Western Sojourns: Travels with Camissonia: HARFORD SPRINGS RESERVE: 3/10/17 (Gavilan Hills, Riverside County, CA)

Monday, May 29, 2017

HARFORD SPRINGS RESERVE: 3/10/17 (Gavilan Hills, Riverside County, CA)

Harford Springs Reserve is a 325 acre Riverside County Park that sits on a plateau at around 2,000' elevation in the Gavilan Hills area 2 miles south of Cajalco Road. Oaks, California Junipers, a nice variety of spring wildflowers and the absence of throngs of visitors makes this place a true hidden gem. One of the takeaways from this trip (other than the inherent beauty of this locale) is the fact that you can't always trust WAZE. Yes, Waze - that GPS-based navigation app that so many of us love to use when stuck in traffic. I'd say it's about 90% accurate most of the time, but in this case we ended up on the south part of the reserve at an entry point that was gated because it happened to be private property. So Waze took us from I-15N to Cajalco Road east, then south on Lake Mathews Drive, north on Gavilan Road, north on Idaleona Road, and finally north on Piedras Road where we dead ended at the gate. Undeterred or perhaps clueless at this point, we continued up Piedras Road and turned left at the next intersection on Panamint Road where we parked across a farmstead. The lady of the manor was very friendly, surrounded by her large pack of barking and jumping doggies and enthusiastic children, and said that we could hike into the preserve from across the way, and so we did. The trails here are dog, horse, bicycle, and ATV friendly, but we didn't encounter any of the above on this trek. I wasn't able to find an official website for this RivCo park, but here's one from a hiker who has traversed these parts: http://californiathroughmylens.com/harford-springs-reserve. On our return back to Cajalco Road, we discovered that the "official" entry to the park was only a short distance south of Cajalco Road off Gavilan Road, so duly trip-noted.