San Diego Reader

Stories | Roam-O-Rama

Whitney Canyon

Whitney Canyon

Few areas along Interstate 5 in California are as desolate and as traffic-dense as the stretch immediately north of the San Fernando Valley, where a zillion traffic lanes and ramps sort themselves out in the spaghetti ...

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The Ponds at Daley Ranch

The Ponds at Daley Ranch

The “ponds tour,” suitable for hikers, runners, and mountain bikers, serves as a fine introduction to the City of Escondido’s Daley Ranch — a sprawling, 3000-acre open-space preserve in the hills north of town. The ...

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Down the East Fork

Down the East Fork

Born from snow-fed rivulets, the many tributaries of the East Fork San Gabriel River gather together to form one of the liveliest streams in the San Gabriel Mountains. At “the Narrows” of the East Fork, ...

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Dyar Spring/Juaquapin Loop

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 ... More Comment (1)

El Prieto Canyon

El Prieto Canyon

The quiet, shady interior of El Prieto Canyon seems impossibly remote given its stone’s-throw proximity to the edge of an Altadena subdivision. Majestic live oaks ... More Post a comment

Del Dios Highlands

Del Dios Highlands

The 454-acre Del Dios Highlands County Preserve, recently unveiled just outside the North County community of Del Dios, now provides a direct connection between Del ... More Post a comment

Arroyo Trabuco

Arroyo Trabuco

Decades-old O’Neill Regional Park near Rancho Santa Margarita has a newer “appendage” — a six-mile piece of the Arroyo Trabuco, a shallow, gradually descending canyon ... More Comment (1)

Culp Valley and Pena Spring

Culp Valley and Pena Spring

While most of the Anza-Borrego Desert swelters, the temperature hovers as much as 10 degrees Fahrenheit cooler at the “high desert” locale of Culp Valley, ... More Post a comment

Cobal Canyon Loop

Cobal Canyon Loop

Adjoining the vast spaces of Angeles National Forest, Claremont Hills Wilderness Park spreads over foothills spilling down toward the college town of Claremont. The Cobal ... More Post a comment

Secret Canyon Trail

Secret Canyon Trail

The ambitiously constructed Secret Canyon Trail, circuitously nosing its way down the canyon walls of Pine Valley Creek for 14 miles, traverses nearly the entire ... More Post a comment

San Juan Trail

San Juan Trail

With gentle grades most of the way, the San Juan Trail is tailor-made for a leisurely saunter from the Main Divide of the Santa Ana ... More Post a comment

Rattlesnake Canyon

Rattlesnake Canyon

For the second year in a row, fire-following springtime wildflowers are popping up on the slopes of Poway’s Rattlesnake Canyon. A reconnaissance of the area ... More Post a comment

Valley Center Bike Ride

Valley Center Bike Ride

Resting high above the city of Escondido, Valley Center is well on its way to becoming a rural suburb. As houses and country estates pop ... More Comments (2)

Sylvan Meadows

Sylvan Meadows

The Santa Rosa Plateau’s Sylvan Meadows Multi-Use Area is open to all non-motorized means of travel — hiking, jogging, biking, and horseback riding — with ... More Post a comment

Lower Willows

Lower Willows

Soggy Lower Willows, along with its primary source of water — Santa Catarina Spring — together comprise Anza-Borrego’s richest riparian habitat. An easy-going hike through ... More Post a comment

Harbor Island Moon Walk

Harbor Island Moon Walk

Can Tuesdays ever be romantic? Next Tuesday (March 10) truly is, by virtue of the full moon rising nearly at the time of sunset. Start ... More Post a comment

Fish Creek Mountain-Bike Ride

Fish Creek Mountain-Bike Ride

Fish Creek Wash is the gateway to a fascinating labyrinth of rugged canyons, twisted arroyos, and mud hills covering the stark and desiccated Carrizo Badlands ... More Post a comment

Sycamore Canyon Falls

Sycamore Canyon Falls

Big Sycamore Canyon in coastal Ventura County’s Point Mugu State Park is famous for its miles-long promenade of magnificent California sycamore trees. Higher up and ... More Post a comment

Black Canyon to Pamo Valley

Black Canyon to Pamo Valley

The easy-going, mostly descending (450 feet of elevation gain/1200 feet of elevation loss), east-to-west, one-way walk or mountain-bike ride on the Santa Ysabel Truck Trail ... More Post a comment

Santiago Trail

Santiago Trail

Yesteryear, Old Camp was a popular rendezvous point for hunting parties using the historic Joplin Trail between the flatlands of Orange County’s Trabuco Canyon and ... More Post a comment

Pinyon Mountain

Pinyon Mountain

The late-winter midday sun gently simmers the lowest elevations of Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, yet it more coolly illuminates the 4000-foot plateau of Pinyon Mountain ... More Comment (1)

Hummingbird Trail

Hummingbird Trail

The viewful Hummingbird Trail starts at the extreme northeast corner of Simi Valley (both the valley and the city of same name) and deviously ascends ... More Post a comment

Bayside Trail

Bayside Trail

The Bayside Trail, sweeping downward from the old lighthouse at Cabrillo National Monument on Point Loma, offers an incomparable view of the city of San ... More Post a comment

Skywriting in the Clouds

Skywriting in the Clouds

The winter season in San Diego County is accompanied by fairly frequent instances of unusual optical effects in the sky. Many are associated with high ... More Post a comment

Cuyamaca Ski Routes

Cuyamaca Ski Routes

Skiing in San Diego County’s mountains? Fact or fiction? The answer in any given winter season varies, but it is typically “fact” for one or ... More Post a comment

Hellman Wilderness Park

Hellman Wilderness Park

The rambling Puente Hills, overlooking the San Gabriel Valley to the north and Orange County to the south, interrupt what would otherwise be a continuous ... More Comment (1)

