Wildflowers at Three Sisters Waterfall Trailhead in Julian California

Cascading three tiered Three Sisters Waterfall in Pine Valley California near San Diego. Three Sisters Waterfall is one of many remote backcountry destinations in San Diego that has become increasingly popular thanks to the publicity of social media. With three successive, cascading waterfalls and pools of cool, flowing water to swim in, Three Sisters is indeed an alluring destination. But the trail to the falls has long been a bit sketchy and until recently involved a very steep descent down a heavily eroded hillside, often requiring the use of ropes. Three Sisters has always been one of those hikes that’s infamous for the number of rescues that regularly occur there. This is largely due to inexperienced “hikers” who decide to do this with insufficient preparation and planning. Since this is an “inverted” hike, where the first half involves 1000+ feet of descent into a canyon, the hard part is getting back out when you are already tired from hiking and playing the water. Another significant contributing factor is that this area can get extremely hot during the summer – temperatures can easily exceed 100 degrees in the valley.