"Change of Access"

16-February 2020: When they eventually showed up, we ultimately got started on our hike at about 10:20am. Surprisingly, our group actually consisted of about five different families, I think, with lots of kids.

My immediate thought was that I would typically try to avoid crowds or lament them, but in this case, we were the crowd! Yet I now understood the flip side of this as we got to mingle over a healthy activity while bringing people together over something genuine like this.

I guess there’s always two sides to every story, and it was only apparent to me when I was now part of such a large group…

We didn’t leave the house until about 8:35am knowing that we had a long drive ahead of us to get back to the Heart Rock Falls. And today was a day to do another group hike where our family joined up with Wendy and Van’s family as well as other folks that Wendy knows who wanted to go on this hike as well.

Wendy’s pretty well-connected and so these hikes were very interesting for us personally because we meet people from different walks of life that we wouldn’t ordinarily associate with otherwise. So here’s an instance where waterfalls bring people together in addition to the other benefits that engaging in this activity gives us.

That said, not surprisingly yet frustratingly, we had been experiencing a dry Winter where the last major storm happened on Christmas night but we’ve hardly had anything significant since. And today was no different.

It was a cool yet very clear sunny morning, and so we had already made plans to visit the Heart Rock Falls for the first time in February. All other times we’ve done this waterfall, we had come later in the year (at the very least in April or May).

Generally, the Crestline and Valley of Enchantment communities would have snow through the Winter, but it seemed like this year was going to be one of the dry years again.

And we worried about this year’s fire season as well as whether this was going to be the start of another multi-year drought as we knew we were due after going through a few years of decent rainfall culminating in the superblooms of Spring last year.

Anyways, the drive out to the mountains went pretty quickly as the traffic wasn’t too dense yet people were easily going over 80 mph (though there were definitely CHP pouncing on unsuspecting motorists).

I had forgotten to bring our California Waterfalls book by Ann Marie Brown, but we followed our directions from the website.

So we took the southern approach that had us following along the I-215 towards the 210 Freeway very briefly before finally getting off the Waterfall Ave, which took us onto the Hwy 18 towards Crestline.

After getting through some surface streets, we then went onto a twisty yet pretty high-speed road quickly climbing up the mountain rising high up above the polluted Riverside basin.

We had to be very careful about not missing the turnoff that would ultimately take us onto the Hwy 138, which left this high-speed mountain road on the right side then curled around up to the Hwy 138 leading to Crestline in one direction and Lake Arrowhead/Santa’s Village in the other direction.

Along the way going towards Crestline, we then went into an easy-to-miss road towards the Valley of Enchantment, where we then followed a rural road with lots of stop signs ultimately getting us to the familiar signed turnoff leaving Hwy 138 to Camp Seeley.

We got there at 10am.

However, lots of cars were parked well outside the Camp Seeley area so I had a feeling that the old places to park beyond Camp Seeley must not have been available.

We saw Wendy’s family already at the parking area alongside the Hwy 138 and she told us that the gate beyond Camp Seeley was closed. So that explained why people were parked alongside the Hwy 138.

Anyways, after having found a space to park the car, we waited for the rest of the group that Wendy invited to our hike.

When they eventually showed up, we ultimately got started on our hike at about 10:20am. Surprisingly, our group actually consisted of about five different families, I think, with lots of kids.

My immediate thought was that I would typically try to avoid crowds or lament them, but in this case, we were the crowd! Yet I now understood the flip side of this as we got to mingle over a healthy activity while bringing people together over something genuine like this.

I guess there’s always two sides to every story, and it was only apparent to me when I was now part of such a large group. I could only imagine how people outside our group might feel like we were bringing in a crowd or a “tour group”, but regardless, I relished in the moment as we were catching up with friends and new friends.

So we walked past the locked gate and Camp Seeley sign before approaching a ford of Seeley Creek. Normally, we would drive over this ford, but now that we couldn’t, we had to try to walk across the creek without getting our feet wet.

With rocks flanking the sides of the road, we used them to try to keep dry.

Then, beyond the ford, we kept walking the road resigned to the fact that we might have to walk a bit further than what we were used to walking in the past, which was as little as 1.2 miles round trip from an old parking area or clearing blocked by a gate.

As I was busy chatting with a guy named Steven over cars and interesting ideas for making money online as well as websites in general, I didn’t notice the old parking area, and it kind of bothered me a bit about what we had experienced in the past.

But before long at 10:50am, we ultimately reached an easy-to-miss sign that left the road to the right side that ultimately descended steeply towards a creekside trail down below.

Again in the past, I recalled that we had hiked that creekside trail in just about all the times we’ve done this hike, but I guess we wound up taking the road this time around for this far out, and it definitely didn’t feel as familiar as before. And I suspected that this was the reason why.

Regardless, by the time we got down to the creekside trail (and making sure people went downstream instead of upstream), we were about to keep hiking further downstream when I started to hear the sounds of falling water.

So I stopped and scouted out the rocky bluffs, which was familiar to me, and sure enough, we were already at the top of Heart Rock Falls.

Thus, I got the group to stop and head down towards me as we had already made it to the falls sooner than we had expected.

That said, with our large group, we had to be very careful about the dropoffs around the waterfall’s ravine. At least we could see the heart-shaped depression, which got people excited. It also seemed like a fitting sight for the weekend of Valentine’s Day, which happened last Friday.

Anyways, after getting our photos around the rocky bluff down to the waterfall, we then hiked down towards the base of the waterfall, where it seemed like our whole group dominated the bottom.

That allowed the kids to start interacting with the water while others climbed up the gully opposite Seeley Creek and went up to the top of the rocks adjacent to the waterfall.

It was a bit chaotic as some pepole were already setting up for a picnic in the shade while others were busy scrambling around to explore precarious spots around the top of Heart Rock Falls. Meanwhile, others were busy taking pictures in front of the base of the familiar waterfall.

