Roam-O-Rama
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 Diego River greenway in Mission Valley offers a surprising bit …
The multiuse trails of Marshall Canyon Regional Park (for hikers, mountain bikers, and equestrians) thread through Marshall and Live Oak canyons in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. The inner recesses of both canyons …
Serene Lake Wohlford lies near the headwaters of Escondido Creek, its mirroring surface reflecting the shaggy-with-chaparral, boulder-studded hillsides that confine it. As early as 1895, water impounded for the benefit of Escondido’s farms and households …
The easternmost Backbone Trail, part of a “hikers highway in the making” through the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, skims across spacious Topanga State Park above Santa Monica and executes a final swan dive …
Palomar Mountain has dodged a couple of bullets in recent years. Wildfires in 2003 and 2007 have threatened to seriously damage San Diego County’s foremost example of oak-coniferous woodland, but the forests of Palomar have …
Perched several hundred feet up on a rocky slope north of Escondido, Dixon Lake stores drinking water and serves as a recreational resource as well. The lake’s camping facilities, picnic grounds, playgrounds, boat rentals, hiking …
Aliso and Wood Canyons Wilderness Park consists of over 4200 acres of shallow canyons, sandstone rock formations, narrow strips of oak and riparian woodland, and hillsides draped with aromatic sage-scrub vegetation. Subdivisions press against the …
The Laguna Mountain range, just east (and squarely in the “rain shadow”) of the nearby Cuyamaca Mountains, snags just enough moisture from passing Pacific storms to support a forest of scattered live oaks, black oaks, …
Thanks to the crusading efforts of Descanso cabinetmaker Duncan McFetridge (affectionately known by some as the “Robin Hood of Cleveland Forest”), certain privately owned lands in Cleveland National Forest near Descanso, formerly slated for housing …
Significant hiking feats can be accomplished in the “wilds” of Orange County, especially in the upper elevations of the Santa Ana Mountains, which define the county’s east border. A case in point is the 10-mile, …
Crickets sing and bullfrogs groan. A 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 across the trail, …
The cabin community in Big Santa Anita Canyon and along neighboring Winter Creek has been called “a rustic Xanadu, where groceries come by burro.” On foot is the only way in for the owners of …
Barker Valley perches squarely in one of the more remote corners of the Palomar mountain range, right alongside an upper branch of the San Luis Rey River. Although it is not categorized as a wilderness …
Sometimes the intimacy of a small, hidden waterfall is more aesthetically rewarding than the thunder of a famous one. Such is the case with Holy Jim Falls. Tucked into a short, steep canyon draining the …
In Black Canyon, water amply illustrates its mindless yet artistic ability to sculpt stone. Every once in a great while, a gush of sediment-laden storm runoff tears through the canyon bottom, carving and polishing the …
At 1680 feet above sea level, the summit of Mount Lee perches high above the Los Angeles Basin on the western edge of spacious Griffith Park. In addition to hosting the iconic “Hollywood” sign, the …