We live in the best place in the effing country. We live an hour from Joshua Tree. An hour from LA. An hour from Disneyland. And only 40 minutes from the very, very wonderful Heart Rock Trail in Crestline.
Our friend, the creek
Driving up to the small town of Crestline is via a wonderfully windy mountain road just North of San Bernardino. The trailhead is just to the left of Camp Seely, a mountain camp owned by the City of Los Angeles (which sounds weird to me, too), but make sure NOT to park in the Camp Seely parking lot. Instead, veer to the left at the fork and find a parking spot in any number of dirt parking spaces on the side of the road. Obviously, if you block the road or others, you are a dick. Don’t be a dick.
Heart Rock In All Its Glory
Once you hit the trail, you are immediately surrounded by a variety of pines, some of which have fallen across the trail, which is the only real hazards you may encounter on your journey. There’s also a beautiful creek that the trail clings to, which is pretty dang sweet. We were fortunate enough to come across a 10 week old red husky baby that reminded me of Gozer when we first adopted him. In all of our ooing and aahing, we forgot to ask her name. But it’s OK, I saw it in her eyes, her true name was Nala.
Selfieception
After a straddling a few fallen trees to get over them, we came across the namesake landmark: Heart Rock. It’s a pretty straightforward moniker: there is a rock with the shape of a heart hollowed out inside. After the requisite photoshoot, we started heading back down the trail. We made sure to stop along the creek, poking at some weird bugs and judging the turds who carved their initials into the trees like some real fuckos. Aaaaand that’s it. It’s a short hike, only about ¾ mile each way, but absolutely worth the drive to go check it out. Go check it out.
