Outdoors

Choose Your Adventure

Cliff Jumping Big Falls

Growing up on Indiana Jones movies, in a family of five kids, outdoor hunting for buried treasure was simply a part of kid-dom. All you needed were the map coordinates, a compass, a promise of splendor, no concept for how to get there and a clueless sidekick. We had a flair for the dramatic and also made sure to include a hat and a bull whip for full effect.

If you are a San Luis Obispo local or a visitor to our glorious region, consider this your chance to step into a modern adventure, and spend a Saturday trying to locate the elusive duo of waterfalls, Big Falls and Little Falls, before they mystically evaporate in the summer heat.

Rumored to be an 80 foot waterfall in the surge of April showers, Big Falls is nestled into the Santa Lucia Wilderness, just above Lake Lopez. Pouring over the intricate geologic tracing of limestone, both Big and Little Falls create a number of cool, deep pools. The real adventure is not just finding them, but in accepting the whispered local challenge of jumping off the higher waterfall into the small, but deep pool 80 feet below. Only the most observant of adventurers can read the depth of a pool, so proceed with caution.

Now if cliff jumping isn’t enough to spark a local adventurer’s mind, then the falls certainly reward the hiker with refreshing swimming pools. Rest assured that visual treasures abound.

Reaching the falls is quite the endeavor, as the only directions you can find read like tall tales of bygone days. The road up Lopez Canyon crosses a creek more than a dozen times before dead-ending at the Big Falls trailhead, where adventurers must continue on foot. So having attempted the trip, turning back once as a result of bringing the CR-V instead of the Tacoma, and finally getting there, let me expound on the kind of details (see below) one would only gain access to after uncovering clues and details and piecing them together.

SLO LIFE

Getting there...

Driving directions: Head toward Lake Lopez on Highway 227, eventually heading east. Follow the signs to Lake Lopez. Once the lake is in sight, watch for the first road on the right. Turn right on High Mountain Road. At about 0.8 miles, turn left onto Upper Lopez Canyon Road. This is the key: follow this road past six concrete fords and past a Boy Scouts Camp, up and over a ridge. The views are beautiful before you descend the junction of Waters End Road and Upper Lopez Canyon Road. At this point if you have a low clearance vehicle, park your car in one of the spaces near this junction. If you choose to continue on the Upper Lopez Canyon Road (located on your right), you will begin crossing the Lopez Creek and could incur damage to your car and lose heart altogether. From here you drive/walk about 1.5 miles through eight Lopez Creek crossings to get to the trailhead.

Hiking directions: Once at the small parking lot, the Lopez Canyon Trail keeps winding ahead, but watch for a trailhead that is not marked. It’s on the west side of the road. Follow this trail along the creek, cross it, and on the opposite side head up and into the Big Falls Canyon. Enjoy the shade, but beware of poison oak. Within about a half-of-a-mile, you will find yourself staring up at the lower waterfall, about 40 feet high with a pool at its base. From here you can stay on the path and continue onward and up to the upper falls (about an 80 foot waterfall, where risk takers cliff jump).