Roam-O-Rama
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. …
This year, the Palomar Mountain summits have shown off their best vernal coloration rather late -- through June. It's still a fine time to visit Palomar Mountain State Park, which features some of the finest …
The rapidly urbanizing East County community of Alpine once displayed a sign along the main highway boasting "Best Climate in the USA by Government Report." Apparently the town's boosters got what they wanted. Thousands of …
Familiar to most Del Martians but unknown to most outsiders, the Torrey Pines State Reserve Extension conceals itself amid the coastal bluffs inland from Del Mar and just north of the main Torrey Pines reserve. …
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 feet of elevation nor rising to more than 5900 feet. …
Here's a bicycle ride that's practically a land-based equivalent of a harbor cruise on San Diego Bay. Over an out-and-back stretch of 16 miles, you're seldom far from the water, and the ease of gliding …
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 …
East of Jacumba, pressed against the California-Baja California border, is a series of scenic peaks and valleys in the Jacumba Mountains affording vistas of two counties (San Diego and Imperial) and two nations. Although American …
The sinuously curving rural roads on the far (north) side of Fallbrook offer a significant challenge to bicycle riders. Twenty-five years ago, the brushy hills and wooded backcountry canyons between Fallbrook and Temecula were sparsely …
Tucked into a dry and isolated corner of the Cleveland National Forest, the oak-rimmed oasis of Barker Valley is an incredible surprise. The perennial west fork of the San Luis Rey River gurgles through the …
Thanks to the crusading efforts of Descanso cabinet-maker Duncan McFetridge, affectionately known by some as the "Robin Hood of Cleveland Forest," two inholdings (islands of private property inside public-domain lands) near Descanso are being added …
In Black Canyon water has amply illustrated its mindless yet artistic ability to sculpt stone. Every once in a great while, a great gush of sediment-laden water tears through the canyon bottom, carving and polishing …
With nothing civilized around it for miles, Agua Caliente County Park/Campground feels like a true oasis amid the vast and desolate dry lands of the Anza-Borrego Desert. Tucked against the skeletal Tierra Blanca Mountains, the …
Just north of San Diego State University, the runoff shed by some 15 square miles of chaparral-covered hillsides and suburban streets placidly crosses under ten lanes of Interstate 8 west of College Avenue. Then it …
Some of the loftiest — and least-visited — mountain country in San Diego County lies on the 25,000-acre Los Coyotes Indian Reservation. San Diego County’s highest point, Hot Springs Mountain, with an elevation of 6533 …