Idyllwild
April 17th – 20th, 2023 (3 nights)
Idyllwild is a small mountain town located high up (elevation 5,300 feet) in the San Jacinto Mountains (above Palm Springs) about two hours’ drive from San Diego. The town is known for outdoor activities, art galleries and quaint shops. The town hosts a variety of cultural events, including the Idyllwild International Festival of Cinema (March) and the Jazz in the Pines music festival (July). For hiking, the best time to visit is spring and fall as the temperatures are moderate and pleasant. Summer can be hot and crowded and winter can bring lots of snow (making certain trails inaccessible). A few weeks before our visit, the campground and town area was covered in snow (heaviest snow fall in decades)! We were lucky that the weather warmed up and the snow cleared by the time we arrived (for the most part)! For those without trailers, consider staying at the historic Idyllwild Inn (est. 1904) right in the center of town. This hotel gets good reviews and is reasonably priced.
We chose to stay at Idyllwild Campground (Mt. San Jacinto State Park) which is right in town and an easy eight minute walk to all the shops and restaurants. The other main campground (Stone Creek), which is about a ten minute drive from town, doesn’t open until May 1st. We found that even though Idyllwild Campground is close to town and adjacent to the main road (Hwy 243), it was relatively quiet during our mid-week visit. The 28 campsites are well spaced apart and three (01, 02, 26 @$45/night) have full hookups and three have electric hookups (04, 05, 06 @ $35/night). The tent campsites are $25/night. There are water spigots throughout the campground (and flush toilets), but no dump station (other than the sewer hookups at the campsites that have full hookups). We found Verizon mobile phone service to be very good. There is a PCT (Pacific Crest Trail) campsite section that accommodates many of the PCT hikers that pass through the area and need a place to set up tent for a night or two. We saw many of these hikers in the campground!
We reserved site 02 with full hookups (which allowed us to leave our solar panels at home and travel with an empty Fresh tank). The maximum trailer length listed for the campground is 24 feet, although we saw some spaces that possibly could accommodate much longer trailers (e.g. our friend’s campsite, 04, looked like it could fit a 30 foot trailer along with a tow vehicle). We met another couple who fit their 27’ Class A motorhome in campsite 26. So, if you stay within the 24’ maximum, there shouldn’t be any issues fitting into the campsites. However, one thing we did notice though is that the angle between the road and the campsites isn’t correct if following the direction of the signs, making backing in almost impossible. So, we drove into the empty campsite opposite ours to make backing into our campsite easier and our friends (with their longer RPOD) could only get into their site by driving the opposite direction of the implied traffic route. Though, some of the campsites are pull through.
The weather during our stay was ideal for hiking and shopping, with sunny cool days (in the high 50’s) and chilly nights (30’s). We rarely saw any bugs as well with the cool temperatures. We brought our new, small, lightweight, electric, ceramic space heater and we left it running all night long every night and it worked great (quietly keeping our Scamp as warm as we wanted and saving from having to use our propane). We very much enjoyed hiking the trails with our friends Phil and Claudia on this trip. Many popular hiking trails include: Devil’s Slide Trail (2.5-mile), Ernie Maxwell Trail (5.2-mile), Suicide Rock Trail (6-mile), Mount San Jacinto Peak Trail (10.6-mile), and South Ridge Trail (7.6-mile). We could not complete the Ernie Maxwell Trail because the river was running too hard to cross. We instead hiked a portion of the Deer Springs Trail which is very scenic. Make sure to get a free Wilderness Permit at the campground ranger station before going on any of these trails (one copy immediately goes into the permit box and the hiker submits the white copy when they return — this allows the rangers to see who didn’t make it back safely at the end of the day and send out a search party). One day we drove over to the closed Stone Creek Campground to hike Saw Mills Flats Trail (1.7 miles). We made it about halfway before getting stopped by very heavy snow on the trail (hip deep).
In addition to hiking and enjoying the campground, we also had fun strolling through town. There are a number of fun shops selling all sorts of tourist novelties (e.g. tshirts, cups, etc.) as well as some good places to eat. We purchased t-shirts and local blueberry jam. One morning, I spotted the mayor of Idyllwild (Mayor Max) and his assistant (Assistant Mayor Meadow), both golden retrievers, along with their handler in front of one of the local donut shops, Donuts and More! The handler let me sit down with them and hug both. To learn about the history of Idyllwild dog mayors visit here. We had great burgers for lunch at The Lumber Mill Bar & Grill.
Idyllwild is a fantastic place to relax and rejuvenate for a few days or even a week. Breathing in the fresh mountain air and smelling the pines are great ways to de-stress and reinvigorate oneself! And, being able to stay at the campground amongst giant trees … well, we hope it stays idyll and wild!
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