John Wiley
By John Wiley
Walking half the length of Goleta Beach takes longer than flying from SBA to the very different beauty of Santa Ynez Valley. Climbing from our blue coast, a fire break on the front range forms a contrast at the burned edge. The dry East end of Lake Cachuma wears camouflage colors meeting the Santa Ynez River, as our memories of lake waters there fade. Looking back, the coast pulls a soft blanket from distant islands to mountain feet.
We were curious why the SY range ridge line is so green compared with the Valley, even on the North slope where far less rain falls. KEYT weather scientist Shawn Quien told me it’s partly due to less sun on the North side and says he might put an HD version of the pic on his weekend report sometime. I imagined it was only due to our June Gloom spilling over the peaks, as low clouds sometimes do from the Valley to the coast side (we love watching that!). He says it’s both. Presumably it’s also usually cooler up there due to adiabatic cooling (the opposite of which creates our sundowners). We sure notice it flying, but I don’t recall having noticed it driving. Do you commuters often experience a major temperature change driving across the pass?
We would often drive between SB and the SYV via Old San Marcos, and we would many times experience multiple inversion layers of hot/cold/hot coming down at night.
Interesting. Back before air conditioning in cars, I’ll bet lots of people noticed it. Despite the beauty of the 154 drive, we never drive with the windows open and too rarely stop more than once along the way. None of the non-commercial aircraft we fly have a/c, so we feel (and smell – love cut grass, avoid wildfire smoke) the outside air. Once coming home in a sundowner we crossed the pass at or above 6k’ and ~65f, passed thru 105f+ descending and landed at 60f back in the onshore breeze. Not the smoothest ride ever, either. 😉
Thanks John for your bird’s eye view of our beautiful area!
Dang. I almost made it through this entire month without hearing or seeing that lame “June Gloom.” Thanks, JW, for ruining my record.
Love the varied greens & the curves of this Lake view.
My favorite is the Green Hills from the SY mountains framing the Fog layer, sweeping to the Outline of the tops of Santa Cruz Island mountains. What a unique perspective!
I take deep rejuvenating breaths when I look at it 🙂 Thank you!
Someone remarked to me recently how long it’s been since the lake waters covered that broad part of the river at the lake’s East end. This pic helped me to realize that it looks “normal” for that to be dry with an occasional thin line of river through it when Gibraltar’s releasing water.