Calcite Mine

Calcite Mine

Millennia of geological weathering and erosion have cut and polished the landscape into the striking forms you’ll discover while visiting Anza-Borrego’s Calcite Mine area. A ... More Comment (1)

Rocky Oaks Park

Rocky Oaks Park

Diminutive Rocky Oaks Park is typical of the many small properties that have been purchased or earmarked for future acquisition by the National Park Service ... More Post a comment

Balboa Park Trails

Balboa Park Trails

Incremental improvements over the past couple of years in Balboa Park’s hidden corners are resulting in the park’s rebirth. Canyon slopes formerly choked with dense ... More Post a comment

Blue Angels Peak

Blue Angels Peak

Blue Angels Peak is the name of a prominent crag practically sitting on the border between California and Baja California, just east of the high-desert ... More Post a comment

Jones Peak

Jones Peak

Jones Peak is nowhere near the loftiest of the many named summits you can climb in the sharply rising “front range” of the San Gabriel ... More Post a comment

Rim Trail

Rim Trail

Worthwhile primarily for the view, which can be wide-ranging and spectacular on the clearest late fall or winter days, the Rim Trail in Mission Trails ... More Post a comment

Rivas Canyon

Rivas Canyon

Temescal Canyon and Will Rogers State Historic Park in Pacific Palisades are just two of the many units of parkland and open space that make ... More Post a comment

Rainbow Canyon

Rainbow Canyon

Spectacular exposures of colorfully banded and folded metamorphic rock gave “Rainbow Canyon” its so-far unofficial title. The canyon’s colorful nature is enhanced even further during ... More Post a comment

Verdugo Peak Traverse

Verdugo Peak Traverse

With a drop-off-and-pick-up transportation arrangement, you can enjoy a challenging hiking traverse across the north end of the Verdugo Mountains, ascending through La Tuna Canyon ... More Post a comment

Alpine-Dehesa Bike Ride

Alpine-Dehesa Bike Ride

In the 1970s, the once tiny and now thoroughly suburbanized community of Alpine displayed a sign along its main highway boasting “Best Climate in the ... More Post a comment

Lasky Mesa

Lasky Mesa

In 2003, a big parcel of land on the west rim of the San Fernando Valley — the private Ahmanson Ranch — was reborn as ... More Post a comment

Carrizo Gorge Overlook

Carrizo Gorge Overlook

Few travelers on Interstate 8 in eastern San Diego County fail to be impressed by the enormous stacks of rounded boulders thrusting skyward over the ... More Post a comment

Oat Mountain

Oat Mountain

A rambling patch of newly acquired open space that goes by the long-winded name of Michael D. Antonovich Regional Park at Joughin Ranch spreads over ... More Post a comment

Big Laguna Trail

Big Laguna Trail

The six-mile-long Big Laguna Trail, high in the Laguna Mountains, wends its scenic way over gently rolling hills and grassy dales, never dipping below 5400 ... More Post a comment

Corral Canyon

Corral Canyon

Diminutive Corral Canyon Park is one of the newer parcels of open space to be added to the archipelago of public lands known as the ... More Post a comment

Camp Pendleton Bike Traverse

Camp Pendleton Bike Traverse

Surf, sand, and picturesque bluffs. Salty breezes and the ever-present licorice scent of wild fennel. The rhythmic bumping of your bike tires over the pavement ... More Post a comment

Upper Solstice Canyon

Upper Solstice Canyon

A splendid sense of isolation pervades the upper reaches of Solstice Canyon — thanks to the preservation of thousands of acres of land that have ... More Post a comment

Banker's Hill Stroll

Banker's Hill Stroll

With two steep ravines spanned by quaint footbridges, scores of well-kept, historically significant homes, and mature landscaping, Banker’s Hill is a monument to the elegance ... More Comment (1)

Rustic Canyon

Rustic Canyon

Rustic Canyon, now almost fully reverted to wilderness condition after nature’s one-two punches of fire and flood, was quite lively in the past. Pop-philosopher Will ... More Post a comment

La Jolla to Soledad Park

La Jolla to Soledad Park

For a unique look at La Jolla — from the edge of the village’s commercial center to 811 feet of elevation — try this obscure ... More Post a comment

San Diego Bay Bike Ride

San Diego Bay Bike Ride

Here’s a bicycle ride that’s practically a land-based equivalent of the harbor cruise covering north San Diego Bay. Over an out-and-back stretch of 16 miles, ... More Post a comment

Pico Canyon

Pico Canyon

Pico Canyon cuts deeply into the rugged Santa Susana Mountains, a few miles south of the Six Flags Magic Mountain amusement park. The canyon is ... More Post a comment

Torrey Pines Extension

Torrey Pines Extension

Familiar to most people around Del Mar but unknown to many outsiders, the Torrey Pines State Reserve Extension conceals itself amid the coastal bluffs inland ... More Comment (1)

Big Pines Nature Trail

Big Pines Nature Trail

On the eastern extremity of the San Gabriel Mountains, seemingly far from L.A.’s smoggy blanket of air, lies the Big Pines Recreation Area, designated as ... More Comment (1)

De Luz Bike Ride

De Luz Bike Ride

The sinuously curving rural roads on the far (north) side of Fallbrook offer a significant challenge to bicycle riders. Thirty or 40 years ago, the ... More Comment (1)

Mission Valley Walk

Mission Valley Walk

Bounded by some 32 freeway lanes carrying a half million vehicles a day, and smack dab in San Diego County’s busiest commercial zone, the San ... More Comment (1)

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Casey Beldon (Odette Yustman) hated her mother for leaving her as a child. But when inexplicable things start to happen, ... More