What do you do when the dirt pullout on CA-138 already has eight or nine cars in it by 8 a.m. on a Saturday, and you know from experience the "real" lot at Camp Seely isn't yours to use anyway?
If you live in Cedarpines Park and have found a space at the public pullout, you can choose the second route instead of heading toward Heart Rock.
Heart Rock Trail, the short out-and-back to the heart-shaped rock formation beside Seeley Creek Falls, is the trail that shows up on every hiking app and every "best hikes near Crestline" list. It's earned that attention. It's a genuinely pretty half-day walk with a waterfall at the end, and it's easy enough for kids. But that same popularity is exactly why locals treat the trailhead as a starting point, not a destination. Half a mile in, past the spot most visitors never notice, there's a second trail that goes somewhere the tourist guides don't bother to describe.
The Same Trailhead, a Different Trail
Both trails begin at the same gravel pullout off Highway 138, just south of the Camp Seely entrance. Heart Rock Trail runs about 1.4 miles round trip with roughly 260 feet of elevation change, a gentle downhill walk that follows Seeley Creek to the falls and back.
The Camp Seely to Cedarpines Park Loop shares that starting point, but instead of dropping toward the creek, it follows the paved service road north. Where Heart Rock hikers peel off toward the water, this route keeps climbing. It's a longer commitment, about 2.7 miles with 839 feet of gain, and it trades a waterfall for a ridge. The payoff is a set of boulders near the top with sweeping views back over the Valley of Enchantment, then a descent through Cedarpines Park's own residential streets before looping back down to the trailhead.
It's the same parking lot serving two entirely different hikes, and almost nobody driving up from the valley knows the second one exists.
Where You're Actually Allowed to Park
Here's the part that trips up first-time hikers and the reason locals have their own workaround memorized. The gravel lot right at the Camp Seely entrance belongs to the camp, which is owned and operated by the City of Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks. It isn't public parking, no matter how empty it looks.
Public access parking is the dirt lot a short distance south along CA-138, and on weekends it fills fast. One recent trail guide put it plainly:
"The Heart Rock Trail is extremely popular, especially on weekends, and parking can fill quickly."
That single fact explains most of the frustration you'll read in online reviews, and it's exactly why the loop toward Cedarpines Park is worth knowing. Anyone parked in that lot by mid-morning has two options: head toward Heart Rock, or start walking the paved service road toward the ridge instead. Locals tend to pick the second option.
The Landmark Nobody Puts in a Trail Description
The fork between the two trails isn't marked with a sign pointing toward scenic views or a waterfall icon. It's marked by a sewage treatment plant.
That's not a knock on the hike. It's just the honest, unglamorous marker that tells you where to leave the pavement. Follow the paved road north from the trailhead, and once the treatment plant comes up on your left, the dirt trail for the Cedarpines Park loop breaks off and starts climbing. From there the route gets genuinely steep for a stretch, the kind of grade that turns a casual outing into an actual workout, before leveling out near a cluster of boulders that make a natural resting point with a clear view down into the Valley of Enchantment.
From the boulders, the trail follows a paved road back down, cuts onto one more dirt stretch along a ridge, and delivers you into Cedarpines Park proper before looping back to where you started. It's the kind of route you'd only think to try if someone who'd already hiked it told you where the second trailhead was hiding, because no directional sign along Highway 138 is going to mention a treatment plant as your turn cue.
Why the Camp Can't Even Agree on Its Own Name
If you've ever noticed that some maps say Camp Seely and others say Seeley Creek, you're not imagining a typo. You're looking at one that's over a century old.
The name traces back to the Seely brothers, David and Wellington, who built a water-powered sawmill at the site in the 1850s. Winter floods washed it out in 1861, and David Seely rebuilt elsewhere. When the City of Los Angeles bought the land in 1914 to build the camp as part of its new municipal recreation program, the name got recorded as "Seeley" on the paperwork. The camp itself kept the original one-e spelling, Seely, but the creek and the falls have carried the misspelled version ever since. Both show up on official government maps to this day.
It's a small piece of trivia, but it says something true about this stretch of the mountain. Even the paperwork can't settle on one version of the story. The trail conditions, the parking rules, the fork by the treatment plant, none of it is something you'd reliably piece together from a single map or a single app. It's the kind of local detail that gets passed along on a trail, not written down in a way outsiders would find.
A Few Practical Notes Before You Go
A short list for anyone heading up, resident or visiting family:
- Dogs are welcome on both routes, but keep them close on the narrower dirt sections near the falls and along the ridge.
- The waterfall on Heart Rock Trail runs strongest in spring, when Seeley Creek is flowing, and can dry out by late fall.
- Some recreation.gov listings for this stretch of San Bernardino National Forest still reference a Forest Adventure Pass for parking, while newer trail write-ups note it's no longer required at the main Heart Rock lot. Signage at the pullout is the most current answer, so it's worth a glance before you leave the car.
- The Camp Seely lot itself stays private property year-round. It's easy to forget when it looks half-empty on a weekday morning.
None of this makes Heart Rock Trail any less worth visiting. It's still the reason people drive up from the valley on a Saturday. But if you already live here and you've done that walk a dozen times, the loop toward Cedarpines Park is the version of the trail system that actually belongs to the neighborhood, ridge views and all, with a lot fewer people asking where the heart-shaped rock is.
That's the thing about a place like Cedarpines Park. The good stuff rarely announces itself. It's a fork in the road past a treatment plant, a spelling nobody bothered to correct, a parking workaround everyone just knows. If you're the kind of person who's already found a few of those things on your own, you understand why people who move here tend to stay.
If you're a homeowner in Cedarpines Park thinking about what a sale or a renovation might look like down the line, or you know someone eyeing a place up here, Crestline Real Estate has spent decades learning this mountain one trail, one road, and one water system at a time. Schedule a free home consultation with our local mountain experts whenever you're ready to talk through what's next.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.
