Hiking to Holy Jim Falls

This past weekend, we went to check out Holy Jim Falls! It was a great little hike and we wanted to share what we learned to help others who want to hike there too!

Holy Jim Falls is located in Trabuco Canyon in the Cleveland National Forest.

Be sure to grab your Adventure Pass! You’ll need it for parking or you can get cited.

For directions you can enter this address in your GPS:

Live Oak Canyon Rd
Trabuco Canyon, CA 92679

There are three places to park your car:
1) The first parking area is located right off the main road where the loose gravel road begins. (This will be a 3 mile hike on flat gravel to the start of Holy Jim Trail) 
2) The second parking spot is about 2 miles in. (This will be a mile hike to the start of Holy Jim Trail) 
3) The third parking area is right in front of the actual Holy Jim Trail.

Please be aware: the road to the Holy Jim Trail area is quite bumpy. And what we mean by bumpy is that there are dips, bumps and ditches you will be driving through. It is a 3 mile drive into the mountain. We took a truck and we would suggest taking a truck over a sedan. We saw quite a few sedans driving in but if you take a sedan be prepared to drive CAREFULLY and less than 5 mph for the entire 3 mile gravel road.

Once you see this sign, you will see where the trail begins. This is a relatively easy 3 mile round trip hike from the Holy Jim Trail sign. There was a lot of shade and it makes for nice cool temperatures. This trail is also dog friendly, so bring your pup along! We did!

With all the rainfall we had this winter, the trails have a lot of lush green scenery but there are a few river crossings. Crossing the river isn’t hard or unmanageable, but if your feet do get wet, they will be wet for a majority of the hike. So we suggest carefully hopping over the river crossings.

About a half a mile in, you will see the Holy Jim Trailhead sign. It’s right next to a small fire station.

Right in front of the trail head sign, we passed by this wagon filled with water bottles. The Holy Jim Fire Department left these for visitors so they could stay hydrated. We thought this was pretty neat for the Fire Department to do. We’ve never seen something like this on the previous hikes we’ve been on.

About a mile from the trailhead sign, you will run into this sign. Lots of people were going up to the Main Divide Road and then coming down to the Falls to cool off afterwards.

This is the view about 1/4 mile up the Main Divide Road. The views of the canyon were breathtaking.

This is view at the end of the waterfall. The falls are running hard right now due to the wet winter we recently had. The water is super clear and perfect for a dip!

Thanks for tagging along with us! This is our first blog post of many!

– K & K

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