Kicking Butt on El Cajon Mountain

It was a cool and foggy morning when Kathleen and I set off to bag the summit of El Cajon Mountain at El Capitan this weekend. East County being located in the Peninsular mountain foothills between Lakeside and Ramona, this is not usually a trek taken this late in the season when temperatures can be in the 90's. We had to cover 10 miles of rugged terrain before the heat set in. I was hoping to get a photo of El Cajon that would count toward my project of finding and hiking all the ranchos of San Diego.

We had a beautiful hike in, through corridors of California lilacs,





up and around and about the stone mountains,


past the remnants of the Cedar Fire that raged through here in 2003, burning 90% of the habitat.


"The Jeep" landmark, nice sculptural art for the area, looks to have been left there in the 1940's.


We chatted up the usual topics - the flora, what to do for a rattlesnake bite, where was the helicopter landing for all the injured hiker rescues you read about from this area - the last thing we wanted was again to be on News at 6 - until we reached the summit. We needed a little chatter. El Cajon Mountain with its steeps, boulders, chaparral, and distance is reviewed as the most kick-butt hike in the county.

Proof of arrival:


Unfortunately, I wasn't going to get a view of Rancho El Cajon through the fog.


On the way down, the fog cleared enough that I could get a shot of El Monte, but El Cajon city was so far off I wondered whether the El Cap had been part of the Rancho.


The afternoon brought the sun and blistering heat, but until the last couple miles I was still taking flower photos,







and finally, on the way out, a shot back at the behemoth that is El Capitan and the summit of El Cajon Mountain just up the ridge.



Rancho El Cajon was a huge ranch in the mid 1800's, including El Cajon city, Santee, Lakeside, Le Mesa and Flinn Springs. Did it include El Capitan? I think so. I could see Rancho del los Cochas just below in the valley, and I know a lot of Rancho El Cajon surrounded the little pig ranch. I think I feel a trip to the El Cajon Historical Society coming up.

Thank God for Rancho Santa Margarita - She Saved Us from Los Angeles

There's something about summer coming that lights my fire to check out the missions and ranchos of San Diego. When I got a last minute invitation to the Wounded Warrior Battalion's changing of command this week at Camp Pendleton, I grabbed my camera out the door because I knew I could get in the West Gate and do a bit of exploring by myself on the way out. Between the Battalion and the West Gate are the historic buildings of Rancho Santa Margarita y Las Flores.

The Rancho has a complicated history from the time the San Luis Rey Mission friars used the land for sheep and cattle early in the 1800's. After the Spanish mission days, the land became a huge rancho owned by Pio Pico, the first governor of California, and changed hands several times over the next 100 years. Read here for a nice history of the Rancho lands.

The land of what is now Camp Pendleton - 123,00 + acres between Oceanside and San Clemente, and eastward -was bought from the last rancho owner by the US Navy for an aircraft field and access to the ocean in 1942 and is now occupied by the Marines. This little strip of land has saved us from the sprawl of Los Angeles and Orange Counties. If there's going to be sprawl, we want to do it ourselves. The Marines, bless their hearts, have made a commitment to preserve the rancho buildings in the middle of the base.

The ranch house is closed except the second Wednesday of month and no way I'll make it up there on a Wednesday. I thought I could at least take a look around, but when I arrived the gate was closed. I parked the car anyway, and started to look around. The first thing I came across was a stone marker,


Beneath a nearby sycamore tree
Two of Andres Pico's officers
Leonardo Cota and Jose Alipas
Planned their successful strategy
Against the American forces
They battled at San Pasqual on
December 6, 1846

Remember I told the reader about General Kearny's retreat from San Pasqual to San Diego, passing through the Los Penasquitos rancho?

Here is an excellent account of the Mexican and American conflict in San Diego. We tend to not be aware of how much history there is in our little town.

As Patty knows I would, I looked around for that sycamore tree - gotta stand just where this happened and get the vibes. Uttered a little expletive known to be used by just every pilot whose plane is going down. Not that I don't know a sycamore tree when I see one, but they were all over the place.


I gave up on trying to find which one of the sycamores might be 200 years old, and walked around the little chapel, originally a winery built by the friars in 1810. Yep, a winery up here in the middle of the padres' cow fields.


I was embolden by my foray around the chapel, and thought what could it hurt just to foray up the hill a little more to the bunkhouse and ranch house. If they bring out the Marines, I could always remind them "I cook for you guys every month!"

The bunk house, also from 1810, has those signature Spanish columns and outside hallway.


The ranch house sits up on a little hill, with a view out to the ocean. It was built in the 1840's by the Picos and added to by later owners.




