San Luis Rey River Flower Bloom

Every spring along the trails down by the San Luis Rey River in Oceanside, entire fields and hillsides explode with blooming flowers, mostly daisies and some other flowers too.

Trabuco Canyon Up Towards West Horsethief Area

Sections of upper Trabuco Canyon continue to keep blowing my mind. Incredible beauty. To be able to hike these areas after work is really great. This hike was about 4 weeks ago. Spring was really in session.

El Salto Falls And Buena Vista Creek

Discovering a section of Buena Vista Creek in a no official open space area in Oceanside, CA with my friend Joe. The real treat was El Salto Falls. We got to see a mama duck and her several chicks trying relentlessly to make it up the falls. We also got to see some huge fish and probably the biggest pond turtle I have ever seen in the mucky pool downstream of the falls. I can't believe I have lived within 5 miles of this waterfall all of my life and I didn't even know they were there. Cool little local excursion.

Holy Jim Falls

Well, the next day after the trabuco canyon hike, I managed to slowly drive my car up to the Holy Jim trailhead for a hike up to Holy Jim waterfall. It's a jungle up in that canyon. A jungle mixed in with tons of poison oak. Keep you eyes peeled and your arms and hands in on this ride folks. This is an extremely beautiful place though. The steep canyon walls and intensely thick vegetation and canopy of trees make some areas of this forest just dark and cool, almost like a dark forest scene on Lord Of The Rings or something. Of course, none of my pictures actually display those areas.


BELOW: This area by the stream is where Jim lived. he had a cabin just to the left of this pool. The canyon was first settled by beekeepers in the 1880's, One of whom - James T. "Cussin' Jim" Smith (Later changed to Holy Jim) is the canyons namesake. He also grew groves of fig trees here. There are fig trees all over throughout this canyon.

Also, The last wild California Grizzly Bear, an old bear named "The honey thief" was killed at the mouth of Trabuco Canyon about 6 miles downstream from here after robbing bee hives in 1907.

ABOVE AND BELOW: Glimpses along the trail of Santiago Peak. The highest peak in the Santa Ana Mountain Range rising up to just under 5700 feet.




ABOVE: Holy Jim Falls

BELOW: I made my way precariously up the left side of the falls up the steep rock and scree slope maybe 60 or 70 feet to a small ridge to get a view out and over the canyon. I also found access to the top of the falls and a way to venture further upstream. Hold that idea until another time, I was running out of daylight and it was time to head back.