Cañada Honda Creek (Spanish: deep little canyon) is a perennial stream in Santa Barbara County, California, United States,[1] that lies almost entirely within Vandenberg Space Force Base and meets the Pacific Ocean just north of Point Pedernales.[2] Cañada Honda is part of the larger Santa Barbara coastal plain water resource subbasin (USGS hydrologic unit code 18060013).[3]
The stream "rises on the west slope of the Lompoc Hills, at altitude 1,200 feet (370 m) above sea level; flows north of west to the point at which it enters the Pacific."[4] Cañada Honda runs for about 9 miles (14 km),[2] and drains a watershed of 12 square miles (31 km2).[5][6] The creek is "inaccessible, for the most part, due to the steep cliffs and densely-vegetated riparian woodland."[6] The creek supports a population of tidewater goby.[5] The creek lent its name to Honda station when "the last link of the Southern Pacific coast line between Surf and Ellwood was completed in 1900."[7] There is a railroad bridge over the creekbed at the ocean.[8]
The Honda Formation is a geological formation of "several thousand feet of clay shale exposed only in the extreme western Santa Ynez Mountains at Cañada Honda, from 1 mile to 4 miles east of Point Pedernales."[9]
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34°36′30″N 120°38′15″W / 34.60843°N 120.63760°W