Spring Break Adventures
Drive Through the San Jacinto Mountains: March 24
The day after I returned from the camping conference, I spend the day hanging out with Jane. We did not really want to stay in the IE, so we decided to go on an adventure. I had decided that we can go off and explore the San Jacinto Mountains. Since I have only gone up there for TIC, it would be nice to go up there to check things out. We drove up the 243, which is one of my most favorite mountain roads in SoCal because of how curvy the road gets. Jane had seem to have some back issues, and was in some pain, so her mood was not exactly one to go hiking and exploring. We stopped at Lake Fulmor. We walked around the lake. I thought it was a nice small lake. Jane was not that impressed, especially with the lake water looking more brown than others. I thought it was nice, and if we were there a little later in the year, we would see some green. There seemed to be plenty of birds around. We saw a few ducks swimming around. I noticed a few matting pairs. I bet there will be ducklings in the early summer time. We also saw a few turtles sun bathing. I would love to say they are native, but I have a feeling they were released there by a few people. That would not surprise me. After the lake, we continued on to Idyllwild. I was hoping that we would stop and walk around looking at the different mountain shops and enjoy the nice bad. Jane was not really interested, so we just moved on. We got to the 74, and we turned towards Palm Springs. Lake Hemet came up, but there was no interested to take a look so we kept on going forward. We kept driving, and only did one other stop. As you were going into the desert, there is a large overview of Palm Springs. I pulled over just as an excuse to get out of the car. The view was quite nice. It was amazing how much of a temperature difference the desert side of the mountain had. At the view point, it was just over 80 degrees. After that, we drove into the Palm Springs area. I tried to see if Jane wanted to walk around and explore anything, but with her mood, I did not really push it. At the end of the day, I drove 160 miles through a mountain range, and all we did was explore a small lake. I was not too happy that was all we did. It didn't seem worth it to waste all that gas and not explore some. At least it got me out of the house for a while. Ignore my stupid thumb in the photo below. I so rarely do that. I feel retarded! While we were hanging out later, we wished we were camping somewhere. We decided to do a beach camping trip for one night, and we just happened to find open spots in Pismo Beach. That blog post will come after this one.
Every so often, I would see people posting that they had hiked to Etiwanda Falls on facebook. Ever since then, I have been wanting to check it out! I love waterfalls, hiking, and exploring new mountain areas. Jane and I decided to do the hike. The day was cloudy and overcast. At first, we were not going to go in case there was a chance of rain, but we said fuck it. It turns out it was wise to go when it was outcast. I drove up to pick up Jane in Yucaipa and then we headed to the North Etiwanda Preserve. The preserve has a series of trails with different things to see. Strangely, the falls are not in the preserve, they are north of the preserve. I am curious as to why they did not include the falls in the preserve since it is one of the main reasons why visitors come to the preserve.
The hike to the falls were a little more of a workout that I thought. It was an uphill hike about 90% of the time in route to the falls. If it was a hot and sunny day, it would of made the hike terrible. We were extremely happy it was an overcast day at that point. There really was not much to see until you got to the falls area. Good thing was a few of the chaparral plants were in bloom, especially the wild lilac flowers. They were beautiful. There were some educational displays inside the preserve, but we didn't pay any attention to them. Our goal was the falls. Not to explore the preserve. In February, I was hiking roughly 12-18 miles each week. As finals came around, that all stopped. I was surprised that stopping for a few weeks really put me out of shape from hiking mostly uphill. As we got into sight of Day Creek, we began to hear water. A small trail forked off from the main trail. It looked like it went to the falls area. We took it. Some areas were really thick in brush. As I was going through one thick area, I noticed right before I went through it a very large amount of poison oak. It was all over the place. For the rest of that trail, we had to be super careful. Thank god I know what poison oak looks like. I began to see the falls ahead, and then the trail came to a dead end. There was no way to the falls. We had to turn around and go back to the main trail. That was annoying. When we got to the falls, there were quite a big of people. More than I expected. It was beautiful. You really couldn't get that good of a look at all of the falls. Not without doing some serious rock climbing. The trail took you above the falls. You can just get a view of the upper fall, which still was beautiful. There was a good amount of things to explore up stream, but we stayed in the falls region this time. I could of stayed there for an hour + but we just spent roughly 20 minutes before we headed on back down. The rest of the day we just chilled and drove around. This is a place I will have to come back to and check out more of the Day Creek area near the falls.
