Holy Jim Falls - local hike and offroad drive (photo heavy)

[Morrigoon]

Today Sohrshah and I went for a hike. We selected Holy Jim Falls in spite (or perhaps because) of the warnings about the road to the trailhead.

First off, the road... the warnings in the "reviews" section of the site I linked to don't do it justice. But it's worth reiterating that you *cannot* and *should not* even attempt it in a 2WD passenger car. Stick to SUVs or other high profile vehicle or you WILL be sorry (Hey Nirvanaman, are you excited yet? Meh, you probably already know this road) I took about a minute of video on the drive back from the hike. You can't see the road detail that well, but you get an idea of how much the car bounces around. And this wasn't even on the roughest part.

Anyway, it's about a mile and a half to the falls. There is some lovely scenery along the way - hard to believe we were still in Orange County! There are actually quite a few privately owned cabins along the "road" from the "parking lot" to the official trailhead (you think it starts at the parking lot, but there's another sign after the bulk of the cabins). You cross the stream several times along the way, but there are usually enough rocks or fallen trees to help you keep your feet dry (I eventually got my feet wet, but more on that later)

Here are some pics I took along the way:

It looks like such a nice, easy road at first...


Look at the front bumper and try to visualize how big those potholes actually are


Water crossing!




The path ahead includes this cool archway of branches just tall enough to stand upright under






Any idea what these flowers are? They weren't as abundant as the dark purple flowers, but pretty, no?


Okay, this was pretty damn cool. At first we thought it was graffiti, but upon closer read it says: Fuel Break Crews I-II (something) 1974. So apparently they were up there working on fighting a fire and did that.


Lots of stream crossings


In the background, you can see what may have been a bush, but more likely a bush manipulated into a sort of lean-to. Certainly would have worked as one


Okay, maybe someone can tell me... are these grapes? They had grape-like leaves and the little spiral things like grapes. Hard to imagine them in the wild here of all places, but they sure looked like it.


Not one picture captured the intensity of the color in these purple flowers that were all over the place. They look much more muted here. Also, that other plant growing in with them seems like its being attacked by a spotty fungus. We noticed a lot of that too.


Old oak


Learned something new today. This... is a weir.


Umm, yeah. Us.


That's not "the" waterfall. Actually, that's your trail. No really. Keep going.


The walking gets a little more challenging near the end


But here's the payoff






This is actually how I got my feet wet. The waterfall doesn't look all that "splashy", but as I was waiting for this picture to get taken, my heels and calves got splattered.


It's not as short as it looked in that last pic, btw


Oh yeah, on the way up one of the marked stops is "picnic rock". FYI in case you want somewhere to stop and dine al fresco.


When you come back out of the thick foresty part, there's a pretty nice view of the tops of the mountains


For being so local, I was impressed by how cool this hike was. Okay, so we've seen bigger, badder waterfalls in Sequoia and King's Canyon, but this is a pretty darn good waterfall for being just a few miles from home. And as the reviews said, the drive WAS half the adventure!

On a side note: we didn't know this going out, but you're supposed to have and display some kind of wilderness pass. Apparently it's available from the ranger station or local sporting stores (my guess would be the Sport Chalet in Foothill Ranch would have it). It's like $5.