Kids: YA
Beauty: B
Difficulty: S
Warning: Poison Oak - tons!
If you go on this hike, please bring a trash bag with you and pick up a few pieces. The amount of litter was SO sad!
I love hiking and I love waterfalls even more. Every hike we go on, I first look for a waterfall. If there isn't a waterfall then, I look for a stream that we can at least get a little wet in if it gets hot. Either way, I am happiest when there is water along the hike. We set you to go to Holy Jim Falls this morning, but we have been there so Mr. C decided to look up any other good hikes in Orange County and he found Black Star Canyon Waterfall. It seems to be a pretty well kept secret in Orange County, but it is an amazing waterfall in Irvine, Orange County. Too bad we didn't find it on the first try today. We will be going again with our bikes because before you get to the hike part of the trail, you walk along a long gravel then dirt road that passes through some private property.
This part of the trail is quite long and I don't particularly like "hiking" along a road.
We thought we would take our bikes through this part and lock them up when we get to the trail entrance.
We did see some wild life on the way.
Along the way we also saw some old vehicles and things...
Even though you are walking along a road, you can see the stream the entire way. It's actually pretty flowing especially for Orange County.
We stopped and had a pic-nic right on the stream. There are a few parts that you can actually get to it.
To find the trail entrance, you have to really be looking for it. You will pass some private property, it's actually a ranch with an electric fence and some more private property until you get to a little mobile home with a huge yard and a little miniature golf type putting green. When you pass that house you will find a little trail that takes you down to the stream. Follow that DOWN to the stream, not up into the mountains. We went up first. Pretty, but not the hike we were looking for.
It was a good adventure. After a little climb, we thought this might be the waterfall. But when we got closer, it was just a trickle and too hard to get to with the kids.
Anyway, once you get to the stream, you will follow that up and scramble back and forth and over and around rocks and boulders until you get to the falls. There are several tiers of falls that you can go up until you reach the double falls. Part of the falls has water rushing out of an old mine shaft. The other part is a normal natural falls where the water is rushing over the mountain.
Following the stream up is key, otherwise you may not find it. You can follow the road a ways and get to the top somehow. But we were after the swimming.
In short, Blackstar canyon had a lot to see, some water and gave us some good exersize. It was private once you got to the stream, we also hiked on a week day. But we did find maybe about half a dozen pieces of trash to pick up along the way.
