Nojoqui Falls Trail - A Local Secret Near Solvang, CA

And welcome back to That Adventure Life. If it's your first time here I'm Dustin and I'm Vy and today we are hiking a very very short trail to Nojoki Falls. I think we said it correctly we have a local person so yeah if if we didn't say it right blame them. This is actually a really nice break uh along the 101 on our way so we're on our way to Pismupi. I'm actually coming back from Pismupi but it's up to you you can on the way there on your way back. It's a really nice little short hike to you know break up the drive. It's 0.8 so 0.8 miles of route trip and it's 10 minutes walk to the waterfall so it's a short little walk down to the waterfalls. It might not be running depending on when you're visiting just if it's a good prior season you won't see a lot of water. If it's after like a spring or spring runoffs or like a big rainstorm then you'll see a lot more. All right but we're gonna head our way and we'll show you what it looks like. Here we go. The beauty of this hike starts before you even get to the trailhead. You'll be making your way through several tree canopies before you pull into Nahoe Falls Park. Coming in at 58 acres this park is pretty large and you're gonna have to drive all the way to the back to get to the trail. The dirt parking lot here is pretty good size and even though this trail can be pretty popular at times there should be enough space for you. Hopefully there's not enough parking for the mountain lion that we keep seeing signs warning us about. We haven't hiked so far. We're pretty much just outside the parking lot that you can see right there but this plant here that I'm doing my best not to touch poison oak and it looks like it's everywhere so be careful with that. As V mentioned before this trail is only eight-tenths of a mile long round trip with 242 feet of elevation gain. For some reason it's rated at a moderate difficulty level on all trails and we're not sure why because this trail is pretty simple. It is really nice and peaceful out here and pretty much the entire trail winds its way alongside a babbling brook. At right around two-tenths of a mile into the hike you're going to begin the climb that will take you all the way up to the falls. The grade is fairly mild and if you need a break there are benches along the way and you'll also be crossing three really picturesque bridges. With the short length of this trail you're not going to get a fantastic workout but there are several sets of stairs after that first bridge. This really is a great trail if you're trying to get your kids into hiking or if you yourself are just getting started on your hiking journey. After passing the second bridge at right around the three-tenths of a mile mark you are almost to your destination. The trail will be getting just a tiny bit rougher here with roots and rocks and other tripping hazards and maybe that's where it got its moderate rating from. From this third bridge you should start to get some glimpses of the falls but there are also some really cute little falls below the bridge so we headed down there to check them out first. After emerging like some sort of bridge troll it was time to head towards the main falls. You will need to be a little bit careful on this last section. The trail is fairly narrow and it slopes down to a pretty good sized drop. It's just a short walk from that third bridge and here we are at Nahoi Falls. From the research we did this waterfall has some pretty impressive stats coming in with a height of 80 feet tall. I'm not sure exactly how heavy the water flow gets here but even though the water wasn't coming down like Niagara Falls it was still really pretty to watch it trickle over the mossy covered surface. This is a really great spot to just stop take a deep breath and enjoy the scenery. If we didn't still have several hours worth of driving on our way home from our road trip I would have liked to have spent a little bit more time here. If you're a big waterfall fan and who isn't click in the upper corner right now to watch a video of one of our favorite waterfalls which is Shoshone Falls. The good thing about the hike back on this one is that it is all downhill. Just be sure to watch out for all those rocks and roots again and be careful because it can get a little bit slippery sometimes. With the trail being less than half a mile each way the way back went by in a flash and soon we saw the jeep on the horizon. And that's going to do it for the hike to Nojoki Falls. That was beautiful. Yeah it's really pretty it's like little forest and then little creek there's little waterfalls and there's salamanders. We didn't look for any of them but apparently they're under the rock. Yeah there's a guy in there doing some macro shots and he showed us. I wish I would have spotted one. Those are they're pretty cool and they're orange. They're adorable. Favorite color ever. But yeah it's a nice little short walk uh short walk is it right? I think so. Excuse me. A beautiful waterfall it's really really pretty. Definitely worth the effort. Yeah not much 10 minutes walk 20 minutes back and forth I guess. Yeah and I think it's it's good for I'd say like 98 percent of hikers like if you have like really really bad balance or something there were a couple of roots along the way to trip over but for the most part I think you can get most people up there. Yeah a little slippery when you get like closer to the waterfalls but most of the trail is wide and flat. Just pay attention to the sneaky sneaky poison oaks on the side. Yeah somehow I managed to avoid it. I don't know how. And we'll see you guys in the next adventure and I'll show you what you know what to do. 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