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Our First Visit to Sycamore Canyon Wilderness Park – Riverside, CA

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We love to hike, but sometimes we’re more interested in exploring wide-open spaces than climbing to the top of a hill. Last Sunday, my wife and I planned to spend the day roaming the Santa Rosa Plateau Ecological Reserve in Murrieta, but decided to stay local and visit the Sycamore Canyon Wilderness Park in Riverside instead.

Sycamore Canyon Wilderness Park

While Sycamore Canyon is tucked in between homes and businesses, it is much larger than we expected. From myscamorecanyon.com:

The Sycamore Canyon Wilderness Park is a large 1,500 acre public open space park that is one of eight protected, core reserves. Designated by the Riverside County Habitat Conservation Agency (RCHCA) for the Federally-listed endangered species Dipodomys stephensi, the Stephens’ kangaroo rat (SKR), the park serves as both a habitat and a recreational hub.

We went for a 3.4-mile hike and only explored a small part of the park.

First Hike at Sycamore Canyon

Since this was our first trip, I checked the internet to find out where to go. I found this map on mysycamorecanyon.com:

Sycamore Canyon Map

We started at the main trail head near The Ameal Moore Nature Center on Central Ave. According to the website, this is the only entrance with a dedicated parking lot. The nature center didn’t have any maps to hand out, so the attendant suggested we use Google Maps to navigate. We didn’t use any maps, but used one of the higher peaks as our landmark since the trails aren’t marked. There are also no bathrooms or drinking fountains out on the trails.

Sycamore Canyon Wilderness Park

Sycamore Canyon Wilderness Park

Sycamore Canyon Wilderness Park

Sycamore Canyon Wilderness Park

The peak near the middle of the picture is the one we used as our landmark while hiking.

Sycamore Canyon Wilderness Park

Sycamore Canyon Wilderness Park

This is the view from a rock formation near the Sycamore Highlands Park. We look forward to going back on a clear day.

Sycamore Canyon Wilderness Park

My wife enjoying the view.

Sycamore Canyon Wilderness Park

Even though we didn’t go further into the park, we still found ourselves surrounded by nature.

Sycamore Canyon Wilderness Park

We even made some new friends.

Sycamore Canyon Wilderness Park

Sycamore Canyon Wilderness Park

We hope to get on the other side of this ravine on a future trip.

Sycamore Canyon Wilderness Park

This is the view from the peak we used as our landmark.

Sycamore Canyon Wilderness Park

This is me standing at the top.

Sycamore Canyon Wilderness Park

Nice day. We will be back.

Looking for more hiking spots in and around Riverside? Check out our list of Places to Hike in Riverside and Beyond. #hikeriverside

Sycamore Canyon Wilderness Park
400 Central Avenue, Riverside, CA 92507
mysycamorecanyon.com

First Hike up to the Giant “M”

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Have you ever thought about climbing up to the big “M” on Box Springs Mountain?  We have, and we finally did it last weekend.

If you don’t know what I’m writing about, the big “M” overlooks Moreno Valley and is visible from the 215 and 60 freeways as you pass by or through Moreno Valley.

I didn’t have any idea where to start our hike so I checked out the area around the “M” on Google maps.  I noticed a parking lot off Hidden Springs Dr. (near Pigeon Pass Rd.), which turned out to be for the Box Springs Mountain Park.  There is a trail map at the park (which someone decided to draw pictures on), but it didn’t help us too much so I am glad that I looked at the aerial photos first.

After our hike, I visited Riverside County’s rivcoparks.org website, which has a map of the various trails on Box Springs Mountain.  We followed the “M” Trail (the red line), which the rivcoparks.org website lists as difficult.

Although we didn’t see many people on the trail, we did see a range of people including parents with kids, young adults with dogs, and a few elder statesmen who left us in the dust.

Once we reached the “M”, the view was great, although it was a bit of a hazy day.

The “M” is so large that I couldn’t fit it all into the frame when I was standing just slightly downhill from it.

You can’t see it too well in this picture, but there is quite a bit of graffiti on the “M”. I wonder if people would continue to deface the “M” if they knew how much time, effort and money volunteers have contributed to maintain the “M” since it was originally constructed in the mid-1960s. Unfortunately, I believe the answer is that some people still would.

If you take the “M” trail, bring enough water to last you to the “M” and back. Other than the drinking fountain at the bottom of the mountain, there is no water on the trail.

There are some challenging spots, especially if you choose to take some of the straight up paths rather than the zigzag paths. We hiked the trail in running shoes, but we might buy hiking boots for our next hike to handle the slippery and steep parts of the trail better. Unlike Mt. Rubidoux, the trail leading up to the “M” is all dirt and rock.

Next time we visit Box Springs Mountain, we will try to find out how to reach the big “C” that overlooks UCR.

Looking for more hiking spots in and around the Inland Empire? Check out our list of Places to Hike in Riverside and Beyond. #hikeriverside