San Diego and its surrounding areas offer some fantastic hikes with stunning views. However, depending on the trail you choose, they can get quite crowded. My wife and I decided to explore Mission Trails Regional Park.
Mission Trails Regional Park, an open space preserve established in 1974, is home to one of the most popular hikes in San Diego: the Cowles Mountain Trail. This trail offers a breathtaking view of San Diego but can get very busy, with hundreds of people hiking it daily. When we set out for our hike, we were hoping for a more serene experience.
Honestly, I'm not even sure which trail we ended up on. We just followed Google Maps, parked, and wandered around until we found a trail that looked interesting enough for us to walk on.
For us, something that looks interesting and worth walking on usually means there's some sort of water. Whether it's a lake, river, or stream. Any moving water tends to excite us, and any still water we generally try to avoid it because it often means there are lots of mosquitoes. My wife is extremely allergic to them.
The trails were nice, mostly covered in decomposed granite, which made for a fairly easy hike with minimal uphill sections. It eventually led us to a great lookout spot. I really love this next photo, but I should mention (obviously) it’s been heavily edited with Photoshop to enhance the view
We continued along the path and eventually came across a cool tree that had clearly fallen at some point. Probably due to the weather, but it kept growing. Next to it was a bridge. However, the bridge doesn’t span the current water flow, so I assume it got displaced during the last bad storms we had.
We spent about 15 minutes here relaxing in the shade and drinking some water, as it had been quite hot. Until this point, there hadn’t been much shade; many hikes in San Diego lack tree cover due to the natural vegetation in the area. So, we definitely take advantage of any shade we can find.
As we navigated the easy path, we had to watch out for a few rocks to avoid twisting an ankle, but overall it was a straightforward hike. We finally came across the water we had been looking for and followed it for a while before the trail began to lead us uphill.
Once we started heading uphill, there wasn't much to see. The vegetation in this area isn’t particularly striking. It tends to be low-lying and not very impressive. However, once we neared the top of the trail, the view was pretty spectacular.
The clouds really made this photo. it wouldn’t have looked as great without the cloud cover. Overall, I couldn’t have asked for more from this hike. I’m looking forward to getting back into hiking more. My kids are getting older and starting to show some interest in it. I’m not sure how many of these longer hikes we can tackle, but if I can get my kids enjoying it and having fun, I’m all in.
I admire how secluded places are in the West. I remember driving through deep forests likely nobody ever entered for several hours :)) Completely different to bustling New England states ;)
There's so much open land here that you can always find a peaceful, secluded spot. However, once a hiking trail or location starts trending on social media, it tends to get crowded quickly.
I got the my son and his mates into Geocaching which helped keep them interested, for a bit, !LOL on family hikes
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Oh! I've heard about geocaching! I might have to check that out! My oldest would probably enjoy it. At least for a while!
!LOL
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