The climb of visitors leads to the closing plan for California Hot Springs – The Mercury News

A wave of visitors to Hot Springs in the hills near Santa Barbara has led to complaints from neighbors – and now a plan for trail closings and parking restrictions on high danger days.

Santa Barbara County supervisors voted unanimously on Tuesday, March 4 to institute a pilot program concerning Montecito Hot Springs.

“In recent years,” said a letter of agenda from supervisor Roy Lee, “the Hot Springs Trail in Montecito has experienced a spectacular increase in visitors, in particular motivated by the exhibition to social media. This was once a silent path used by the inhabitants has become a destination with high traffic, attracting tourists from outside the region.”

The letter continues to talk about “security problems, in particular concerning the risk of fire, the challenges of emergency interventions and the congestion of traffic”.

The pilot program proposed by Lee would develop a protocol of parking restrictions and closings of trails on days when the area is under a red flag warning issued by the National Weather Service. The warning indicates an increased risk of forest fire, generally due to dry and windy time. The proposal estimates that there will be 20 days this year.

The plan also seeks the application against the “illegal modification of the watershed” – in particular, the reconstruction of soaking pools, the walls of which were carried for heavy rain.

Montecito Hot Springs, in the National Forest of Los Padres, is one of the many natural areas of soaking and swimming in California which have experienced a recent boom for visitors due to the attention of social media, especially during the pandemic covids when indoor entertainment was closed.

The other areas whose popularity has contributed to the problems include:

• Miracle Hot Springs, on the Kern River. It was closed last year by the forest service after a second person was found dead in a bathtub.

• Yankee Jim swimming hole, on the American North fork river. The parking lot was prohibited by state parks in July 2020 after 313 vehicles were counted along a road which had space for 12 cars.

• Candy Rock Swimming Trou, on the North Fork Stanislaus river. The sheriff issued a warning in 2022 after six people had to be saved in two weeks.

Originally published: March 5, 2025 at 10:29 am PST