along the coast is a treat in itself.  Once you’ve cleared the outskirts of Goleta you are in full view of the ocean and if the day is clear enough, you can see the profile of the islands on the horizon.

On the right, the Santa Ynez Mountains make a formidable barrier to the sea and its cool breezes.  We passed three beach parks.  On the landward side of the freeway, the beaches become canyons.  Though beautiful on its own, the landscape stimulated memories  – El Capitan Beach where grandson Stuart always wanted his birthday to be celebrated with a campout.

Just beyond Refugio Beach, the highway swings inland where ahead, the mountain wall is pierced by the Gaviota Tunnel.   I thought about all those years when Santa Barbara could only be approached easily from the south.

 

 

At the sign “Nojoqui Falls County Park,” we left the noisy highway and dropped down to the Old Coast Highway and Alisal Road to the peace and quiet of farmlands. Once horse pastures, organic produce now grows in the soil enriched by manure.

Skirting the western edge of the mountains, we rounded the corner to the lush, north-facing slopes, the rainiest place in the county.  How different from the south-facing slopes above Santa Barbara where the mountain slopes are dominated by bare sandstone and chaparral.

When we turned into the park with its broad meadow and a scattering of trees, Caroline said: “This reminds me of Yosemite Valley.”  I could see her point except that when every detail of a beloved place like Yosemite is so perfectly embedded in my memory, nothing can compare.

We drove up to the end of the road where a few cars were parked. At the base of the canyon, a short trail leads up to the falls..  Starting up the trail I was transported to the Berkeley Hills where bay trees also form arches of fragrant leaves and the sun shines through the thin leaves of the big-leaved maples.  The creek burbling over dark rocks reminded me of the dark-gray basalts of home.

The final ascent on stone steps to the base of the falls looked damp, making them especially perilous for my old legs.  A bench at their base invited me to sit a while, let my granddaughter

trot ahead while I listened to the creek and the cascade of Warbling Vireo songs spilling down from the bay trees overhead. Click here to listen to their song.

Purple Martins are our largest and highest-flying swallow.  They perform breath-taking acrobatics when hunting insects.  At the park, martins ignore man-made boxes in favor of holes in the sycamore trees.

Three weeks later with Berkeley birding friends, Bob Lewis and his wife, Hanno, we returned to Nojoqui Falls park to find the Purple Martins. Bob is sitting on the left.  The heap on the right is actually me lying on my side watching martins in flight.  Stretched out, has become my preferred position for watching birds of the sky and for general cloud-spotting.(I highly recommend to others who love clouds “The Cloudspotter’s Guide by Gavin Pretor-Pinney – the founder of The Cloud Appreciation Society)

Now we will be leaving the park to the summer crowds, returning in the fall to see the winter birds like the beautiful Varied Thrush.

 

 

 

 

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SUMMER THOUGHTS

If you have lived a natural life say as a manzanita bush on the slope of the San Ynez Mountains you will understand the true meaning of summer.  You will have grown new foliage or lengthened the leaves you have during late winter or early spring.  You will have flowered and welcomed the bees.  Now the flowers have turned into fruit, it’s time to let them ripen in the warm sun of the long days.  It’s a season for repose or maybe deepening, as your tap root reaches down further to find water.