Stone Mountain
Stone Mountain is a P300 in the Ramona Oaks Estates neighborhood outside of San Diego, closer to Poway. It was selected for today because of its easy access and very short roundtrip of around a mile.
The hike starts off of Watt Rd. There's trail access through an empty lot that was nice and green. This trail circumnavigated the "mountain" but after heading right ( west) we found a small path that headed up to the peak. We went at a good clip, about 3mph as we needed the exercise and were at the summit within 15 minutes.
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Trail Access
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Trail up to Stone Mountain
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There were respectable views of Mt. Gower (a SD100 peaks) and the surrounding suburbs. Through the clouds we started to notice snow at the higher elevations from the last two days precipitation
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| Mt Gower |
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| View SE |
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View East(ish)
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There was a geocache on top which I mistook for a summit register. It was filled with small plastic dinosaurs and a memo pad for singing in. I was surprised to find it hadn't been signed since 2006, considering the peakbagger ascents that had been logged. Maybe the geocache was more hidden previously? I know Bob has been up recently. It only took us another 15 minutes to get down, and soon we were in the car and off to our next hike.
Tom Benchmark
Tom Benchmark is of little prominence but is right next to a trail and seemed like a good walk for the day. Sachi and I wanted to get a good view of Devil's Jumpoff since it can sometimes flow after a lot of rain. The hike started out of a neighborhood where there was a small hikers parking lot. This hike is actually described as West Side Road in Jerry Schads Afoot and Afield. From the neighborhood we already had glimpses down into the San Diego River Gorge and we could just catch glimpses of snow, but the higher peaks were mostly obscured by clouds.
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View near the parking lot
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We started up the road as it gradually weaved its way around a hill. This is sorta a continuation of Mt. Gower and its really a shame there is no trail from here to the summit as it would be a fun route. The bush is too thick to pioneer one myself I fear. As we walked upwards we got clearer views into the valley and a band of trees that weaved through could be seen.
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Able to see down the gorge as we head up
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Within about 30 minutes we had left sight of the Neighborhood and were just hiking through rolling chaparral. Occasionally we could get a glimpse into the gorge or east to the Pine Hills and Santa Ysabel area. We only ran into one other hiker, a bow hunter decked out in full camo.
After about a mile we came to a nice viewpoint where we could see into the river gorge yet again. There were great views into some more wild country of San Diego. The river gorge does a great job of stopping any Ramona development from continuing further south and there's nothing really on the other side other than the odd ranch or inholding.
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Viewpoint - looking south
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Not far past the viewpoint we came to where Tom BM should be. We searched to the left of the road, where it had been described as being placed, for about 10 minutes and came up empty. It's either missing or under a bush somewhere. I later checked the records on Tom BM and found that nobody has been able to locate it in recent times.
We continued walking east, with not much elevation gain between here and our viewpoint of Devil's Jumpoff. I caught a glimpse a little before where I had seen the falls running before and say that it was dry. This was kind of surprising after 2inches of rain in two days but I've heard it really needs to be flooding for the falls to go.
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Devils Jumpoff
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Me and Sachi got to a good viewpoint and sat for maybe 15 minutes and had some snacks. The big cliff of the Jumpoff was still gorgeous and seems so out of place in SD. As we relaxed the clouds started to break and we got better views of the snowy hills, a rare(ish) sight for SD.
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3x zoom - snow behind
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We retraced our route down, enjoying the views in the opposite direction. By the time we were back at the car most the clouds had broken and the views were excellent. Despite not finding the BM it was a really fun hike and great to be on such an empty trail.
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| Trail back |
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| Snow on Cuyamaca Peak |
Cloverdale Benchmark
This was just a planned freebie on the way home. It just barely scrape by as a P300 and is somewhat accessible, plus only like an extra 5 minutes of driving so why not. I had never actually looked into this peak until the night before but have wanted to go up it for at least 3 years. See, this "peak" (really just an unassuming hill) is covered with prickly pear cacti and is right by the Wild Animal Park (formerly Safari Park) which I have been going to ever since I was a kid.
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Parking lot
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Sachi decided to stay in the car as she had already had her fill of this peakbagging madness. It took me only 20 minutes to get to the top, following the public trail for al little bit before crossing over a barbed wire fence into private property and following a dirt road to the summit.
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Dirt road up
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There were views into the Wild Animal park but unfortunately it was too far to see any animals. With binoculars or a telescope I'm sure you could see the elephants and lions. There was a cross on top and the BM was also intact.
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| Wild animal park |
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| Surrounding suburbs "Cloverdale" |
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| Summit Cross |
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