El MonteTrail, in La Canada de los Coches Country

My Gourmet Hiking Club buddies made a last minute change in plans to check out the newly opened El Monte Trail - just three weeks ago - and what a wonderful trail on a beautiful San Diego day. Two miles to the top of El Monte. Boulder free for a change, a bit of a luxury in hiking out here.

Not only that, but I checked off one of the Ranchos of San Diego County from my visit and hike all the San Diego ranchos and missions list. Back in the days of the missions, El Cajon in East County was pastures for the padres cattle and sheep, and pigs were raised in the the low hills to the east, now the town of Lakeside, in La Canada de los Coches, or “glen of the pigs”. In the years of the ranchos (about 1831-1848), La Canada de los Coches was granted so pigs could still be raised for the Mission. At only 28 acres, it was the smallest of the San Diego ranchos and entirely surrounded by the huge El Cajon rancho.

Our hike was in the Lakeside mountains but close enough I will count it as a rancho hike. Just a short distance up the trail we could see the valley laid out below, now mostly agricultural but the controversial Sunrise power line is going in through the valley.


Actually, we had two mountains to go up. The switchbacks on the far mountain will lead us up through the col between El Monte Valley and Blossom Valley.


See, no boulders or rocks on the trail. Yay!


We had a great view of El Capitan which Kathleen and I have said all winter that we were going to hike.


And finally, the goal of all this effort, a gourmet picnic in a gorgeous setting, accessible only on foot.


After all, we are the Gourmet Hiking Club.

Valley of the Moon

Patty is getting tired of looking at the 300th Post blog when she opens up Pat and Kathie, so here is my latest adventure to the Valley of the Moon this weekend. I try to go out with the Gourmet Hiking Club once a month because they go to such cool places and, not only that, when we get to our destination the group lays out a tablecloth and brings out delicious food prepared by every hiker. I can always count on Kathleen's gourmet peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on dark Cranberry bread.

The group was going to 4 wheel drive into the Valley, but Kathleen and I and Laurel, a novice to the group, decided to start out early and walk in to get the extra miles. The reader should understand the Valley is about 70 miles east of San Diego, right on the Mexico-US border, remote desert wilderness, and traveled by two legged "coyotes" and their Border Patrol pursuers. Kathleen and I had lined up a man to hike in with us, but at the last minute he couldn't make it so I packed my little Mace canister. A lot of good that would do.

We started out early at 7:30 AM, expecting to meet up with the Gourmet hikers when they arrived into the Valley, hike around a little bit, then have some yummy lunch. Simple. Just follow the vehicle route in to the point where vehicles could no longer handle the terrain, wait for the rest of the guys, and proceed on the Valley.

Needless to say, we took a wrong fork about 15 minutes into the hike. Seems this used to be an old mining area, lots of mines, and lots of forks off the main road. They all looked like main roads. What's worse, we didn't know we were "lost", so we just kept going - all up hill, ending up on a mountain ridge looking out over the desert and into Mexico. Stunning, but about 10:00 AM I was wondering when those 4 wheelers were going to catch up with us.

I was taking pictures of the beautiful scenery, Laurel and Kathleen are trying to figure out where we were, and - voila! - Laurel spots a group on the road below. Had to be our group. They were going to wrong direction for illegals.


By the time we had bushwacked, bouldered and high tailed it down to the road, the group was gone. We spent the next hour tracking - yep, just like Indians - the main group, wondering if we were getting more "lost" or would there be any food left when we found them. Or, in the back of my mind, could we find our way out of here if we didn't find them.


It wasn't lost on us that because we had counted on a straightforward hike in, meet up with experienced Valley of the Mooners and get guided in the rest of the way that we failed to bring a full size topographic map, left our emergency kit in the car, and had no cell phone service in this remote area.


Just before noon, we finally spotted our group across the Valley floor, a good three quarters mile away, perched high on a rock - eating our picnic without us! We did hook up for a splendid lunch on what was left and, bellies full, we could appreciate the beauty and uniqueness of this special place on the hike out.

Rock formations that one could only wonder "why doesn't that fall off?"




"How did that happen?"


"Looks like a shoe up there".


"I think he's missing a couple fingers on that hand".


Easter Island, fallen over.


"I'm just as tired as you, buddy".


Pac Man


Palisades that would make an Incan proud.


Finally, a cold beer at the end of the hike. Like I said, it's a cool group.



