The Forest Service said it closed all falls access three days after 16-year-old Joseph Meram slipped and fell down a steep cliff, landing in the water below in order to provide time to design and implement a management plan that addresses issues of overcrowding, damaging impacts to natural resources and public safety.

As of April 1st, 2012 the US Forest Service released a statement saying that the Cedar Creek Falls is now open but only from the east side. Cliffs surrounding the falls are now closed to jumping and diving, but swimming is allowed. All alcohol use and possession is strictly prohibited in the area.  The Forest Service said it hopes to make a decision on re-opening full access this summer.

During the late 1890′s as more foreigners moved into the Escondido region, the city needed to find a way to bring water to their residents. For hundreds of years the Kumeyaay had been getting their water from the San Louis Ray River basin. Henry Rodriguez of the La Jolla Band remembers when the basin was lush. “I look back to what it was like when I was young, around eight or nine years old. It was full of vegetation, clean water and wildlife. Everything looked green. There were dry years, we know that, but there was enough to give us a good life.”[1]

That all changed with the building of the Escondido Canal. The settlers started to purchase land so they could divert the water from the river into the city. They succeeded in gaining those rights and began diverting enough water to supply approximately 67,000 residents. Many of those residents today don’t know that some of their water comes from the canal. Most of the years the canal is dried up, as was such when I went to it, but during the winter after several storms there can be water in the canal once again.

Read more »

From the Forest Service Website:

The Cedar Creek Falls trailhead, trail and falls area will remain closed as the Forest Service is continuing to work with partner agencies and interested public groups to develop measures that provide for the safety of visitors and quality of resource base. The original closure was put into place on July 9, 2011, and ran through November 8, 2011. A new closure order has been implemented that extends the closure through April 1, 2012. The purpose of the closure is to give the Forest Service time to design and implement a management plan to address issues of public safety, overcrowding, and resource impacts.
The Forest Service is moving ahead with the development of a management plan for the area and will conduct an analysis under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) prior to finalizing and implementing the plan. The target for the completion of the NEPA is late March, 2012. A decision on whether or not a permit would be required to hike the trail in the future will not be made until the conclusion of the NEPA process. The permitting system course of action is one that will be studied, while other alternatives will be studied as well.
The closed area includes the trailhead at Thornbush Road, the trail to and from Cedar Creek Falls from the Thornbush Road Trailhead, the trailhead area at Saddleback (located on Eagle Peak Road), the trail from Saddleback, and the specific Cedar Creek Falls site. The closure area extends for ¼ mile on both sides of the trails and the falls.