CEDAR CREEK FALLS -- The cool, deep, pool of water at the bottom of Cedar Creek Falls is gone.

So is the sparkling 100-foot waterfall which dropped to the bottom of the canyon and fed the pool east of Ramona.

Both fell victim to the huge Cedar fire, which blazed through central San Diego County last year and scorched the watershed on the lower slopes of the Cuyamaca Mountains. The barren terrain that was left in its wake eroded during the winter and filled the creek and pool with sediment, sand and debris.

People who used to take the long hot hike into the canyon for the refreshing swim have pretty much given it up, authorities said Tuesday. The U.S. Forest Service has posted signs that the area is closed, and agency personnel said there are no plans to clean out the pool.

"We're going to let nature take its course," said Chris Nyce, U.S. Forest Service recreation and land officer in Ramona.

No one knows how many years it might take for nature to flush out the pond, particularly in a region known for drought. It will depend on how quickly the watershed recovers and the erosion stops, Nyce said.

"This is probably the first time this has happened in the last 50 years, but it's probably happened many times before," he said.

The swimming hole, once 50 feet wide and up to 25 feet deep in spots, is now packed so solidly with erosion debris that sheriff's helicopter crews are using the former pool to practice confined area landings.

A helicopter weighing 2,500 to 3,000 pounds barely makes a faint ripple in the dirt and sand during a landing at the base of the falls, said Sgt. Jon Shellhammer of the sheriff's air unit known as ASTREA (Aerial Support To Regional Enforcement Agencies).

"It's amazing," Shellhammer said. "If someone had told me that would fill in that fast, I would never have believed it."

With the disappearance of the water, the number of rescues has plummeted at Cedar Creek Falls. So far this year sheriff's helicopter deputies have helped two people to safety.

Last year the helicopter crews rescued 30 people and one dog. One person was a fall victim, a young man who jumped off the top of the falls and broke his neck.

"All the other 29 were heat exhaustion victims who simply ran out of water down there," said Shellhammer. "They just flat collapse on the trail."

The canyon is much larger, the hike much longer, and the temperatures much hotter than most people realize. It is 1,000 feet to the canyon floor, over 1.5 to 2 miles," said Deputy Keith Dalton of the Sheriff's Julian Substation.

"A lot of people got down there and had a quart of water when they should have had a gallon," said Joan Wynn, Forest Service spokeswoman in Rancho Bernardo.

As Nyce phrases it, Cedar Creek Falls "has been a challenging area to manage."

Most hikers start at the trail head off Ramona Oaks Road on the Ramona side or at the end of Eagle Peak Road on the Julian side.

The sheriff's helicopter crews have had to patrol the canyon, because it is a 45-minute drive at 30 mph for 20 miles of rough road for patrol deputies to get into the falls area.

During the years a lot of time, effort and taxpayer dollars have been spent rescuing people, many of whom were drinking at some point in the canyon, authorities said.

"It's always been a major concern also that we were going to have a fire there," Dalton said. "With the pond not being there, we're looking to it being quieter."

Contact staff writer Jo Moreland at (760) 740-3524 or jmoreland@nctimes.com.