I woke up early and began my long drive to Santa Paula. We met at Thomas Aquinas College. The trailhead parking is across the street and it's exactly a one-mile walk through the College to the official trail.
Multiple trail signs to guide hikers.
As you continue the walk on the road through the college, you pass by a ranch. There are avocado trees, oil rigs and various signs posted. This is where the trail begins.
View from the road.
Once you enter the canyon there are multiple stream crossings through the Santa Paula Creek The first pool is approximately 4 miles from the entrance of the canyon.
The first pool after the 4 mile trek.
Another pool.
To get to some of the upper pools you have to climb a rope. There are multiple trails so it's easy to get lost.
This third pool with a small waterfall was climbable to a second upper pool.
The view looking down from the second pool.
Upper pool.
Dipping in the upper pool after a water fight. As you can see you can go beyond this pool but we didn't have time.
It was the perfect day for hiking to the Punchbowls. It was very hot and dipping in the water was very refreshing! There were multiple pools but we didn't have time to see them all. There was also some PO in the canyon.
