Upper san diego river hike

Previous Next. Routes Trails. Scroll Zoom. Google Map. Map Key. Favorites Check-Ins. Dogs Allowed? For this hike you'll need to obtain a permit that can be purchased here. Full Details. Trail Rankings.

Add a Photo. Mar 30, near San Die…, CA. Mar 25, near San Die…, CA. Comment Type:. Add Check-In. Rate Quality. Rate Difficulty Easy. Preliminary Engineering Report has been completed and the next step is a more detailed study. Most of this trail is on National Forest Service lands. Discussions with the City of San Diego and at least one private landowner are required to place the trail on their property. It will be vital to advocate for completing these portions of the River Trail early in the individual projects.

It is unclear when this project will proceed to construction. Lakeside and Santee will have their own character as well. Future trails are planned. A drought had resulted in the mortality of large areas of chaparral vegetation and triggered a bark beetle outbreak killing approximately 40 percent of the Coulter pine.

The Inaja fire in the s also affected the upper San Diego River watershed. There is a defensible space issue associated with most of the development in the Place and a lack of community fuelbreaks. Interagency protection efforts are currently being discussed regarding the communities adjacent to the western perimeter of the Place, and a fire safe council has been formed in Julian to the northeast.

The Cedar Creek Falls location has also been identified as a problem area for law enforcement and fire management due to poor access. Fire frequency is an issue related to other vegetative cover within the Place. The interval between fires is very short in the coastal sage scrub. In fact, some parts of the San Diego River bottom have burned three times in the past eight years. The Cuyamaca cypress stand is now at risk to loss from fire until a viable aerial cone bank has been reestablished, possibly taking years.

Land ownership patterns adjacent to this Place often constrain public and administrative access. Dense urban development occurs along the national forest boundary in some locations.

Access between the tribal land and National Forest System land is constrained, as rights-of-way and partnerships do not exist. Some urban influences do exist, including infrastructure, such as roads and power lines along the periphery, as well as some visible fuelbreaks. Myself, I turned back after about 1.

I may try this again one day but even so it was a good workout just be prepared. Narrow goat trail starts jus past the picnic tables, at the river bottom, there is no defined trail and it is overgrown with posion oak.

Good fun! Took my 9yo girl and 11yo boy and went for it. Yes, the normal trail head is not easy to find so we ended up making our own way down into the canyon and found some incredible granite rocks to climb through. Blah, blah, blah This is why we go to places like this, not because it is easy.

Anyway, took the proper trail back up to the parking lot and found out we cruised right past it on our way down. The main trail down, drops a little to the left near the lowest most picnic bench I think. Completely infested with tough, thorny branches that have opportunistically criss-crossed the "path" throughout. I turned around at the point at which my options for further progress were an endless series of R-rated Vs on chossy rock or just jumping off the waterfall.

Was this the end? Also, someone appeared to have been methodically knocking over cairn blazes, which kinda makes sense, since this is not a trail. This was a challenging trail with many different obstacles, but totally worth it. Definitely need good boots, machete optional. Definitely going to do it again. All you do is walk by the river and go through plants and trees that get in the way all the time.

There is legit no trail. Trail is also super rocky. Very VERY overgrown, usually have to make your own path. Very overgrown, waterfalls were flowing. Lots of Boulder and rock climbing. Good boots recommended. Very fun hike though. Good sights. I was happy to see water flowing down the rocky riverbed. Hiked about a mile to the fist couple of 50 foot high waterfalls. Enjoyed the sense of remoteness, soaked in all the natural beauty and made it back to the trailhead just as the rain started falling.

Would like to see even more water flowing before I head further down to the foot waterfall again. I tried this hike a few weeks ago. Only got as far as the first mile and that was a bit difficult due to the light trail that exists. I got as far as mile 1, there was a waterfall which I would have had to descend but with the water flowing it seemed like a dangerous idea. I was unable to make out an alternate route along the walls of of the canyon due their near vertical slope. There was a rope tied around a boulder with a carabiner clip but no rope was available to descend down the water fall.

At this point I decided it wasn't worth risking a serious injury and returned the way I came. During a heavy rain year, I am unsure how anyone could safely navigate as the route is exactly on the river. I wouldn't recommend anyone doing this one by themselves without some type of emergency call device. Canyoneering experience seems like a requirement for this route. Good hike, but be ready for a non existent trail and nature has taken over No water Great views.

I went May and there was no water in the creek or very little water in the creek. Very magical trail. Mother nature loves showing off in here! Take pants, long sleeve and grip gloves. Definitely my kind of hike. I did it last year after the great rainy season we had and The falls were flowing, this time it was just a trickle, but still a great hike.

Non slippery shoes a must for this hike as you will be bouldering most of the way! While this is a difficult route, it is not impassable. Find your own way down and through the gorge.