Ojai Spring Experience
March 23rd – 29th, 2024 (6 nights)
Ojai is a great place to explore nature and enjoy small town life. The city is located about forty-five minutes south of Santa Barbara and at about 745 feet about sea level. In town, there are luxury hotels, spas, great restaurants, hiking, biking, horseback riding, boutique stores, art galleries, wine tasting rooms, and many other fun things to see and do. There are also serene mountain campgrounds high above Ojai in the Topatopa mountains about 15 miles north of town, with one, Rose Valley Campground, boasting a spectacular 300 foot two tier water fall (Rose Valley Falls). It’s fun to combine both flavors of camping into one trip! We spent a couple days at each location.
We started the trip at Rose Valley Campground, about a thirty minute mountain drive from Ojai. The mountain road winds and climbs up into the Los Padres National Forest to about 3,450 feet above sea level. The campground is very remote with the closest stores and gas stations located back in Ojai. The roads leading to the campground are paved, but we did have to drive across a couple of creeks to enter the campground. Click here to see us crossing one such section of creek.
Rose Valley Campground is a primitive campground (US Forest Service) with almost no amenities (only trash cans and a vault toilet). We saw a ranger only once during our visit (he knocked loudly on our door shortly after we arrived and asked if we had a reservation). There is no water or cellphone/internet reception here (except maybe if one has Starlink). We made sure to arrive with our Fresh tank full and also brought an additional 6 gallon water jug (which we used) as well as 4 gallons of drinking water. Since our Scamp’s house battery is lithium, we didn’t bring our solar panels (we use only about 10% of our lithium battery’s 100ah capacity per day and recharge them when we drive at 30% capacity per hour via our DC-DC car charger, click here to read more about this). The campground is very small, with only 8 campsites (some of which cannot be reserved, but are only available first come, first served). We reserved campsite #3 ($30/night) which we think is the best campsite for those with small travel trailers. This campsite is fairly private and has a fantastic view of the Rose Valley Falls. Campsite #2 is great for tent campers, but because access is across a small section of creek and there is no place to turn around — it would be very difficult to back in a travel trailer. For larger trailers and RVs, campsite #1 is a good choice (but is a first come first serve site).
If one wants serenity, to unplug, and a place to relax, Rose Valley Campground is the place. Looking out our Scamp 13’s back window up at the 300 foot Rose Valley Falls made this place seem almost Yosemite like. It’s a great place to get close to nature. We could hear the creek and frogs from within our Scamp. And, we saw plenty of animals and birds including hawks, red-winged black birds, egrets, ducks, and many other bird species, squirrels, snakes, … Coyotes, deer, bobcats, and mountain lions also live in this area, but we didn’t see them. Bears have been occasionally sighted too.
There are many great hikes originating from Rose Valley Campground. The featured hike is the one of “Rose Valley Falls” and starts at campsite #4. It’s short (less than a mile or 30 minutes round trip) and overall easy, with one creek hopping required. The falls were raging during our visit (as California has been having a lot of rain this year). The bottom 100 foot tier of the falls, lower falls, can be seen from the base, where this hike ends. Hiking to the upper falls is not recommended as there are not well maintained trails and there is a lot of loose gravel. We hiked up a portion of one of the routes, but decided it was too treacherous due to the condition of the muddy earth and loose shale rock. In addition to Rose Valley Falls, there is a pleasant road walk from Rose Valley Campground which passes the 3 local lakes: Upper Lake, Middle Lake, and Lower Lake (it’s an easy roughly two mile round trip walk — although there are a couple of creek crossings along the way which require careful traversing due to slimy and slippery algae beneath). Fishing is allowed at the lakes with a fishing license. On our last day, we drove a few miles up to Piedra Blanca Trailhead — features three popular trails (a $5 Adventure Pass or Interagency Pass is required to leave in car at parking lot): leave all valuables at home says the sign at the trailhead.
After a couple of days of being unplugged and roughing it (hardly) at the remote Rose Valley Campground, we made the thirty minute drive down the mountain and pulled into Camp Comfort with full hookups at each campsite (run by Ventura County Parks). Camp Comfort is only a few minutes’ drive from downtown Ojai, which makes it an excellent base for exploring the town. The first thing we did when arriving was dump our Grey and Black tanks (although we had to do it at another site as a few sites here, #13-16, have the hookups on the wrong side — passenger side! Oops!) The ranger couldn’t explain what happened, other than a supposed mistake was made during the construction of the campground. Other than that, our campsite #13 ($49/night) is a fantastic site–only one of three campsites adjacent to the creek. Campsite #11 is probably the top pick here (with #12 coming in 2nd). This campsite has amenities: full hookups, a raging creek, and super-fast free wifi (no sign in is required). It’s located in a nice park setting and the campground itself is a small parking lot (but still plenty of space between sites). Camp Comfort was extremely quiet during our visit at the end of March. We enjoyed falling asleep to the sounds of the creek flowing and the frogs, crickets, and birds (with owls hooting in the trees above early morning).
We spent our first day exploring downtown Ojai. We visited a very unusual bookstore, Bart’s Books, that has many of its used books on outside shelves facing the street! The books are left outdoors and payment after hours is on an honor system with a can left out to accept money! There is also the main street, called the Ojai Arcade, with nice stores, eateries, art galleries, and wine tasting rooms. After spending a couple hours walking around downtown and refreshing ourselves at Sanders & Sons with their delicious gelato, we visited Ojai Meadows Preserve and took a nice hike within the wetlands preserve. On day two of our visit to Ojai, we explored the wondrous estate of the Ojai Valley Inn, a beautiful hotel on sprawling grounds. The estate is so large that the staff hands out maps to help visitors navigate the area. The gardens, Wallace Neff architecture, restaurants, and other facilities on the property are enough to keep one entertained for hours. We enjoyed a soap making class at their Artist Cottage & Apothecary center, bringing home six of our own soaps! We picked up a simple Mexican lunch at the Ojai Tortilla House (a very small establishment, known for its homemade tortillas, that can hold only about two or three people inside to place orders for takeout only. The line outside was not long). We walked to the town park, Libbey Park, down the street and relished our quesadilla and tacos on a park bench (we saw a few other people there doing the same). We ended the day at the Ojai Community Farmer’s Market (Thursday afternoons 3 – 7 p.m.) and purchased some quail eggs (an elusive find). With more time and a treasure chest full of money, there are a many more highly enjoyable adventures to be had in Ojai. There are excellent hikes, bike rides, shows (Ojai Art Center), art galleries, workshops, music events, wine tasting rooms, stores, horseback rides, restaurants, spas, golf, tennis …. April starts the Pixie Tangerine month in Ojai…maybe next time!
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