1.1 miles (one way). Easy hiking with views
back into the valley.

For centuries, Cupeño Indians from Warner Springs traveled this canyon in and out of the valley they called Wiatava to gather acorns. Living in small brush shelters, they would spend several weeks in Lost Valley each fall, harvesting, grinding, and storing acorns--their staple food. The bedrock mortars they used still exist. Later, perhaps as early as the 1870s, cattlemen used the trail through this canyon to bring their stock in and out of the valley they named Lost Valley.

In September of 1944 a fire was raging in the hills above Lost Valley, and caterpillar tractors and fire crews needed to get into the valley to make a stand. The old Indian trail was a natural route for them to follow. Herschel Higgins from the Forest Service station in Oak Grove was on the fire line. Now 91, he recalls,

“We had eight bulldozers, and I had charge of them. We had a crazy old cat skinner from up north and I put him on a D-7 and I said, ‘Henry, put a road on that old trail...just stay on the trail and put a road on it.’ And he said, ‘Follow the trail?’ And I said, ‘That’s all right with me, now take off!’ Boy, he took off into the brush and went down with all eight of them and got to the other end. They never stopped, they never looked back. And when we got to the other end there was an Army truck right behind them that drove right down into Lost Valley.”

The fire never reached Lost Valley, but ironically, a small fire started accidentally by the volunteer fire crews flared up a few weeks later and destroyed the old log barn behind the Bergman Cabin. The Indian Road, as the Scouts later dubbed it, was the first road into Lost Valley. Now kept open strictly for emergencies, it makes an easy hike out to the boundary of the Los Coyotes Indian Reservation. Unlike most trails in the Lost Valley area, much of the road is in the shade, even in middle of the day.

The trailhead is located just across the road from the COPE course at Borrego Junction. Coming up from the Rifle Range, the road to the junction passes a major acorn grinding site on the right, with dozens of mortars pounded into the bedrock. This site was still used by the Cupeño as late as 1900, before their “removal” to the Pala Reservation in 1903.

0.0 Trailhead. The gate which closes off the road to vehicles (installed in 1991) is visible just ahead. The road climbs up, then turns to the right, passing below Castle Rock, with its two wind-eroded “windows”.

0.2 First overview of the valley. Indian Rock is visible looming above the Shotgun Range. Ahead is the first of several creek crossings on the road. Depending on the season, this creek can be bone dry, or quite soggy.

0.4 Cathedral Rocks, Lost Valley’s major rock climbing area, are just off the road to your right. Remember that rock climbing requires skill, equipment, and (while at Lost Valley) adult supervision.

0.45 As you enter this unnamed canyon, you leave Lost Valley Scout Reservation and enter the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, our 600,000-acre neighbor. Across the canyon to your right, an old cattle trail is clearly visible. This may be a survivor of the original Indian trail through this canyon. The plantlife in the canyon is interesting. On the right (south) side of the canyon are black oak trees and some pines, but to the left (north) is largely the low brushy chaparral so typical of these hills.

0.9 Off to your right is Taka’at Rock, another climbing area (Taka’at is a Cupeño word that means point). More bedrock mortars can be found around its base.

1.1 The gate here marks the boundary between the state park and the Los Coyotes Indian Reservation, which was set aside in 1889 for the Cahuilla Indians who once lived in Coyote Canyon. Prior permission is needed from the Tribal Council before entering the reservation, so this must be your turn-around point. Looking back down the canyon in several spots, you can see back across the valley and even catch a few glimpses of the Lost Valley Road.