I was this far and still not a soul in sight, I had the place to myself, so I wandered further, enjoying the wonderful breeze from the ocean. The ranch house had the same outdoor hallway. I understand the 31 rooms have no interior halls, just exterior halls and a central courtyard.


I walked down the porch/hall and a long set of steps with an overhead ranch bell,


out onto the grounds where I found a cannon and another bell. Hm-m-m. Wondered whether these were maybe from the Battle of San Pasqual, although there were some skirmishes at Rancho Las Flores nearby.


I came across some beautiful doors and arches and architectural details.





It was time to high tail it out of there. I'll have to wait until retirement to have a Wednesday free to see the courtyard and interior of the ranch house. Being in this historic spot totally alone was a different kind of experience. Imagine if you had Machu Picchu, or the pyramids, or the fields of Culloden totally to yourself. Where would you want to be, totally alone with history?

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.

On Foot in San Diego: Rancho Santa Maria de los Pensquitos

My project to locate and walk the thirty San Diego ranchos listed in my Ranchos of San Diego County book is moving slowly. My friend, Pat, said she was tired of opening up the blog and seeing Kathy and Louis’ garden, so it’s time to get some writing done again.

I have walked Rancho Santa Maria de los Penasquitos just a couple miles south of my house many times since coming to San Diego, but I had to check it out again this week after the Union Tribune reported the Easter Sunday earthquake caused the artesian well to more than double its output. More on that later.

The canyon preserve is an idyllic six mile walk end to end through one of the largest urban parks in the US, about 4000 acres in all.


I have walked here with coyotes in early morning, watched the hawks on the hillside, given wide berth to snakes. When I first started walking the canyon twenty years ago, I could feel completely away from civilization. These days housing developments have been allowed on the ridge line.


A stream flows east to west across the canyon, crossing midway through rock cliffs (Penasquitos means "little cliffs") with a substantial waterfall in springtime.


I wasn't able to climb around for a picture of the falls, but there were other points of interest in my viewfinder.


You're walking a lot of history across this beautiful little canyon. The eastern part of the canyon was part of the first San Diego land grant, made by the governor of Mexico to the comandante of the Presidio, Captain Francisco Maria Ruiz, in 1823, one league in all (4439 acres), now the burg of Rancho Penasquitos. Before the Captain's grant, the land was used by the Mission padres for sheepfarming and orchards, and before them by Kumeyaay Indians going back 7000 years. Captain Ruiz asked for additional land and in 1834 he was given another league that extends westward almost to the I-5 and is most of our canyon.

The Captain was already in his 60's when he got this original land grant. He had a house in Old Town near the Presidio, but built a one room adobe house on the eastern end of the preserve for his visits to the ranch. When he died in 1839, the bachelor Captain passed the rancho to his grandnephew, Francisco Maria Alvarado, who lived both in Old Town and at the rancho with his family.

Francisco gave all his land to his son, Diego, who took over ranch operations in 1857 and built his house and ranch buildings at the western end of the canyon. Some ruins still stand but are enclosed by chain link making a good photo impossible. When I can resurrect one of my photos of the ruins from 20 years ago I will post as an addendum.

Francisco's beautiful daughter and Diego's sister, Estafana, married George Alonzo Johnson, a gringo from New York City. Read here for a fascinating personal account of Mr. Johnson's adventures before he met Estafana. After marrying Estafana, the couple bought property from Diego in the eastern end of the canyon to build their adobe, a wonderful house with veranda facing west across the canyon. What a view! Too bad the inheritance practices in those days gave all the land to the male heir, and Estafana had to buy her father's land back from Diego.

Three walls of the original adobe were incorporated into the new house, and the Johnson-Alvarado is the one standing today.


The front porch,


and back veranda facing the sunset.


Other history lives here in the canyon. The main road from Old Town San Diego to Yuma went through the canyon in the early to mid-1800's. In mid-December 1846 the 300 Army of the West soldiers surviving the Battle of San Pasqual were led through the canyon by General Kearny on their way to San Diego. Our guy, Mr. Johnson, fell on some hard financial times and the canyon was bought in 1880 by Colonel Jacob Shell Taylor, founder of Del Mar, who was going to sell it as subdivisions for development! Lucky for us, the bust of the late 1880's when the transcontinental rail failed to materialize for San Diego squashed that plan and the canyon continued as a working ranch for many decades, as late as the 1960's.

Back to the reason for this week's trek to the canyon, the artesian well just to the side of the Johnson-Alvarado adobe, inside this shelter.


The day after the Mexacali earthquake last month, water volume doubled from the well, likely from new fractures in the rock mass just below the ground.


A few more earthquakes like that and I could have my own personal hot springs right here in Del Mar.