So with all that being said and done, it wasn’t until about 11:25am when I finally joined up with the group for a picnic lunch. As much as I was tempted to try to scramble towards the heart-shaped depression, it looked way too steep and slanted as well as slippery to even try it. The risk was definitely not worth the reward.

Regardless, we then chilled out having Vietnamese spring rolls that Wendy and Van bought for the group (then we reimbursed them), while we also had fruits and even home-made banana bread. All these things probably blew our gluten quota, but they were enjoyable high-energy snacks.

Of course with all the people here, we also had to be careful not to leave trash behind as we had just preached the leave no trace principle yesterday at Tahia’s cub scout outing that we had to run.

Nonetheless, after having our fill of the bottom, it seemed like the group was still chilling out down here, but I wanted to do a little reconnaissance on where the paved road ultimately went to. So I told Julie that I would go up there and check it out myself while the rest of the group might meet me back at the parking area assuming they’d start to take off some time soon after I did my scouting run.

So by about 11:55am, I was already on my way up and it didn’t take long for me to scramble back up the steep path to the paved road.

Once on the road, I noticed some people hiking back from the road, which made me wonder if there was something legitimate up there or if these folks got lost and had to backtrack.

The whole time, I kept thinking to myself whether we had even driven this far and parked as I had never recalled parking then hiking uphill to Heart Rock Falls.

So there was lots that piqued my curiosity and I kept hiking in the generally downhill direction that the road went.

By about 12:05pm, I finally made it to a gate at the Seeley Creek Waste Treatment Plant. Clearly, this was not the parking area we had been to in the past, and the fencing around the perimeter of the facility meant the public was not welcome.

So I took note of this and then backtracked to the Heart Rock Falls sign again. Thinking that perhaps the group hadn’t left yet, I scrambled back down to the bluff and then tried to look over to see if the group was still down there.

Sure enough, I saw the parts of the group just starting to make their way back up to the bluff area that I was at. So I guess I managed to finish my recon mission and still be with the group without missing a beat. Anyways, it was about 12:20pm when I was re-united with them.

Next, as we scrambled back up to the main creek-side trail, there was a long fallen log that the kids ultimately sat on and it became a big photo op to show just how many kids we had in our group. I think there were nearly a dozen of them when everyone was accounted for.

When that was done, we then left at about 12:30pm, but instead of scrambling all the way back up to the road, we opted to take the creekside trail back to the general direction of Camp Seeley.

In contrast to the road, this trail was narrower and a little more eroded in places. It was easier for the kids to have a misstep and fall, and that was what happened to Wendy’s daughter at one point. But aside from a few tears, it was no harm no foul.

Anyways, this trail was definitely the familiar trail that we had taken in the past. However, it did seem a little up and down though we were generally going uphill in total. We noticed quite a few people going in the opposite direction on this trail, which led me to believe that there were probably half as many people taking this trail while the other half took the road.

I also noticed the familiar sewage pipes alongside Seeley Creek, which I supposed must have come from both Camp Seeley and the village of the Valley of Enchantment.

By about 1pm, we ultimately got to a familiar clearing just on the very northern outskirts of the Camp Seeley property. I knew at that point that the old parking lot must have been nearby, and sure enough when we returned to the road, I could make out the clearing where the cars would have been parked on the open shoulders of the road. I even saw the gate, which was now open, but which would have been closed when we had to park here in 2017 on our last visit.

I also noticed a 4W07 sign where the trail left the road and then went creekside, and an adjacent trash can, which was a telltale sign of a trailhead. So now it was all coming back to me where we went in the past and how it all tied together.

So we spent about 20 minutes here chit chatting and letting people catch up and get together once again. Julie had actually gone ahead back to the parking lot, but it turned out that she was alone thinking that the rest of the group would follow suit.

So when I realized this, I let the group know that I was headed back to catch up to Julie, who by now must have waited for a bit, and I made sure the kids didn’t get left behind.

Eventually by about 1:35pm, we were finally back at the parking area where Julie was at. I also noticed that there was a car parked unevenly where one of the four tires was actually off the ground! I guess you don’t see that every day, do you?

Anyways, after spending a few more minutes exchanging hugs and handshakes and saying our goodbyes, we finally headed out, but instead of going south on the Hwy 18, we decided to head towards Silverwood Lake via the Hwy 138 towards the I-15.

Wendy had this idea to check out this place called Klatch Coffee, and when Julie called to check if they had decaf, we ultimately decided to go there, too.

The drive out to the I-15 felt longer than I had remembered, but at least it afforded us a nice view over Silverwood Lake (something I never bothered to stop and take a picture of in the past of this man-made lake).

And eventually, we’d get onto the familiar crazy highway where people returning from Vegas as well as Mountain High would converge and ultimately return to the Riverside and San Bernardino County before ultimately getting back to LA.

Along the way, near the turnoff for the Lytle Creek area (perhaps our next local adventure to Bonita Falls, we eventually found the Klatch Coffee and stopped there to meet up with Wendy’s family again at 2:40pm.

After mingling some more over some very smooth coffee (well, according to Julie since I’m not a coffee drinker), we eventually killed enough time before finally leaving at 3:25pm.

The rest of the afternoon was spent driving towards Brea where we ran a few errands, and ultimately ate at the Urban Plates since it was getting too late for cook dinner.

And when all was said and done, we ultimately got home at about 5:45pm, which turned out to be quite the family day.

As much as I needed to get today’s day trip published on the website and update our writeup on Heart Rock Falls, I still felt like we got a good dose of rejuvenation. Unfortunately, tomorrow was a workday for me so I tried to savor what was left of this day knowing that it was back to grind first thing tomorrow morning…