About

This website began in 1997 as a way to make the Santa Barbara Sierra Club hike list more easily available. Over the years it grew to be a more general list of hikes you can do in the area. It also has a lot of pictures of local wildflowers. (The small size of many them is because back then our computers were only 800 pixels wide and people still had dial-up!). Santa Barbara Hikes has never been an organization, it has always just been a personal website.

Technologically it began as an image created in Macromedia Fireworks exported as a web page. Then I learned HTML and build a static website with Dreamweaver. I was able to use these meager skills back then to get a job at a software company. I began to learn web programming and would use this website as a way to learn new programming-related skills so I could get a better job. I am now retired. Web programming served me well as a career. The website is now minimally maintained. I'd much rather be outdoors than sitting in front of a computer.

As much as this website helped my career, hiking enhanced my personal life much more. It taught me a lot about myself as a physical being, revealed to me my strength and my ability to endure. It led me to do things that changed my life, that gave me my best memories of my life and led me to the best people I could possibly meet.

Content-wise, this website has reflected my love of hiking, flowers, the mountains of the Santa Barbara area and my love of backpacking and thru-hiking. I was once a hike leader for the local Sierra Club group and so the orientation toward Sierra Club hikes has always been a part of this website. There are many other great resources for trails and hiking in our area, some of them much better than this one. Hopefully this website helps you get out there and get hiking.