The U.S. Forest Service is working on a plan to realign and create safer trails leading to the Three Sisters Falls and the Eagle Peak summit near Julian where dozens of hikers have been rescued over the past several years.

The plan also calls for the construction of a trailhead and parking lot off Boulder Creek Road near the intersection of Cedar Creek Road where only a small makeshift parking lot now exists.

(Aaron Atencio)

For years, hikers have been moving along steep paths forged through the area by determined visitors heading to the picturesque spots. The Cleveland National Forest is proposing to upgrade the trails and make them official, both to protect the environment and to improve safety.


If things move ahead as scheduled, crews will start cutting the new trails in October, said Lee Hamm, a recreation and lands officer for the Cleveland National Forest and the project manager.

Total cost for the trail construction is a bit more than $700,000, said Chris Dowling, Palomar District Ranger for the forest service. Building a parking lot and restrooms at the trailhead will cost about $1 million, but that project hasn’t been funded.

Like other trails all over the county, the Three Sisters and Eagles Peak trails have seen an explosion in popularity in recent years as more and more people have become familiar with hiking opportunities via the Internet and social media sites.

Forest officials estimate that during recent winter and spring months, roughly 50 to 150 hikers use the trails on weekdays, and that skyrockets to as many as 400 on weekends. The numbers drop by about two-thirds in the hot summer months, but rescues during that time increase.


Most of the rescues involve hikers who are injured or overcome by extreme heat. On June 3, five helicopter rescues were made either at Three Sisters or at Cedar Creek Falls further to the west, said Sgt. Mark Johnston of the Sheriff’s Department Aviation unit.

This year, countywide sheriff’s helicopters have made 55 rescues, including 12 that came out of The Three Sisters and Cedar Creek areas.

“Almost all the rescues in that area are heat-related,” Johnston said. Sometimes hikers must be hoisted into a large fire helicopter; other times a small law enforcement helicopter will suffice.

The copter will land in the valley, deputies will give water to those in distress, and then fly them to the Cal Fire station in the San Diego Country Estates in southern Ramona for treatment.


And those are just the most serious situations. Many more calls from distressed hikers are made every week leading to other types of help being rendered.

In just about every case, officials say, the problem can be traced back to hikers not bringing enough water with them and/or not wearing proper footwear.

The unofficial trails begin on an abandoned road and then split, with one descending about 1,000 feet in elevation into a valley toward the falls while the other heads up a hill to the top of Eagle Peak.

The Three Sisters hike is the more popular of the two. Hikers are rewarded at the end of the 2.5-mile hike with a three-tiered waterfall.


“When you start working your way down into the valley, its very over-steep and narrow,” said Dowling.

Hamm, the Forest Service land officer, said “some areas are so steep that some people will bring in ropes they have to use to climb down and back up.”

The hikers can also cause damage to the area.

“We have a lot of concern about erosion with sediment being washed down into the water way down there,’ said Dowling. Trash has become more prevalent as well, he said.


The new trails will make the hikes much easier by creating switchbacks and using other methods of slope management. It will still be a difficult hike, Dowling said, but the actual walking should be much better.

Back at the trailhead, a new parking lot with room for 60 to 80 cars will be built. Cars currently use only a small lot and then spill over to both sides of Boulder Creek Road making it difficult, and at times impossible, for emergency vehicles to get by which is important, since so many rescues take place every year and because people live farther down the road.

Dowling said there are no plans to require hiking permits like those instituted a few years ago for Cedar Creek. Crowds were getting so large there in the early part of the decade that extreme measures had to be taken. The number of hikers going to Three Sisters constitutes just a small fraction of the thousands that were hiking to the Cedar Creek Falls each day.

The plan is currently going through the review process, and the public is being asked to comment on the proposal by July 5.


The plan can be viewed by accessing the Cleveland National Forest websitehttps://tinyurl.com/jktpvrc"> here.

Comments can be sent to: comments-cleveland@fs.fed.us.