Diamond Valley Lake — Attraction in Hemet

Review from 03-26-23 COME EARLY IN THE DAY OTHERWISE YOU WONT GET IN. I learned my lesson. I came by 4:30 PM, sunset is at 7:04 PM, but the line to get into the park is way too long at that point, not moving (see my photos), and you will have to turn around and leave. They also close the park gates at 6PM, even though sunset is currently at 7:04 PM. You do not want to get locked in because they will fine and tow you. Because I could not get into the park at the top, I exited the first set of gates, parked near the sign (see photos), and I decided just to walk in the gates just a small amount to see a small patch of poppy flowers. The road that you can walk to get to the top of the mountain where you pay to enter is VERY FAR, so it's not really walkable. It's miles long. I wanted to just walk 30-50 feet inside the lower gates to see a patch from the side of the road, and a white, male employee in a white truck stopped to tell me they were closing the gates in 45 minutes, so I had to be out by then. I told him okay and I kept walking about 20 feet more. He decided to park his truck on the side of the road just 40 feet in front of me so that I could not walk any farther. I wasn't planning to anyway, but he hovered over my partner and I while we were simply taking photos of flowers from the side of the road. We did not step into the grass or on any flowers, ever. We respect nature and know you aren't supposed to step into the flowers, just look. The man drove away for a minute to close half of the entry/exit gates so no more people would come back, then he drove over again and parked closer in front of us. I definitely was not a fan of this man hovering over us. We only stayed for 15 minutes, and we left by 5:05 PM, an entire hour before the gates were going to close. It was weird this employee hovered like this, and did not make us feel welcome. We are an LGBT couple, if that was part of it. The flowers were beautiful and I would love to come back, I just hope the employees leave us...

PROS: Beautiful wildflower display this year. Came in 2019 and was awestruck: 2023 is even better. So many varieties and vivid colors like I've never seen in my entire life in so CA.

CONS: Crowds are present with some behaving poorly and trampling/picking flowers. This is not DVL's fault, but a little hard to explain to my 4 year old that grownups are breaking the rules, but we are going to obey them. This means that the security that is present is constantly whistling and yelling if they see people going off path. On weekends, expect an hour long wait to park if you want to park at the wildflower trailhead. Parking is $11 a car plus access is $3 per person 3 & over. If you don't want to pay for parking you can hike up from the bottom of the road but it's about a mile steep hike up the road. Bathrooms OOO so all there is are porta potties. Well maintained upon arrival, once we left dirty and out of paper.

Long and short: come midweek early to avoid the debacle/ if you want peace in nature. The environment is gorgeous, the crowds are probably just overwhelming...

Beautiful looking lake and the facilities were very clean. Much less crowded than many lakes. My personal experience is the only reason for the two star review. My wife and I spent days getting our sailboat ready for a trip to Diamond Valley Lake. We checked the website and water district site to make sure our vessel was allowed. We even called to make sure as the lake has strict standards to maintain water quality. Drove over two hours to get there and was turned away due to our sailboat having a swing keel. No information on any of the sites even mentioned keels or keel types (nor did the gentleman I spoke to on the phone). Dry storage at the lake had multiple swing keel sailboats. Very confused......maybe the older gentleman doing the inspection just didn't want to climb up...