Out & About
Sombrero Peak rises head and shoulders above the southern margins of the Anza-Borrego Desert, overlooking a hundred-square-mile expanse of rock-strewn mountains and gorges, sun-baked valleys, and distant badlands. Conversely, the peak itself is a prominent …
Resting high above the city of Escondido, Valley Center is well on its way to becoming a rural suburb. As more and more country estates pop up on big lots, the area is gradually losing …
When zillions of photons dart among billions of spinning, microscopic ice crystals in cirrus clouds high above, order may gel amid apparent disorder, creating a bevy of optical effects in the atmosphere. These effects include …
The early-autumn sun continues to scorch the desert's lowest elevations, yet it far more kindly illuminates the 4000-foot plateau of Pinyon Mountain Valley, high amid Anza-Borrego's central mountain range -- the Vallecito Mountains. Eighty-degree days …
Here and there amid the gently undulating folds of San Diego County's highest elevations, crystal-clear water charged with sweet-tasting minerals seeps to the surface, wetting the ground and nourishing grasses and year-round greenery. At Dyar …
The Point Loma peninsula has a split personality. In the north, block upon block of houses spread over the peninsula's broad spine. Spacious military land and parkland (Cabrillo National Monument) encompass the peninsula's narrower south …
Behind the easternmost houses and condominiums in Tierrasanta, a sparsely vegetated landscape of rounded ridges -- a part of Mission Trails Regional Park -- stands head and shoulders above the urban plain. Months of heat …
Although Beatrice still has, at age 72, all of her gloves, it was the hats she loved. "I tell you," she says Some people go buy shoes when they're depressed. I sued to buy hats."
While most of the Anza-Borrego Desert swelters, the temperature hovers as much as 10š Fahrenheit cooler at the "high desert" locale of Culp Valley, 3400 feet above sea level. Culp Valley is the only designated …
A great blue heron ambles on stilt-legs across the reed-fringed shallows, stabbing occasionally at subsurface morsels of food. Nearby, a willowy egret glides in for a perfect landing, scattering concentric ripples across the surface of …
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 of the past. The work of early-century architects Irving Gill, …
"Elevation 6000 feet," says the roadside sign posted on Sunrise Highway in the community of Mount Laguna, but a close inspection of a topographic map of the area reveals the road's true height of just …
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 of an old four-lane highway, abandoned save for the occasional …
For a unique look at La Jolla -- bottom to top -- climaxed by the conventionally famous yet still fabulous view of the city from Soledad Park, try this unconventional six-mile (round trip) walking or …
Crickets sing, cicadas buzz, and bullfrogs groan. A sparrow hawk alights upon a sycamore limb, then launches with outstretched wings to catch a puff of sea breeze moving up the canyon. A cottontail rabbit bounds …
Normally by the time early summer arrives, water flowing down the larger canyons of San Diego's backcountry slows to a trickle. This post-El Niño summer season is proving to be the 10- or 20-year exception. …