[pct-l] Walk from Paradise Valley Cafe to Idyllwild

[anneirenehildebrand at gmail.com]

Hi all

I've been hiking and not interneting so please excuse if this is a repeat. 

I just figured I'd share my experience going from the Paradise Valley Cafe to Idyllwild on foot to add to the general knowledge for those wanting to do so. I based my plan off of this map from Hiking Jim http://caltopo.com/map?id=7S5F

which was sent out previously on the list.

 I was unable to locate the yellow "bypass option 2" that runs parallel to the highway. It must be on the other side of all that private property. However, the road walk there is not bad as there's a significant shoulder and nice views of the mountains from the valley.

You can get water from the hose behind the grocery store by lake Hemet. There's a bathroom there too. I recommend patronizing the store if you want to use it. But you don't have to it seems. 

From the northeastern part of lake Hemet, I took the blue "bypass option 3". This appears to be a dirt service road for the telephone polls. WARNING: as such it does not have nice easy switchbacks and instead has some serious PUDs (pointless ups and downs) in the beginning. The dirt road is pretty washed out but easy to follow. You'll be rewarded with some pine forests on the ridge and views of San jacinto and the valley on each side to the north and south. 

On the other side, I got a bit off track before reconnecting with the highway (there's a few dirt roads back here but nothing to get you hopelessly lost) and came across a lake Hemet park trailer and a nice guy inside who told me how to get to the highway. It should have been easy. My mistake. 

Now, if you look at the map in the link, where the blue line crosses hwy 74, this is where I should have come out, but I came out a bit to the east due to my error. So I just had a meal at the cafe at the intersection of hwy 74 and hwy 243, and you might want to too. 

In any case, the next step is to go west (left) to the road called: McCall Park Road. It's well signed toward McCall Memorial Park. It's paved. ignore the "not a through street" sign. Continue along the road (WARNING: it's steep and shadeless) to the end, when it turns into McCall trail to Idyllwild.

Note: if you do eat at the cafe and you look at google maps, don't be fooled into thinking you can cut through to McCall on the unnamed side road. It's a private road.

After McCall trail connects with the highway, Hiking Jim had another option to continue across the highway but it has a ? mark on it so I thought I'd be adventurous. Before meeting the highway, there are unmarked but maintained trails that lead north to Idyllwild, just below the highway. I took these for as long as possible but ultimately was forced to road walk the last mile, which I don't recommend as there's hardly any shoulder. 

moral of the story: road walk from Paradise Valley to lake Hemet isn't bad. dirt service road from lake Hemet to hwy 74 works great. McCall trail gets you to 243 without as much road walk. from there we need some fine tuning. 

sorry if any of this is in any way that im unaware of not a good way to go. use at your own risk ymmv

much love
kimchi (pants)

photo 1- steep climb on the service road
photo 2-  view 
photo 3 - helpful lake Hemet guy
photo 4 - McCall park trail which starts after the paved road dead ends
photo 5 - blue dot where McCall park trail begins. white, unnamed road running east to west that connects the small lake and hwy 243 is a PRIVATE road