Cedar Creek Falls

Cedar Creek Falls Hike, Saturday, June14th, 2003

We assembled at the K-mart in Ramona at 10am where we met the trip leader, Kevin, who lead us on several personal tours of the K-mart parking lot at dizzying speeds. We arrived at the trailhead (1,840’) and proceeded down the sides of a steep arroyo with a lot of slipping and sliding. About half way down, several of the group found a tall rock with several crevices which they could not resist and they climbed to the top of the rock. The rest of us just watched.

The arroyo trail remained steep until we arrived at the San Diego River bottom (900’) which at this time of the year was a little larger than a small trickle.

From there it was up the bottom of the arroyo leading to Cedar Creek Falls where we found several other groups enjoying the large pool at the base of the falls. Unfortunately, by June of most years, there is very little water coming down the falls and this year was no exception with only a trickle falling over the top rim. At the top of the falls are several shallow pools of water although we did not go up to investigate.

For the next hour or so, members of the group entertained themselves with lunch,
swimming, jumping off of the rocky ledges into a refreshing cool pool of water with a hint of green. This pleasant scene was only invigorated with the yell of “snake.” Investigation brought forth the fact that some of the group had been stepping over a large sleeping rattle snake jammed in against a rock.

Since we knew that we had a steep climb back out of the arroyo, we left the pleasantness of the cool Cedar Creek Pool and headed out into the hot hot sun for the long long climb back out of the arroyo to the cars. The climb back up was steep but uneventful until about half way up the group spotted several hikers coming down who were having troubles. The girl appeared to have heat stroke - or close to it - and our group got her down, gave her water, and created shade for her. Just about that time a two-seater Sheriff’s helicopter flew over which we were able to flag down. They landed in about the only spot on the side of the arroyo that had a flat area where the propellers would not dig into the hillside. They picked up the young lady and took her probably back to Ramona. We also suspect that they came back and took her boyfriend who was not in the best of shape.

From the halfway point to the cars was somewhat tortuous for some of our group but with 3-4 rests along the way we all made it without further incident.

This was a great group of hikers and we all appreciated Kevin, our leader, for the effort he put into the hike and for the goodies he brought along for those that needed a little snack. We also liked the idea of having our own qualified nurse to look after us.

The hike from the Ramona side, in contrast to the 4.5mi RT out of the Julian area, was 3.94 miles RT. The Julian side might be less scenic but the down/up hill is constant and not as extreme as out of Ramona.