Kitchen Creek Falls

Kitchen Creek Falls sits within the typically hot and dry Cleveland National Forest about 50 miles east of San Diego.

Seeing the falls flowing requires quite a bit of timing as its flow can easily become nothing by late Spring or early Summer (it really depends on how much winter rain has fallen in

Now despite the fact that the falls sits quite close to the Interstate 8, getting a view of the falls is not easy. First, you'll have to hike for about 2 miles along the Pacific Crest Trail before leaving the trail at an easy-to-miss spur. On this two-mile stretch, you'll be passing underneath the loud I-8 before doing a bit of a climb alongside fences (some of which has holes cut into them). And as you go further on the trail, the sound of the freeway slowly fades (thankfully) as you go deeper into nature.

You then take that spur towards the waterfall as the trail soon degenerates into a cross-country scramble. It's here where we had doubts as to whether we'd find the waterfall since scrambling without an obvious trail can be pretty dodgy when you're out in the desert like this (not to mention the potential for rattlesnakes). Plus, frequently brushing against hard, prickly desert vegetation wasn't fun either.

Anyways, assuming you persist towards the sound of the waterfall (and assuming it's flowing well enough to be heard), you then have to scramble down a steep gully in order to get in front of the falls to see it at its base. Keep in mind all this scrambling you've done to get here because you don't want to get too lost as the "trail" is not easy to follow. Once you're at the base, you'll have to cross the stream and do some additional rough scrambling until you finally get a satisfactory view of the falls.

As you can see from the photos on the page, there was a bit of drama on our excursion as we were caught in a freak snowstorm!

In any case, you want to stay on this "Frontage Road" (avoid staying on Buckman Springs Road), taking it east for over two miles towards a huge pullout at what was once the Boulder Oaks store (no longer there as of our last visit in 2007). Park at this pullout to start the hike (it's signposted for the Pacific Crest Trail), which leads under an overpass of the I-8. If you manage see a signed campground and turnoff beyond this pullout, you went too far.

Since you're somewhat close to the Mexican border, we encountered marauding Border Patrol vehicles on that frontage road going back and forth. They were probably scrutinizing us to see if we crossed illegally, I'm sure.

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The elusive waterfall

The Pacific Crest Trail going under an I-8 overpass

On the Pacific Crest Trail

Julie about to do the steep scramble as we try to find a way to the base of Kitchen Creek Falls

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TRIP REPORTS

• February 14, 2008

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