Weekend Escape: Idyllwild : A Family Shares Long Walks, Homey Restaurants--and MTV

There are, I figure, three ways to enjoy a weekend getaway in the local mountains, depending on one’s aspirations and budget.

At the high end, there’s the skiing scene, accompanied by fancy lodges, liqueur-laced coffees on the patio, ski lifts, and a deathly fear of falling and breaking a leg. Recuperation follows in a pricey condo rental.

We don’t ski.

It’s far more gutsy, I’ve always told the kids, to ride free-style down a mountainside in a gyrating snow pan, holding on for dear life, having no control over your immediate future and knowing that when you do fall, you’re already at ground level.

On the low end of mountain getaways, there is camping: a purist’s adventure where you share the ground with things that jump, crawl or slither in the night. You spend an inordinate amount of time stoking the campfire so you can defrost your feet, while explaining to your spouse that bathrooms are unnecessary trappings, and explaining to the kids that, until mid-century, millions of teen-agers got along without TV, let alone MTV.

Fact is, I hate sleeping on the ground. Been there, done that. It was called Scouting.

The middle ground, then, is the cabin experience. This can be upscale: You can rent someone’s private part-time home through a local realtor and probably pay 20% to 50% more than for plain commercial cabins. But they’re nice, and you can snoop a little.

Over the years, Jeanne and I have found a comfortable middle-ground for our mountain cabin experience. We go to Idyllwild and stay at Woodland Park Manor.

Idyllwild is situated at 5,200 feet, on the western slope of Mt. San Jacinto, a half-hour drive above Hemet in Riverside County. It’s not as high as Big Bear or Arrowhead, but is delightfully free of some of the rank commercialism that, for us, spoils a weekend in the trees. There’s no McDonald’s, Jack-in-the-Box or Burger King. And Idyllwild is our alternative to Palomar Mountain in northern San Diego County, where there are no overnight accommodations, save campgrounds.

We made reservations for Woodland Park Manor months earlier, hoping for snow in mid-January. There are great places in Idyllwild for snow-panning, somewhat secluded slides where grown men can scream. However, we picked the driest January in the history of mankind. (Several inches of snow fell last Monday night and Tuesday; days have been sunny, with highs in the 30s and 40s.) We kept our reservation anyway because it beat the honey-do list back home.

We left for Idyllwild on a Friday afternoon, after our 13-year-old daughter, Cassie, got out of school. From Escondido, it was a 1 3/4-hour drive in our ’89 Aerostar.

Woodland Park Manor is an old favorite of ours, and not really an authentic cabin at all. It’s a faux-cabin duplex, actually. The larger side--which we rented--features a great room with a queen bed, dining/game table, bentwood rocking chairs and a brick, wood-burning fireplace. There is a separate, spacious bathroom, small but efficient kitchen, and a small alcove for the second queen-size bed. The smaller half of the unit, which can be rented separately or together with the larger side, is only a bedroom and bathroom.

If nothing else, the unit has always been spotlessly clean and functioning. No spiders. The cabin’s biggest joy: Virtually one entire side is floor-to-ceiling glass, affording a view beyond a large deck onto the trees beyond.

We unpacked and decided to look for a restaurant rather than cook. Idyllwild, as a whole, closes at 8 p.m. but we had time for dinner at O.J.’s Creekside Cafe. The night’s special: chicken fried steak ($4.99). Cassie went for spaghetti ($6.50). The only waitress was overworked with seven tables and erred by $10 when returning our change, but heck, it was late and she was tired.

Friday night was a clash of family values. Thanks to bundles of wood stacked near the office and sold on the honor system, I started a fire in the fireplace and conjured visions of ‘Smores, family bonding, quiet talking. Cassie discovered the cabin’s TV was hooked up to cable (something we don’t get in our neighborhood, quite to her humiliation at school). She bounced back and forth from the QVC shopping channel to MTV to Nickelodeon.

