Birthday Trip to Idyllwild
I don’t know about anyone else, but with quarantine and canceled trips this Spring, I was itching to get to the mountains by Summer. About a month ago we did just that! On a Friday afternoon we hit the road from San Diego to drive the two hours to Idyllwild for a weekend of camping with friends! I don’t know why I had never thought to go camping for my birthday before, but it was a great way to spend it.
We arrived in the late afternoon and set up camp at Stone Creek Campground, and then drove into town for firewood and an adventure pass (a necessity if you’re going to be hiking in the San Bernardino National Forest - which is most trails in this area). The adventure pass is $5 a day, per car. Or, if you know you’ll be in areas that require it often, you can buy an annual pass for $30 dollars which also gets you a 2nd car pass for only an additional $5. This ended up being the best bet for us! Love having an additional excuse to get out and hike too ;).
Once back at the campground we lounged in the hammock until our friends arrived, and then started dinner at the campsite, fajita bowls! Rice, bell peppers, chicken, black beans, guac, cheese…all the fixings. Definitely a favorite for us when car camping. And to top off the delicious dinner, Jon brought a homemade cookie cake and candles to celebrate my birthday. We ate more than necessary and star gazed before heading into our tents to rest up for an early morning of hiking.
Although we were in the mountains and at high elevation, I believe Idyllwild is still technically in the desert (or if not it’s definitely surrounded by desert), so it got pretty warm during the day. Since we were camping with our dog, and our friends had their dog, we decided to hit the trails early to avoid hiking in the hottest part of the day. Because we had the dogs, we also didn’t want a hike that was too strenuous. We decided on the Ernie Maxwell Trail. It’s about a 5 mile out and back, but we added on and hiked some of the Devils Slide trail as well. We definitely hit the trail at the perfect timing, it was much cooler than later in the day, we had that great golden morning light, and it was much less crowded. Devils Slide trail seemed to have more people than the Ernie Maxwell Trail, I think it’s a more popular trail and it didn’t help that it was a bit later in the morning when we were hiking part of it. Most people we passed were super great about wearing their face masks, and we had ours, so we felt comfortable the whole time. They were nice trails with gorgeous views!
After hiking, we headed back to the campsite for a late breakfast/early lunch of breakfast burritos. Sooo good! Our plan for the rest of the afternoon was to hopefully check out Lake Fulmor, but the parking lot was packed when we arrived and we decided it wasn’t worth it. It didn’t help that it was hot and swimming wasn’t allowed in the lake either, so we weren’t motivated to stay. Instead we drove back to our campsite and decided to spend the afternoon there. This is so rare for us on most camping trips! We’re usually out all day hiking, so it was a nice change of pace. We relaxed in our camping chairs, played a few rounds of corn hole - with the challenging obstacle of tree branches - and created our own happy hour with sangria.
That night for dinner our friends grilled steaks over the campfire and served them with salad, so good! Especially paired with red wine, of course. After dinner we spent the evening playing games and eating s’mores.
The next morning, we got up early again and went on a hike from the Idyllwild campground (this campground was closer to town than the one we stayed in). We may or may not have lost the initial loop we had planned, but we still made it a fun hike and made up our own route! After the hike we had breakfast at the campgrounds, then packed the cars up to head back to the ‘real world’.
It was a the perfect getaway weekend in the mountains!