The day after I returned from the camping conference, I spend the day hanging out with Jane. We did not really want to stay in the IE, so we decided to go on an adventure. I had decided that we can go off and explore the San Jacinto Mountains. Since I have only gone up there for TIC, it would be nice to go up there to check things out. We drove up the 243, which is one of my most favorite mountain roads in SoCal because of how curvy the road gets. Jane had seem to have some back issues, and was in some pain, so her mood was not exactly one to go hiking and exploring. We stopped at Lake Fulmor. We walked around the lake. I thought it was a nice small lake. Jane was not that impressed, especially with the lake water looking more brown than others. I thought it was nice, and if we were there a little later in the year, we would see some green. There seemed to be plenty of birds around. We saw a few ducks swimming around. I noticed a few matting pairs. I bet there will be ducklings in the early summer time. We also saw a few turtles sun bathing. I would love to say they are native, but I have a feeling they were released there by a few people. That would not surprise me. After the lake, we continued on to Idyllwild. I was hoping that we would stop and walk around looking at the different mountain shops and enjoy the nice bad. Jane was not really interested, so we just moved on. We got to the 74, and we turned towards Palm Springs. Lake Hemet came up, but there was no interested to take a look so we kept on going forward. We kept driving, and only did one other stop. As you were going into the desert, there is a large overview of Palm Springs. I pulled over just as an excuse to get out of the car. The view was quite nice. It was amazing how much of a temperature difference the desert side of the mountain had. At the view point, it was just over 80 degrees. After that, we drove into the Palm Springs area. I tried to see if Jane wanted to walk around and explore anything, but with her mood, I did not really push it. At the end of the day, I drove 160 miles through a mountain range, and all we did was explore a small lake. I was not too happy that was all we did. It didn't seem worth it to waste all that gas and not explore some. At least it got me out of the house for a while. Ignore my stupid thumb in the photo below. I so rarely do that. I feel retarded! While we were hanging out later, we wished we were camping somewhere. We decided to do a beach camping trip for one night, and we just happened to find open spots in Pismo Beach. That blog post will come after this one.
Hike to Etiwanda Falls: March 25
The hike to the falls were a little more of a workout that I thought. It was an uphill hike about 90% of the time in route to the falls. If it was a hot and sunny day, it would of made the hike terrible. We were extremely happy it was an overcast day at that point. There really was not much to see until you got to the falls area. Good thing was a few of the chaparral plants were in bloom, especially the wild lilac flowers. They were beautiful. There were some educational displays inside the preserve, but we didn't pay any attention to them. Our goal was the falls. Not to explore the preserve. In February, I was hiking roughly 12-18 miles each week. As finals came around, that all stopped. I was surprised that stopping for a few weeks really put me out of shape from hiking mostly uphill. As we got into sight of Day Creek, we began to hear water. A small trail forked off from the main trail. It looked like it went to the falls area. We took it. Some areas were really thick in brush. As I was going through one thick area, I noticed right before I went through it a very large amount of poison oak. It was all over the place. For the rest of that trail, we had to be super careful. Thank god I know what poison oak looks like. I began to see the falls ahead, and then the trail came to a dead end. There was no way to the falls. We had to turn around and go back to the main trail. That was annoying. When we got to the falls, there were quite a big of people. More than I expected. It was beautiful. You really couldn't get that good of a look at all of the falls. Not without doing some serious rock climbing. The trail took you above the falls. You can just get a view of the upper fall, which still was beautiful. There was a good amount of things to explore up stream, but we stayed in the falls region this time. I could of stayed there for an hour + but we just spent roughly 20 minutes before we headed on back down. The rest of the day we just chilled and drove around. This is a place I will have to come back to and check out more of the Day Creek area near the falls.
Comments
Post a Comment