HIDDEN Waterfalls of Ojai - Matilija Falls

So Mataliha Falls is about another mile or so upstream. Wow, guys. We're in Los Padres National Forest today just outside of Ojai to explore the beautiful Mataliha Falls. It's about a 10-mile round-trip hike and there's multiple waterfalls. It's gonna be a great day. So it's only about a 950-foot elevation gain up to the waterfall, so it's not too steep, but we're not sure the condition of the trail because of the Thomas Fire last year burned part of this area, and then afterwards there was rock slides, mud slides, flash flooding, with some storms that followed that burn. So I've heard reports that the trail is washed out. It's tough to find, but we'll see. And of course, like always, when you're hiking through a recent burn area, we're gonna be keeping our eyes out for potholes, deadfalls, and rock slides. Talked about this in the Santa Paula Punchbowls video. A pothole is where a tree or a stump may have burned and left a hole in the ground that might be obstructed by some gravel or loose debris. Keep an eye out for that. Deadfalls, tree that's burned that's dead. Make sure it doesn't fall on top of you. Obviously, rock slide, mud slide, landslide, all that stuff is pretty self-explanatory, and we did have the rain recently this past week, so it might have loosened up a lot of sediment, so we're gonna keep our eye out for those three things. So you do have to pass through private property to get to this waterfall, and the reason why you can pass through this private land is the National Forest Service actually has an easement that allows hikers to pass through this property on the way to a further piece of the national forest land, which happens to be where the waterfall is. To this point where there's a wash here, there's a single track trail that goes around, but it leads away from the water, and it's kind of narrow and washed out in some spots, so we're actually just gonna follow this wash down to the creek right now. So if you're using Google Maps, the point that's labeled Mataliha Falls on Google Maps takes you to this spot here, and as you can see, that's not a waterfall. So Mataliha Falls is about another mile or so upstream. The spot on Google Maps is not accurate. In case you're using that, you can kind of use it to point you in the right direction. Well, we made it to the first waterfall, which is like this small waterfall. The main falls are a little bit further upstream, so we're gonna keep pressing on. I think it's less than a quarter mile around this bend in the canyon, and there's at least two more awesome waterfalls. So we're at this second waterfall now, which is in this side canyon off to the left off the main Mataliha Creek here. Gonna go back down to Mataliha Creek and go a little bit further up. There's at least one more waterfall that we have to explore today. This is beautiful. This actually reminds me a little bit of Utah here. Mataliha Falls is actually multiple waterfalls. Absolutely gorgeous. Wow, guys. We're gonna turn back. Came to a little falls there, and it was a little sketchy climb to get over that. I kept pushing on, maybe a quarter mile, and wow, so far the best one. Look at this. So we made it to the last falls, at least as far as I know it's the last falls. There may be further falls above this. As you can see, two beautiful big pools here. I haven't depth checked them yet, but you might even be able to do some cliff jumping here. Beautiful little mossy cave grotto behind the falls there. Now this is what I'm talking about. This is what I came here for. Get out there, find your adventure, and be infamous. So we got about a half hour to dark. We're on our way out. We've been seeing a lot of huge mountain lion tracks, so we're really keeping our eyes and ears peeled. Try to stay diligent and not get eaten by mountain lions. Infamous.