All's well that ends well. But next time no leaving the emergency kit back in the car.

On Foot in San Diego: Arrowmaker Ridge

Rancheros introducing themselves in Zorro, the Gay Blade (1981):
Don Diego: Don Diego from San Fernando.
Don Francisco: Don Francisco from San Jose.
Don Fernando: Don Fernando from San Diego.
Don Jose: Don Jose from San Bernardino.
Luis Obispo: Luis Obispo from Bakersfield.

Hiking Rancho Cuyamaca this weekend got me off to a good start for my spring project of locating and exploring the old Mexican ranchos of San Diego, and some good exercise to boot.

Hoping that this first trek since my "six hikers missing" would be uneventful, I joined twelve other hikers from The Gourmet Hiking Club, a group started fifteen years ago by six outdoor and food minded teachers, to hike up to Arrowmaker ridge in the Cuyamaca Mountains in eastern San Diego County. Kathleen and Wayne, two of the other "six missing", have come along for the hike. Kathleen, I'm not surprised - she's a Scot and usually up for any adventure or misadventure, but Wayne was not an experienced hiker before Secret Canyon and I wasn't sure we'd get him back out.

The Cedar fire roared through our hiking area in the very early morning hours of October 26, 2003. By the time it was contained the fire storm had burned 280,278 acres, destroyed 2,820 buildings and killed 15 people, the largest wildfire in California history. Seven years later we were walking the forest's destruction and rejuvenation.

Just off the parking area at trail head was the ruin of the Dyar house, built in the 1920's, burned in the fire and undergoing rejuvenation like the surrounding forest lands.


Rancho Cuyamaca has a checkered history as do many of San Diego's ranchos. The Mexican government began to distribute lands when they took over from the Spanish in 1821, and our rancho here wasn't granted until 1845, just before the Americans took over California in 1848. The Mexican governor, Pio Pico, was giving out land to his friends and family just before the cession of California to the US and gave 36,000 acres to his friend, Agustin Alvarado, who had never set foot in the Cuyamacas. Thing is, there were no maps or established legal boundaries for the grant, a guy he sent out to start a lumber mill to make some money for him got run off by those pesky Indians - the nerve of those Kumeyaay objecting to people coming in to take over their land - and Alvarado had to sell off the rancho piece by piece to pay the lawyer representing his case in US courts. More disputes arose when gold was discovered in 1870 on the north side of Stonewall Mountain. The bottom line is the rancho's ownership was divided and subdivided over the years. The Dyar family bought over 20,000 acres in 1923 and ten years later sold it to the sate of California. Oila, we have this beautiful Cuyamaca Rancho State Park! Lucky for us.

We set off with a clear, cool morning through what would become a familiar sight, dead trees and regrowth,


coming to a meadow cleared for ranching in the old days.


At one end of the meadow stood the "grandfather tree". Mike, the group leader for the day who knew the trail, told the story that when the rancher was clearing the meadow, an Indian elder came to him to ask to have the tree spared as it was significant to the tribe. It was left standing and when the Cedar fire came blazing through, the fire split around it and the tree was left unburned.


We passed dead trees still standing like statues after seven years, a preview of what was to come farther up our walk.


Many stronger trees were surviving with new growth, odd looking with their blackened trunks and limbs.


We scrambled up rock formations,


uphill to a mesa through vast burned out areas that won't recover for another 50 years,


leaving the trail to cross this high meadow, looking for the site of an ancient Kumeyaay village on the ridge.


We moved up the ridge across fallen trees into dense brush,


finally coming to our destination at the outcropping of rocks at the top of the ridge,


where a nice floral tablecloth was spread and each hiker brought out his/her prepared dish for a delicious luncheon. Hence, the name of the club. We had gourmet sandwiches, a cheese log, various desserts, peach Schnapps. I think I could get used to this, forget the trail mix stuff.


Scattered across the rocks were mortar holes for grinding acorns and wild buckwheat, and on the ground myriads of broken pottery shards, remnants of past lives on this outcropping.


I found this tree, nearly back to its old shape but unable to discard the old limbs, like a divorcee and her ex.


Jillian spotted what appeared to be a carved eagle on an upturned root with a tree branch Indian headdress.


The cloud mist had moved in while we ate our lunch, and followed us down the mountain.


A mystical ending to a mystical day on Arrowmaker Ridge.