Buena Vista Secret Benches Hike

For many years I have led hikes to the hidden benches along the Buena Vista Trail in Montecito. I used to start from the Romero Canyon Trail. More recently I have been starting from the Buena Vista trailhead on Park Lane. As at most local trailheads now, some property owners have illegally blocked the public right of way with boulders, plantings and structures. Making it a challenge to find parking.

I recently led this hike for the Humanist Society for the first time since 2023. We had an excellent group of eleven pleasant hikers on a perfect day for this fairly short but very steep hike. Offering many wonderful views. And there are those hidden benches, too! Here are my many photos.

The Buena Vista Trail is the only trail I have ever heard of that has three trailheads! One is at the Romero Fire Road. The other is along Park Lane. And the third is at the summit near an even more secret bench.

Here is the view up the canyon where we started along Park Lane. Notice the abundance of the California brittlebush flowers. They remind me of the Black-Eyed Susan flowers we had back East.

Don’t let the Rock Monster bite you!

Here we encountered the first of many Western fence lizards. Also called “blue bellies”.

Here the group paused along the stream for a photo. First behind me is John Anderson, a regular on the hikes. His son Isaiah joined us. I very much enjoyed talking with him about a wide range of big issues about the nature of reality and such. You can see my wife Merlie bringing up the rear, carrying an umbrella.

I love this grotto.

My Astronomical Unit friend Chuck McPartlin thinks this was the tail end of a California striped racer snake that had been sunning itself. It slithered into the brush as our group came up the trail.

We then came to a fork in the trail. The sign is amusing. Both trails are the Buena Vista trail! So, the sign just indicates where each fork ends up. We took the Romero fork. A very steep climb.

At the top of the climb, we spotted this turkey vulture perched on a rock. As we watched, it lifted off and gave us some nice views in the air.

Here were some wildflowers. The white ones are “pearly everlasting”. They look like dried flowers and have a delightful subtle fragrance.

Small streams cross the trail in places. During times of heavy rain these streams cut canyons below the trail. I am afraid in some places the trail may soon give way.

We branched off of the main Buena Vista trail to find the hidden stone bench dedicated to Mark James Andros. Who sadly died young in 1961 at age eight. Amazingly, the photographic plaque survived several fires in recent years. Here the group posed on the bench.

Here I launched my little Hover drone to get a nice Zoom Out view of us and the bench and the mountainous backdrop.

We then posed for a group photo next to the bench, with the sweeping view of the coastline beyond us.

We then headed back to the west, in the direction we had come from. The hill in the distance is home to the other hidden benches.

In this area was a bench made to honor Brad Darrach, who lived from 1921-1997. The original bench was made from natural branches, tied together with rope. The rope decayed and the bench fell apart. It was replaced by a wood bench with metal fittings. But this was destroyed in one of the fires. The latest bench was constructed as a Boy Scouts project. With an extra bench placed nearby.

Here is my drone video of our group at this main wooden bench. If you are very observant, you may notice that we are missing one person from the stone bench video. That would be Martin. From the stone bench, he continued on the Buena Vista trail, down to the Romero Canyon trail. He then walked back on the road.

We encountered several swallowtail butterflies feasting on wildflowers. They are very skittish, but here I got a photo. You can see more of my swallowtail photos if you look at my full photo set.

More wildflowers.

Hummingbird sage.

Merlie has a good eye for spotting wildlife. She spotted this pair of chorus frogs mating in a small pool.

Unfortunately, right after I took this photo a huge dog jumped into the pool directly on top of the frogs. Then a second huge dog jumped in the exact same spot. The dog owner was nowhere to be seen and was not even in ear shot when this carnage occurred.

I wish that dog people would understand that we are visitors to delicate natural ecosystems. Large predatory carnivores like dogs are very sparse and rare in nature. Frogs and all amphibians worldwide are endangered. For the sake of these delicate and endangered species and habitats, please keep your dog leashed. Your fellow trail users (including responsible dog owners with leashed dogs) will also appreciate it.

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