Santa Barbara Climbing Post-Storms - Access, Closures, Conditions?

I'm planning to be in Santa Barbara April 15-23. Not purely a climbing trip, but hoping to get in 3-4 bouldering sessions while I'm there to check out the local sandstone. However, I am aware there have been some significant impacts there from the recent storms, with closures of some roads and recreation areas. The information on this is spotty though, and without local familiarity it is hard to parse through which area are open vs closed.

So: Which Santa Barbara bouldering areas are open and in-condition? Which areas are closed or inaccessible due to storm damage? Can you currently access and climb at Brickyard? Lizards Mouth? Skofield Park?  It looks like Potters Point is inaccessible with Gibralter Road closed? Etc... 

Note: this is aside from the usual wet-sandstone considerations, which I am well aware of and would abide by if weather and rock conditions are still wet in late April. This question pertains more to closed areas/roads/trails. I.e. can you get to the climbs.

Partially answering my own question: This map  https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/8a708ff13fc24d64b06a0a883e3139f9   seems to indicate that Lizards Mouth, Brickyard, and Skofield Park are all open and accessible, but Potters Point is inaccessible due to Gibraltar Road closure. 

Nonetheless, any local beta or additional info is still appreciated.

I haven't lived in Santa Barbara for a few years, but I can try to help. Based on that map of what's open, Lizards Mouth, Brickyard, and Skofield Park are your best bets. It might be possible to take 154 to East Camino Cielo to get to Potter's Point. It would be a long but scenic route. 

Skofield is a city park low in elevation and close to downtown. It closes at dusk. It's a small area, but has good quality rock. Watch out for poison oak in the creek. The Brickyard and Lizards Mouth are both large bouldering areas with enough problems to keep you busy for years. They're on national forest land and you could climb there by headlamp if you want to. 

The sandstone in SB is pretty fragile. The usual "don't climb on wet sandstone" warning definitely applies here. There's always SB Rock Gym in downtown SB and Boulderdash in Ventura. 

Bishop Peak isn't a horrendous drive and everything is usually climbable within 24hrs after it rains.

Bill Flahertywrote:

I haven't lived in Santa Barbara for a few years, but I can try to help. Based on that map of what's open, Lizards Mouth, Brickyard, and Skofield Park are your best bets. It might be possible to take 154 to East Camino Cielo to get to Potter's Point. It would be a long but scenic route. 

Skofield is a city park low in elevation and close to downtown. It closes at dusk. It's a small area, but has good quality rock. Watch out for poison oak in the creek. The Brickyard and Lizards Mouth are both large bouldering areas with enough problems to keep you busy for years. They're on national forest land and you could climb there by headlamp if you want to. 

The sandstone in SB is pretty fragile. The usual "don't climb on wet sandstone" warning definitely applies here. There's always SB Rock Gym in downtown SB and Boulderdash in Ventura. 

Thanks.

What are typical drying times for the rock there, to get it to a point where is is acceptable to climb on? Everything is pretty saturated currently. But presumably a week of solid dry weather would be sufficient? Especially for somewhere sunny and wind exposed.  

Well, it keeps raining (AKA it’s pouring right now). The Los Padres is open again so access shouldn’t be an issue EXCEPT for climbing off Gibraltar and E. Camino Cielo (Potters the main attraction there). Rain in and out of the forecast for next week, too.

I’d tread with caution, but Lizards Mouth, the Brickyard, and the creamery have sunny and wind exposed rock that is probably in earliest. 

Haven’t heard of any locals climbing in town recently really, for what it’s worth. 

Is Gibraltar still closed? That GIS map says it is, but a friend said a local told him that it is open.

https://www.noozhawk.com/gibraltar-road-remains-closed-repairs-could-take-a-year/

Damn. That is grim. I was hoping to visit Gibraltar Rock this month. Guess not...

Isn't the access to Potter's Point at Camino and Gibraltar and you could park right where its closed?

if you're up for a hike, you can go up rattlesnake canyon trail to gibraltar rock. would be quite the hike to Potter's, though. plan on 75-90 min of power hiking to get to Gibraltar rock. I suppose you could drive east camino cielo all the way over to gibraltar, but you're driving almost 75 min at that point. might as well go to malibu or something.

Rattlesnake is one of the steepest trails in SB. only if you really really crave the cardio. great for trail marathon training

couple more photos of Gibraltar Road damage, with a buried Tesla getting excavated:

Anyone have any info on local ethics for climbing after rain? It's raining Wednesday into Thu AM, but very windy during and for the next 2 days. I know a lot of areas are open and face sun, but didn't wanna be a dick.

Should be good to go by Monday, sunny stuff will probably be okay by Sunday but check the ground. The lower areas (skofield, creamery) usually stay wet longer cuz they get more cloud cover during the day whereas sunny stuff at the brickyard and lizards dries quicker.  

We would be going up Friday night to climb Saturday, so sounds like that might be a no go? Would you mind following up in this thread Thursday with a report on how much it actually rained? Wunderground is saying .3", NOAA is saying 1"-2" of heavy rain which are verrrry different.

Last time I was there it had been 10 days since rain, rock was dry, but the ground by Dancing Outlaw was still mixed since it's in the shade all the time.

Dancing outlaw broke not all that long ago from wet rock abuse. it's probably the last spot to dry out in all of the ridge top zones. HRRR weather model is showing as much as 1.5" of rain on the hills, and in my experience the weather models under-forecast the rain that falls at the top of the ridge, often significantly. this map https://www.cnrfc.noaa.gov/precipMaps.php?group=sv&hour=24&synoptic=0 only goes back 24 hrs, but I'll keep an eye on it as the rain comes in and report back. some sort of interpolation between Refugio and San marcos pass station is probably the best one to look at for wet rock estimating purposes.

I've already done Dancing- where did it break? I was mostly interested in Bandito on that side, but was just using the area as an example.

It rained pretty darn good last night, for quite a while. San Marcos pass saw close to an inch of rain, refugio 0.65" of rain. Drying conditions aren't great today, there's a pretty deep cloud bank sitting over the ridge. so I'd say for saturday climbing, most things would be preeeeetty iffy. maybe the most exposed faces at lizards mouth would be okay, but most of the hard stuff at the brickyard is probably out for Saturday. 

dancing outlaw broke sometime in 2021, the low jug by the start broke and left a little incut in its place.

Bummer, I was told it rained last night too! Thanks for the help!

A low jug on the start woulda been cool as that was the hardest move on that boulder for me with my beta, which was to deadpoint up to the pocket.