Quaint Poolside Bedroom

Bedroom next to pool Room in Main House Really an arbor fantastique! Beautiful views in a woodland setting with the possible privilege of pool and BBQ access.. West Camino Cielo begins a half-mile below the crest of San Marcos Pass. Leading across the rugged and extremely remote western portion of the Santa Ynez Mountains, it snakes its way across a series of bony spines and high prominences for 17 miles to Refugio Pass where it ends. For five miles the road is paved, and the going seems easy, but just beyond the entrance to a private gun club, the road abruptly turns to dirt and begins a series of sharp downhill switchbacks that seem to lead backward in time to a frontier era in which the mountain wall dominated human attempts to intrude upon the wilderness interior. To get the flavor of what travel might have been like three-quarters of a century ago, take an afternoon and drive from San Marcos Pass to Santa Ynez Peak along West Camino Cielo. It is rough and bumpy, and there are lots of potholes and plenty of places for you to curse me for taking my advice, but it is well worth your time. Most likely you won’t meet anyone on the entire 15-mile drive and you won’t see sprawls of tract homes dotting the valley below. Only rarely will you see either Highway 101 or the Southern Pacific Railroad tracks. What you will see is a land almost unchanged since the days in which Chumash Indians lived here, a place that must be taken slowly and with care, as your springs and shocks will tell you.