Roam-O-Rama
During the past five years, two new east-west highways have opened up for traffic in the Poway and Santee areas: the Tierrasanta-to-Santee leg of Highway 52 and Scripps Poway Parkway. Both roadways were designed to …
Serene Dos Picos County Park, outside Ramona, nestles into East County's sweet-smelling chaparral hillsides like a dewdrop caught in the hollow of a leaf. On a recent weekday visit there, I spotted only a few …
Eastbound in the right lane of Highway 52, the San Clemente Canyon Freeway, you can look down upon a long, slender, almost unbroken swath of natural vegetation: massive sycamores, stately live oaks, climbing vines, and …
Summer is finally arriving in upper-elevation San Diego County. At mile-high elevations you can still find lingering bursts of wildflower color amid the somber pines and bright-green black oaks. For a wide-ranging introduction to the …
Crest Canyon, an open-space park within the city limits of San Diego, helps insulate woodsy Del Mar from the upscale, bustling sprawl of Carmel Valley to the east. The canyon, rather like a shallow bowl …
North and east of Ramona lie several back roads offering splendid late-spring bicycle riding for those who care to venture off the car-clogged two-lane ribbon of Highway 78. Black Canyon Road is perhaps the best …
There are at least as many ways to climb Cowles Mountain, the highest elevation within San Diego's city limit, as there are digits on your hand. Perhaps the least popular but no less fun approach …
Big Spring, tucked in a tributary of Tubb Canyon on the west side of Borrego Valley, is one of the more reliable water producers in the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. As such, it is an …
Silverwood. The name comes from the glittering effect of sunlight upon the dark-green leaves of the coast live oak. Scores of these trees, some of them two-century-old giants scarred by fire, shade the canyon floor …
It's barely a month after more than a foot of late-season snow fell on the 6000-foot-high Laguna Mountains. The forest atop these rarefied heights is responding in a sluggish way to the melted snow and …
Two hundred twenty-seven years ago, a small party led by the Spanish Colonel Pedro Fages chased after army deserters from the Presidio of San Diego, trekking through a narrow declivity known as Oriflamme Canyon on …
Pinyon Ridge stands just high enough on the Anza-Borrego desert rim -- and therefore gets just enough rain -- to support a sparse growth of pinyon-pine trees. Hiking along this ridge, you get expansive views …
San Diego County's 135-mile portion of the 2600-mile-long Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) starts at the Mexican border near Campo, zigs and zags from one rounded ridge to another, and passes into Riverside County near the …
Have you ever driven down Interstate 8 east of Jacumba and, eyeing the immense boulder piles that rise on both sides, wondered what it would be like to clamber over them? Here's your chance. Follow …
You trudge ever upward with steady footfalls, steering clear of barely seen rocks and roots. Night vision rules, monochromatic and flat, supplied by the light from a three-quarter moon sinking in the west. As you …
Climb to South Fortuna Mountain in Mission Trails Regional Park via Oak Canyon and its trickling stream.