Agua Caliente Falls

0.6 miles. Moderate trail with a few steep spots.
Natural swimming pool at Agua Caliente Falls.

The natural swimming pool below Agua Caliente Falls has always been the most popular hiking destination in the Lost Valley area. Scouts have been hiking down here to swim since the earliest days of camp.

The canyon has been a natural route of travel in and out of Lost Valley since Indian times. Early maps call the creek that runs through it Lost Valley Creek. The Bergmans called the area Dark Canyon. Today the creek is known as Agua Caliente Creek because it comes out near Warner Hot Springs (Agua Caliente means “hot water” in Spanish).

The trailhead is located in the spillway of the dam at the bottom of Lake Virginia. The trail runs above the creek for quite a ways before it finally drops down for the last few hundred yards to the Falls. Most of the trail is easy to follow.

The falls are located at the narrowest point in canyon, where all the water in the creek is forced to the surface and pours through a narrow cleft in the rocks. The depth of the pool below changes from year to year as it is filled and emptied of sand by winter storms. When completely flushed out, the pool is about eight feet deep at the very center. The bottom is cone-shaped, with a ledge below the waterline on the lower side. Always check the bottom first, not just for depth, but to find any sharp rocks or branches. There are other shallow pools downstream from the main pool. There is also a shallow pool at the top of the falls.

Back to Trails Page