Julian Stories

Julian Stories

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From sheep to sweater in 12 hours

The idiot-proof alpaca

Interviews with alpaca owners, spinners, and weavers who live in San Diego’s East County mountain region.

Aerial view of Julian’s snowfall, February 22

Winter wonder mesmerizes our guy in the sky

Plenty of snow in downtown Julian this morning. I flew over at 9 a.m. in a light plane at 8000 feet above sea level, about 2000 feet above the ground, and was mesmerized by the ...

Desert View Trail, William Heise County Park

Hike up to 4927 feet for Glen’s View, with panoramic views that include North Peak, Julian, and the desert.

Julian apple pruning class

You can’t make money growing apples

The December 8 meeting at the Peacefield Orchard on Wynola Road was described by the Julian Apple Growers Association as a lesson in pruning trees. About 30 people showed up. Ray Meyer, acknowledged as the ...

Monumental: Airplane Ridge

On the eastern slope of Japacha Peak, in Cuyamaca Rancho State Park, is the location of a little known and most unusual monument anywhere in San Diego County. This piece of history began 90 years ...

Beer and Barbeque, in That Order

Go gobble on the mountain — a revisit to Julian’s Bailey Wood Pit Barbeque.

Against the Current

I rearranged my legs with more force than necessary. The wooden bed-frame creaked, and I followed the note with an overtly audible adjusting of my half of the comforter, balling it up so I could ...

Brew and ’Cue in Apple Country

San Diego flatlanders open a brewery in the local mountains.

Volcan Mountain Wilderness Preserve

This 2195-acre preserve offers an array of seasonal wildflowers in oak-pine woodland and spectacular views of the lower elevations.

Sixty-two miles away from downtown San Diego, a strenuous three-mile hike on Five Oaks Trail. No. Dogs. Allowed.

Aerial Views of Julian

Julian Apple Farmer to Fly Around the World with His Son in Homemade Plane

We’ve always wanted to fly around the world in a small plane — my pilot’s license dates back to 1978. But we couldn’t afford a plane, so we had to build one. After taking six ...

Unforgettable: Banner Challenges Julian's Supremacy

Drury “Drew” Bailey and the Founding of Julian City, Part Two In 1858, asked to write about why “A Rolling Stone Gathers No Moss,” Drury “Drew” Bailey compared it to “the wanderer who starts…with bright ...

Julian? Who's Julian?

Drury Bailey and the Founding of Julian City, Part One On November 10, 1602, Sebastián Vizcaíno sailed into San Miguel Bay. He renamed it “San Diego,” after his flagship and the saint of Alcalá. For ...

Jumpin' Julian, Way Back When

Civilization and Its Malcontents “Julian was never the hell roarin’ town commonly associated with mining camps,” wrote Dan Taylor in 1939. And that’s been pretty much the image ever since. Even so, the lure of ...

Unforgettable: The Long and Winding Road to Gold

After gold had been discovered in the Cuyamacas, ranchers accustomed to outback solitude witnessed an eerie parade: would-be miners trudging up an old Indian trail from Santa Ysabel to Julian City. The steep and rocky ...

Unforgettable: Tales from San Diego's Fields of Gold

’Twas Gold that Made ’Em Do It “Enchanting visions of the good to be accomplished,” an unnamed author wrote in Hutchings’ California Magazine (1857), “of pleasures to be enjoyed, turned [a miner’s] footsteps toward the ...

Lake Cuyamaca After the Snow

A photo of Lake Cuyamaca, taken February 28 from a private aircraft at 1500 feet.

There's Gold in Them Thar Cuyamacas

The Life of a MinerIn August of 1870, when Louis Redman went to pick wild grapes along a creek over the mountain from Julian, he happened upon the American Dream. Something glinted in the rust-colored ...

No Turkey Hunt at William Heise Regional Park in Julian

On Tuesday, February 8, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors passed a motion in a 3-2 vote to amend the County Code of Regulatory Ordinances "to allow a mentored, youth-only wild turkey hunt at ...

2011 California Fishing Licenses Easily Obtained?

In 2011, California fishermen will find that the procedure for purchasing annual fishing licenses has changed. And if one waits to buy their license once they arrive at a local lake, they may be out ...

From Poway to Georgia by Horse and Wagon

Traffic was slowed to a crawl on eastbound highway 78 last week, as a mule-drawn wagon took the right-of-way. Apparently the laws allowing horse and wagon the right-of-way are still on the books. Gene Glasscock ...

Hog Wild

The only sign of life in Julian at 5:00 a.m. this April morning are men in white paper toques rolling out pie dough at the bright-lighted Julian Bakery. It’s a deep black morning when I ...

Death Alley

The Butterfield Stage line between Warner’s Ranch and Oak Grove was a narrow trail, dusty in summer, soggy in winter, rutted the year round. On its weekly treks, the stage always stopped at Deadman’s Hole, ...

Wolf down that pie in Julian

A trip to the California Wolf Center.

If you think the only way to see a wolf is to watch Dances with Wolves, think again. Two top-tier North American predators, the Alaskan and Mexican wolves, have dens at the California Wolf Center. ...

Pizza High

Omygod. She’s eating her pizza with her knife and fork. Then again, she’s English. “What do you think, Robin?” She takes a sip of her English breakfast tea. My old buddy Robin looks up from ...

Another Perfect Day

BALBOA PARK Another Perfect DayBy downtownphotoguy, June 26Today we were in Presidio Park in the morning and Balboa Park in the afternoon. We were shooting with a variety of lenses and techniques…. It seems everybody ...

Interest in the Sky

On Saturday, August 22, almost 400 curious stargazers descended on Menghini Winery in Julian armed with red-cellophane-covered flashlights and heavy jackets, all wanting to have a peek at the night sky. The second annual Julian ...

