Our hike this week was to the Sill Hill falls near Julian, CA in the Cleveland National Forest. We actually didn't make it to the falls themselves (more on that later), but even without reaching that goal, the hike itself was pretty incredible. In Jerry Schad's great book Afoot and Afield: San Diego County, he describes this hike as an out-and-back along Milk Ranch Road off of the 79 highway just south of Lake Cuyamaca. (side note: if you like to hike in San Diego you really need this book!)
We chose a slight variation on the out-and-back hike. We incorporated the Middle Peak fire road and did a loop around Middle Peak after approaching the falls via Milk Ranch Rd. It increased the distance a bit for a total of about 8 miles, and increased the elevation changes (so we can strengthen our legs and lungs for the Sierras). It's pretty easy to find your way in this area if you stick to the fire roads, but beware of private property signs - especially if you leave the roads. The available maps and descriptions of the area that I was able to find online were somewhat lacking in detail, but you will be fine with the roads. At the point where you leave the roads to get to the falls, you may have more difficulty in navigating, as we did.
Here's a map of the area:
Our adventure began at 4:50am. Time enough for us to pack up and get out to the Cleveland National Forest before sunrise. We took I-8 from San Diego to highway 79 toward Julian. As we approached the trailhead for Stonewall Peak, a bobcat leapt from the bushes and ran across the road. No time to get cameras ready... but he most likely looked like this close up:
What a great way to start the day before we even got out of the car! I've never seen a bobcat in the wild, and we held high hopes now of witnessing more wildlife on the trail. And no, the one we saw wasn't actually a kitten - it was about the size I'd expect from an average adult bobcat.
We drove past the Stonewall Peak trailhead and reached the sweeping right curve in the road with a dirt turnout/parking area (if you get to Lake Cuyamaca - you went too far). We parked there and shuffled across highway 79 in the faint dawn light to reach Milk Ranch Road. It's a dirt road, gated just off highway 79, so forget trying to take your car out to the falls. There are also quite a few warnings in the area about Mountain Lions, so be aware and keep your pets on leash and children close.
As we began our hike along Milk Ranch Road, we were pretty stunned at what the area looked like. The Middle Peak area (and quite a bit of East County San Diego) was hit very hard by the 2003 Cedar Fire. In fact, most of this part of the Cleveland National Forest still looks like a burned out wasteland, just over nine years later.
While this doesn't make for the best scenery for a hike, it is quite interesting to see how burn areas recover and how unpredictably fire can behave. There are spots where groups of burned tree husks litter the ground, yet somehow an old tree survived amongst those others that were clearly engulfed in raging fire. Considering the number of burned trees on Middle Peak, this hike would have been gorgeously green and wonderful before the fires. Now its beauty and charm are different, but still worth the trip.
The sun began to peek over the horizon, lending a red-orange glow to the clouds and allowing us to see Stonewall Peak to the south.
We continued on, through a large group of still living old-growth trees and emerging to a large burn area to our right on the south slope of Middle Peak. But on the left was a meadow and the sound of running water in a creek. That's where we spotted our first mule deer of the day. Or should I say they spotted us?
A very well fed hawk kept an eye on us as we passed the five way intersection on Milk Ranch Road. Then we turned a corner and came upon this west-facing view! It's kind of hazy, but yep, that is the ocean out there on the horizon - about 50 miles away.
Just after the right turn onto the Middle Peak fire road, we ran into our second group of mule deer.
And we ran into another surprise!
It rained a week before we did this hike, and the ground was still soft. In fact it was muddy with puddles in some areas. But these bobcat tracks were most likely from the week prior, considering how deep they were. The ground was too hard for them to have been fresh. We didn't include any objects for scale in this photo so you could see the size of the prints (oops!), but they were in fact quite small. Maybe our friend from the road had been skulking about this mountain last week?
We continued going up the fire road, looking for trailhead markers for the path down to the falls. Our research online had told us that we needed to go left (west) off the Middle Peak fire road at a barbed wire fence, and that the trailhead may be marked by a cairn and red ribbon tied to branches. Well, along the way we saw some remnants of barbed wire fence to our left, but also saw quite a few "No Trespassing" signs.
This is not the trail your looking for. Continue past the signs and you will eventually reach the actual trailhead for the falls. We saw no signs of a barbed wire fence near the trailhead, but there was a nice big cairn and ribbon.
There was also a mountain lion track! Yikes!
We had read that since the 2003 fires, the trails up here have become overgrown with brush and can be at times somewhat impassible. That seems true, but it really depends on your comfort level with bushwhacking. There really isn't much of a trail once you leave the fire road. There are just red ribbons tied to branches along the way to lead you. We went over and around dead logs, pushed through dense brush, and tramped over branches. Luckily for us, there didn't seem to be any poison oak or poodle dog bush in the area. At one particularly dense area of brush, someone had clearly spent some time cutting a tunnel through. Thanks, whoever you are!
We continued down through the brush until it opened up into a small meadow. We could see a ribbon on the far west side and made our way there. After a short, steep descent through some mud, we reached a much larger meadow below the first. From here, the west facing views were spectacular! We could see all of San Diego County, including downtown, Coronado, the Miramar air field, and all of the sprawl in between.
Looking at the map later, it appears we were on the right track. Just continue west when you reach the lower meadow and it looks like it runs into a gorge that must be the falls. I'm sure we'll be back again to explore more and reach those falls!
On the way back out, Katie thought to add another stone to the cairn.
We then continued up the Middle Peak fire road and into an extremely bad burn area. The scenery here was repetitive and ultimately became boring. If we do this hike again, we will make it an out-and-back along Milk Ranch Road.
But there was some excitement as we found another Mountain Lion track. Seeing this many tracks around certainly caused us to be much more attentive to our surroundings.
As we slogged our way up Middle Peak, all we initially saw were black tree carcasses.
And snow!
There were quite a few areas on the North and East facing slopes of Middle Peak that had been freshly burned. It still smelled like fresh BBQ. These areas had been part of controlled burns in November 2012.
In these fresh burn areas, we ran into the dreaded poodle dog bush! This nasty creature has hairy leaves that can cause some pretty nasty skin and respiratory irritation. If you see this plant in the backcountry, stay far away from it! It typically grows in recent burn areas.
As we approached the road, we ran into a few more deer friends. They pranced through the fields.
And then, every deer in Cleveland National Forest came out to say hello.
See you later!
If you have any interest in seeing how forests recover from wildfires, or you want to do some bushwhacking, or you want to see some falls, or just be at one with nature, this is a great hike. This hike was very secluded. We didn't see a single person on the trail, and only a few at the parking area upon our return. If you go out and find the falls, please drop a comment here and let us know how close we were!
-Bluescape Jay-
