Falls Canyon Falls ("Hidden Falls")

Falls Canyon Falls (also known as “Hidden Falls”) was an elusive waterfall that nearly defeated us as I’m sure it probably had many others. In fact, we weren’t even aware of the existence of this falls until Julie stumbled upon an OC hiking blog as well as a photo showing that it had pretty good flow just two days prior to our late February weekend visit in 2016. It was definitely not in any of our waterfalling hiking guides. And yet it was through those vague directions given on that blog that led us to some moments of frustration and even having a GEICO commercial moment arguing amongst ourselves before experiencing the elation of reaching the falls after having finally figured out where we were supposed to go. You see, there was a reason why they called this falls “Hidden Falls”, and this was despite the amount of vehicular traffic going right past the mouth of the canyon containing this waterfall. Ultimately what did the trick for us was that we studied the topographic maps prior to making our visit, and it was only because of our ability to correlate the map with what we were observing in the field did we finally realize how misleading the internet literature could be (note the irony as I say this since this write-up is technically part of the internet literature concerning this falls).

So was the effort and moments of mental anguish worth it? Well, as you can see from the photo above, when it’s flowing, this nearly 40ft waterfall was probably more scenic than the nearby Holy Jim Falls. However, in addition to the rather obscure and hidden nature of this falls, we suspect that it might also have a short season. What you see pictured above was merely three days after the last fairly significant rain storm that hit this part of Orange County in February 2016. Granted, we had a rather unusually dry month of February where that storm was the lone one that replenished the watershed of Falls Canyon for the moment, but Julie said she saw a photo on the internet taken just two days prior to our visit showing even more waterflow than what we were able to witness. Therefore, we suspect that unless there had been a bit of snow accumulation in the Santa Ana Mountains, this waterfall probably wouldn’t have much flow beyond a week of no rain after the last significant rain.

Our “hike” (which was more of a scramble) began from the hidden mouth of Falls Canyon. The nearest pullout to the start of the scramble into Falls Canyon is given in the directions below. You really have to pay attention to the canyon walls within Trabuco Canyon, and keep an eye out for a opening where a side canyon (Falls Canyon itself) would confluence with it. Once that confluence is found, that was when we looked real hard for clues as to where to make the scramble to enter Falls Canyon. Luckily, once we found the correct path, Julie spotted a steep gully that led down from the rough Trabuco Creek Road down to a log crossing traversing Trabuco Creek. Immediately beyond the log crossing of the creek, we then spotted a trail-of-use that went over another fallen log before we were able to spot a small cave to our left within the mouth of Falls Canyon.

The cave wasn’t deep, and there really wasn’t a whole lot to see in there, but it was the key landmark that indicated to us that we were in the right place. At this point, we pretty much followed the trail-of-use that was obvious in spots and tricky in others as we meandered along the seasonal stream responsible for Falls Canyon. Some of the trickier moments involved scrambling over log jams, over rocks with dropoffs as well as narrow ledges, and all the while we were doing our best to minimize skin exposure to the ubiquitous poison oak. That said, our five-year-old daughter was able to make it through most of this trail on her own, and she only required a little assistance from us in the trickiest spots.

Falls Canyon was remarkably quiet as it was apparent to us that this place was not that well-discovered. So unlike some of the other local hikes we’ve been to where graffiti and litter would be a major problem, these eyesores were noticeably absent during our visit. Let’s hope it stays that way, but I do fear that it’s only a matter of time before this place becomes a social media darling, and then you’ll start to get people with little regard for Nature and start trashing the place (as had many other places that wound up in Yelp). In the end, we spent about 45 minutes to get from Trabuco Creek Road to the dead-end right at Falls Canyon Falls, which according to our trip logs was roughly 0.6 miles in each direction. We took a little less time on the way out (about 35 minutes; mostly because we knew where we were going) so I’d allow at least two hours for this excursion for both the hiking as well as some time spent just enjoying the waterfall.

We definitely wouldn’t attempt this hike if there was any threat of rain given how flooded Trabuco Creek can get, and the evidence of flash flooding from log jams within Falls Canyon itself attested to the inherent dangers here. And speaking of safety around the falls, we noticed that there were some rope tied to hanging limbs against the nearly vertical cliffs surrounding the waterfall. I’m sure some people have probably managed to throw caution to the wind and climb the ropes to continue further up Falls Canyon, but I shudder to think how weather worn these ropes would be so we ignored them. So we were pretty content with experiencing this waterfall from its base before we headed back.