One of the early trans-mountain trails of the region went up this canyon, of which the present Cold Spring Trail is the successor - hence the name - although no appreciable part of it is any longer within the canyon. The change from the old route to the present one was gradual - piece by piece as it were. The upper part was first abandoned; then a stretch farther down, leaving still for some time about two miles of trail within the canyon. Then came the flood - and it is a canyon trail no longer.
Cold Springs Trail (the 's' being added sometime in the 1960's), bisecting the Santa Ynez Mountains above Santa Barbara, California, has existed in a number of forms across several centuries to millennia. Old maps, magazine articles, and oral stories tell of a route used for trade, hunting and gathering by California's original stewards - in this case the Chumash Tribe - eventually turned to paths used for running sheep and mules into the backcountry by Spanish rancheros and miners.
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