Hardly Hellish : Hellhole Canyon Is a Lovely Place to Go Hiking in the Spring

A big chunk of wild land east of Valley Center was recently opened by the San Diego County Parks and Recreation Department. The 1,712-acre Hellhole Canyon Open Space Preserve now offers hikers and equestrians a fledgling system of trails along old canal banks and across the rugged confines of Hell Creek. Like other newly designated North County open spaces, this one consists of public domain formerly under the jurisdiction of the federal Bureau of Land Management.

Of a proposed 14 miles of trail, about 4 miles have been completed, and a mile more has been flagged and roughed out for construction. Whether you plan an easy hike to Hell Creek or half a day’s rugged hike on the entire trail system, do so before the warmer weather hits in late spring.

From northeast Escondido, use Valley Center Road to reach Lake Wohlford Road. Drive up past Lake Wohlford (nearly brimming now after heavy rains) and continue to the Woods Valley Road-Paradise Mountain Road crossing, 5.9 miles from the Valley Center Road turnoff. Turn right on Paradise Mountain Road and continue east through a rolling plateau, Paradise Mountain, now being overtaken by scattered housing. After 3.3 miles you’ll come to a confusing intersection. Bear left on paved Kiavo Drive, which leads half a mile north to the preserve’s well-marked entrance and parking lot.

From the edge of the parking lot, a trail leads down along a scruffy ridgeline. The boulder-studded west rampart of 3,886-foot Rodriguez Mountain lies in view toward the east; on humid days the mountain sometimes creates its own cloud cap. Perhaps you’ll see a slice of ocean horizon in the northwest if the weather is clear and dry. You round a switchback and descend more quickly, passing a single bench (rest area) on the right.

After 0.8 mile, and perhaps only 20 minutes worth of walking, you come to a secluded spot along Hell Creek that can only be described as enchanting. The creek happily spills over water-smoothed boulders under a canopy of spreading live oaks and twisted sycamores. The water won’t last long if the rains quit. By May it could be gone. Downstream from here, a century ago, travelers sometimes had a “hell” of a time getting their wagons across the rain-swollen creek while on the Escondido to Palomar road--hence the stream’s colorful name. Curiously, there’s no connection between the names of Hell Creek and nearby Paradise Mountain. The latter was apparently christened by a couple of hot and thirsty prospectors after they discovered a cold spring there.

Just ahead, the trail joins an old, rock-lined canal bed and passes through one of the most charming oak glens in the whole county. Succulent live-forevers cling to the crumbling canal walls, while green grasses at the peak of their vernal splendor clothe the densely shaded hillsides. In the next half a mile the trail sticks with the old canal, which contours (or rather rises at the imperceptible rate of 10 vertical feet per mile) across a sunny, chaparral-covered slope. On the warm breeze, the pungent odor of sage mixes with the sweet smell of blue-flowering ceanothus, now past its prime blooming phase. Check out the mission manzanita, now showing off clusters of tiny, white, urn-shaped blossoms. You’ll pass plenty of large scrub oak, laurel sumac and sugarbush shrubs, and also probably spot a three-leaved relative of the latter two--poison oak--here and there along the trail.

At 1.3 miles, the trail veers uphill, leaving the old canal. At a trail fork just ahead, stay left; the right branch goes up a sunny draw, leading nowhere in particular. Up ahead, you’ll traverse a grassy slope dotted with redolent wild onions. You then start descending back to the canal bed, join it for a short while and descend further to reach Hell Creek right at the point where a large metal pipe crosses over. The pipe, an “inverted siphon,” short-cuts the path of the original canal you were walking along earlier. The purpose of this canal is to shunt water from the San Luis Rey River over to Lake Wohlford, which lies on the Escondido Creek watershed.

You’ve now traveled 2.5 miles from the parking lot, and this is a good place to turn back and return the same way. If time and energy allow, the uncompleted section of trail ahead will take you up along a steep hillside offering a somewhat distant view of a rocky declivity in the bottom of Hell Creek.