Big Agency Burns Little Volunteers

The history of wildfires in San Diego’s backcountry has yielded a vigorous volunteer firefighting subculture. Its foundations are self-reliance, strong community involvement, ingenuity, independence, and thrift. Today, those who embody the tradition feel threatened. They ...

Dyar Spring/Juaquapin Loop

If water is an element essential to your hiking pleasure, then this hike in the Cuyamacas may be for you. Along Juaquapin Creek, you can sit in the shade and listen to the most peaceful ...

Ghost Rider

Witnesses reported a motorcycle crash at approximately 1:45 p.m. on April 29. Volunteer sheriff's deputies were the first to reach the scene on Highway 79, near the Green Valley state campgrounds. No rider could be ...

The Cat Feeds Himself

At about 6 a.m. on March 26, just south of Pine Hills, two Julian residents heard sounds of distress coming from the vicinity of their livestock pen. Upon arriving at the scene, one resident discovered ...

One-Man Crime Wave

On March 18 at almost 4 p.m., witnesses saw a red late-model sedan pull into the back parking lot of Jack's Grocery in Julian at a high rate of speed. A man was seen jumping ...

St. Elizabeth of Hungary Catholic Church

There were in St. Elizabeth’s all the accoutrements you might expect to find in a grand-scale Catholic church; it was just that the statues of the saints, the stations of the cross, the devotional banners ...

Janie Ann Galvin Rescued From Campgrounds, 1961

Five-year-old Janie Ann Galvin, rescued after wandering away from Paso Picacho Campgrounds in the Cuyamacas, April 17, 1961. She'd followed a squirrel. She fell asleep before dark and awoke in the morning. She didn't try ...

Three for the Fourth

The Fourth of July holiday offers a variety of activities and events. If you're of a pioneering spirit and not attached to the idea of oohing and aahing over a light show in the sky, ...

Classic San Diego

Most-Filmed Wild West Main Street Don't look yet. Turn off Woodside onto Maine and behold a li'l old Wild West street that'll knock your spurs off. It huddles beneath a perfect movie-set backdrop of towering ...

Get an eagle-eye view of the Julian-Ramona area from atop Eagle Peak's summit.

Standing tall amid lesser bumps on the west slope of the Cuyamaca Mountains, Eagle Peak has a view of the island-dimpled ocean, scattered parts of urban and suburban San Diego, and the higher mountains -- ...

Waterfalls grace the upper reaches of the San Diego River, where only the most competent hikers tread.

A trip down the San Diego River canyon during the rainy season is a true adventure. (Mind you, we are not referring to the river at its lower Mission Valley segment, or even at Mission ...

Red Riding Hood Lied

'The Alaskan gray wolves here eat beef, chicken, goat, horses [when donated], deer, and some fish, on occasion, that is donated by the Navy," says Melinda Booth, development manager of the California Wolf Center. "Deer ...

Destination: Blues

'The whole thing about blues is the formula of the music," says Robb Bower, founder of the Blues Bash festival. "Most blues songs are built around three chords -- the one, the four, and the ...

Back When

Thirty Years Ago "I don't believe in the cult of personality, having my portrait hung all over the place like Ronald Reagan or Mao Tse Tung" is a quote from the little red book of ...

Check out the leafy new Five Oaks Trail on Volcan Mountain near Julian.

Boldly rising above the apple orchards of Julian, Volcan Mountain's oak- and pine-dotted slopes are swept by some of the freshest breezes found anywhere in San Diego County. Soughing through the trees like waves spending ...

Buddy Story

“I’m too old to fight that battle.”

Reluctance to Retail

“How passionate are you about the wine?”

Julian Flap Over Wind-Test Structures

Strong winds of public disapproval toppled electricity-producing windmills in the Julian area before they were even built. At an August 11 meeting at Julian Town Hall, 100 area residents whipped up a hurricane of opposition ...

The waters of Cedar Creek, southwest of Julian, pack the punch of a double-normal rainfall season as they leap over a 90-foot ledge.

In the aftermath of this season's repeated downpours, San Diego County's "big falls" have been showing their stuff. Big, in this neck of the woods, means a hundred feet or so. Of four such falls ...

At Home in San Diego

LA COSTA When I think of La Costa, I remember the wildlife -- the skunk that lived under our house, for instance, a beautiful creature whose size would double when it puffed up its fur ...

Poke around the ruins of old mines along Old Banner Grade east of Julian.

Honeycombed hillsides and bits and pieces of rusted equipment -- that is the legacy left behind by Julian's gold-mining heyday over a century ago. Although a few mines continue to be worked sporadically even today, ...

Catch the best autumn scenery on the one-way Kelly Ditch Trail across the Cuyamaca Mountains.

The 5.5-mile Kelly Ditch Trail, completed in 1985, is perhaps the most beautiful pathway yet built in the Cuyamaca-Julian area. This hiking/horse trail is routed partly along a century-old diversion ditch. You'll also tread over ...

Follow the trace of the Elsinore Fault through San Diego County's mountains and desert.

Like a subterranean knife-wound, the Elsinore Fault slices across the heart of San Diego County's backcountry, promising an earth-shaking jolt or two during the next few centuries. Sputtering movements over geologic time along its opposing ...

Cruise the back roads of Julian by bicycle.

Summer is settling in at last upon the hills and dales of Julian, bringing with it the toasty smell of sun-dried grass and the cool, vanilla-like fragrance of Jeffrey pines. Bicycling is a good way ...

Log Rumors Rattle Julian

These days, Julian residents are seeing something that hasn't been seen in those parts for three decades: logging trucks laden with local logs growling down the mountain roads and returning empty. "Everybody in the community ...