By Doug Curlee | Editor at Large

As San Diego State, Caltrans, and the city of San Diego try to decide what to do about the problems surrounding Adobe Falls in Del Cerro, an alternative possibility has arisen — if only all sides buy into it.

Dr. Eric Frost of San Diego State is, among other things, the person in charge of the school’s Viz Center and the Homeland Security graduate program. He’s also a very longtime resident of Del Cerro, and concerned about the problems the illegal visits to the Falls have caused, and are still causing.

“All the sides in this are trying to figure out what to do about the foot traffic to and from the Falls, but there’s something most of them haven’t realized, and that is the fact that social media has turned the Falls into an international tourist destination,” Frost said. “There’s no getting around that, and maybe we ought to be rethinking all this with that fact in mind.”

Frost’s grad students have put together a presentation about this alternative that ought to be seen by everyone involved, because it’s pretty persuasive.

You have only to enter “Adobe Falls” on Google, or Bing, or any search engine, and you’ll see site after site talking about how to get to the Falls, and thousands upon thousands of comments found by the grad students have more than confirmed that those suggestions are being followed.

If there is a site where photos can be published, you can be certain you’ll find untold numbers of photos of the wild and colorful graffiti painted on the rocks of lower Falls.

Frost’s grad students have talked with many foreign students at SDSU, and discovered that a lot of them actually decided to come to SDSU so they could go to the Falls.

Most of them have accessed the Falls through the tunnel under Interstate 8 from a parking lot at the university. A smaller number have in the past gotten to the Falls from the area along Mill Peak Road running along the north rim of Alvarado Canyon.

None of those routes are legal — they all involve trespassing, either on SDSU property, or the yards and fences of homes along Mill Peak.

SDSU has built a 200-foot fence at the Mill Peak entrance, but that won’t really stop the determined ones from getting to the Falls.

Frost has a proposal that would radically alter the conversations about the Falls — actually, two proposals.

“First, the university has to take ownership of the problem,” he said.

“There are things that could be done that would actually benefit the school, by allowing access through the tunnel, and charging parking fees in the university lots when they’re not jammed with student cars. The parking fees go to the student government, and it’d be a big boost for them. The school would have to reach some agreement with Caltrans about the under-freeway tunnel, which is primarily for drainage during the wet season.”

Frost points out something else that other professors helped him find out.

“Due to the drainage over the years, and the amount of topsoil that comes along with storm drainage, the area around Lower Falls has become something of a delta, with deposits of incredibly rich soil that would work well as an urban farming laboratory. It’s always greener down there than it is in other areas of the canyon, and that’s why.”

Spokespeople at SDSU and Caltrans say they’re continually working on a solution to the Adobe Falls problem, but have no idea when — or even if — they will find one.

Frost thinks his alternative should be in the mix somehow, and says there are other faculty members agreeing with him.

Will it happen? Who knows?

But while we’re waiting for someone to decide, go to your favorite search engine and enter “Adobe Falls.”

The colorful pictures alone are worth the look, but I don’t suggest taking the hike that all the hiking and trail sites suggest you take.

For now, at least, you’d be trespassing.

And that’s illegal.

—Doug Curlee is Editor at Large. Reach him at [email protected].