In time, the ‘Smores won out, and I remembered how sweetly rich a melting marshmallow, softening a piece of a Hershey’s bar and squished between graham crackers, can be.

We went to bed as the flickering fire played its light on the walls and ceiling.

*

Saturday’s agenda was shopping. Idyllwild is chock with quaint ma-and-pa gift stores, art galleries, craft shops and consignment boutiques like the Cat’s Meow, where old hats and handbags are cast as “vintage clothing.” It seems everyone in town sells knit sweaters--even the baseball-card collection shop.

Some stores are confused. Georgia’s, one in a series of cottages-turned-storefronts along the main drag, sells dolls, jewelry and, out back, a rather impressive collection of gourds. Go figure.

The most interesting complex--a place that old-timer home-grown merchants have little use for--is a two-story collection of stores called “The Center of Idyllwild.” Locals know it as “the fort” because of its monolithic fortress appearance.

There’s nothing charming or quaint about the fort, and locals complain that it’s too commercial. Too pricey. Too uptown. Way out of character for Idyllwild. But still, the stores are worth a visit.

Our favorite store inside the fort is “Reflections of . . . “ It is a glass-art gallery representing works by 60 artisans from around the world, brought here by the store’s owner, a flight attendant for an international carrier.

Saturday night we went to Queen of Angels Catholic Church for Mass, and instead of singing to an organ or guitars, were accompanied by a harpist and flutist. Now, that was quaint.

Dinner was Hamburger Helper back at the cabin; the evening was spent over cards, some TV, ‘Smores and a fire that again put us to sleep.

*

Sunday promised to be scary. In the absence of snow, we committed to a hike. The last time we walked for reasons other than shopping was to change channels, in the days before the remote control.

We stayed clear of the more threatening-sounding trails--ones that required permits from the local ranger. The visitor’s guide suggested the Ernie Maxwell Scenic Trail, which started at Humber State Park, just up the street. A beginner’s trek. Indeed, it was mostly level, a soft-dirt path two to three feet wide along the side of the mountain. When we sat to rest on a huge boulder, we could hear a half-dozen woodpeckers knocking for lunch.

One of the hiking lessons we learned was, when you get too tired to continue, you’ve still got to walk back to your car. Hey, we’re new at this stuff, OK?

We rewarded ourselves back in town with chocolate-peanut butter ice cream in waffle cones. After two nights of ‘Smores, our taste buds were dead anyway.

Sunday night’s extravagant dining-out experience backfired. We went to the Chart House, the only name-place in Idyllwild. Without reservations, we were told at 6 that we’d be seated by 6:30. We made it by 7. The salad bar’s croutons were crumbs. The iced-tea tasted like a fruit drink. And the waitress didn’t check on how our meals were prepared (too rare) until we were virtually done. We should have stuck with the Hamburger Helper and Lipton’s sun tea back at the cabin.

That night: cards. TV. And more ‘Smores. Again, we fell asleep as the firelight danced on the walls about us. Sure beats the Flintstone nightlight back home.

We came home Monday after one final trek into Idyllwild’s treasures: the gift shops. We recommend The Epicurean, if only for the view off its back deck. And we finally spent money at a place called TimberRidge: some wildlife jewelry and a wood burl-and-glass sculpture. We probably could have bought them back home, but our friends wouldn’t be as impressed.

As we drove down the hill, Cassie seemed saddened. I’m not sure if she was missing the fire, the ‘Smores, the hike down Ernie Maxwell Trail, or the cabin’s cable TV. To cheer her up, we stopped in Murrieta at Costco.

Budget for Three

Three nights’ cabin: $304.20

Groceries: 27.80

Three bundles of wood: 10.50

Dinner, Friday night: 27.00

Lunch Saturday (pizza): 23.44

Ice cream, dinner Sunday: 83.51

Souvenirs: 67.78

Gasoline: 11.52

FINAL TAB: $555.75

Woodland Park Manor, 55350 S . Circle Drive, Idyllwild 92549; tel. (909) 659-2657.