Get ready to be inspired.
Santa Barbara’s popular Inspiration Point hiking trail will reopen Memorial Day weekend after a three-month closure for repairs.
Winter storms damaged infrastructure throughout the county, including roads, campgrounds, day-use areas and trails in Los Padres National Forest.
Signs along Tunnel Road and at the trailhead indicate the route will be closed through Friday, May 26.
The reopening has been pushed back several times already, but Los Padres National Forest and Southern California Edison staff confirmed this week that the trail will reopen Saturday.
SCE crews have been repairing access roads in the area after storm damage, spokesman Ben Gallagher said.
SCE maintains Mission Canyon-area access roads so its crews can get to electrical infrastructure.
In 2019, SCE performed unpermitted grading work on Spyglass Ridge Road, starting at the base of the Inspiration Point Trail, and dumped a substantial amount of debris into Mission Creek and its tributaries.
The Santa Barbara County District Attorney’s Office pursued a criminal case against the utility company and in a 2020 settlement, SCE pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor violation of the state water code for discharging a pollutant into the creek.
It also agreed to pay a $3.5 million fine.
Most Frontcountry Trails Reopened After Storm-Related Closures
While most South Coast hiking trails are open, two trails in Los Padres National Forest’s Santa Barbara Ranger District will have longer-term closures.
The upper San Ysidro Trail is closed about a half-mile up from the East Mountain Drive trailhead, past the creek crossing and start of the McMenemy Trail.
“The most significant safety hazards are beyond the creek crossing to McMenemy,” Forest Services spokesman Andrew Madsen told Noozhawk earlier this month.
The Romero Canyon Trail is “teetering on the edge of just being lost” and has no reopening date, he said.
Read about other Los Padres National Forest closures here.
