Little Caliente Spring
Little Caliente Spring sits in the Los Padres National Forest, Santa Barbara County, about seven miles from Montecito and a hike of over a mile and a half in from the road. The water is warm, at the lower edge of soaking range. Forest Service land, access Open, and no fee so far as the record tells it.
The hike runs about a mile and six tenths from Hildreth Peak Road. Elevation is around sixteen hundred feet. Mild, dry climate: fourteen inches of precipitation, essentially no snow, a low-sixties mean. Upper Oso Campground is eight miles away, the closest the record shows.
On record, the best months are the winter ones. Soaking warm, with no heat warning attached. Access is a hike on Forest Service land. It has been photographed for the record. Chemistry was never sampled, and nothing on file describes the pool itself or how many people use it.
Aircraft with laser scanners measured this ground to within inches. The scan strips out trees and buildings, leaving the bare shape of the land around Little Caliente Spring.
Drag the handle to compare the two views. The orange dot marks the spring, in a frame about three quarters of a mile wide.
- Setting
- Canyon floor
- Steep ground climbs away on both sides of the spring.
- Highest ground nearby
- 325 ft above the spring
- Within a quarter mile, to the south
A slice through the ground from south to north, about 0.6 miles end to end.
Elevation data: USGS 3D Elevation Program. Aerial imagery: USGS The National Map. Public domain.
That's close to the US average of 65. It's higher than at 3% of the springs on this site.
Heat flow measures the warmth working its way up through the ground from deep inside the earth. Where it runs high, rain and snowmelt that seep down through cracks in the rock come back up hot.
See every spring on the geothermal heat map →
Heat flow estimate: Stanford Thermal Earth Model (Aljubran & Horne, 2024), CC BY 4.0.
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Overview Upper Oso Campground provides ample opportunity for exploration of California's coastal mountains. It is a family-friendly campground, equipped with equestrian sites, and is close to a variety of trails and several mountain streams.Recreation A variety of hiking, mountain biking and horseback riding trails begin in and around the campground, including the Santa Cruz Trail, which traverses 18 miles north to the San Rafael Wilderness. The 2.5-mile Aliso National Recreation Trail leads...
Little Caliente Spring is road-accessible, so you can bring more gear.
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