One of the most beautiful hikes in San Diego area. Please be sure to pay the $10/person fee at the check in station. If no one is there you can put the cash in the slot of the door. The hike is on native land and the people are kind enough to allow us to hike there. It is a tough place to make a living and they have struggled financially for many years. Other areas can have income from casinos but this place is too far away for a casino and too dry for agriculture.

“As a San Diego County INDIGENOUS INDIAN TRIBE whose archaeological history traces back at least 125 generations (2,500 years) in Southern California, the Los Coyotes Cahuilla and Cupeño Indian people have been subjected to abject poverty on their American Indian reservation since it was established in 1889 by Executive Order — it is the type of debilitating, deep-rooted generational poverty historically associated with the poorest Indian reservations in the U.S.A.”

Please visit the website to learn more about the amazing people:

http://www.kumeyaay.info/los_coyotes.html

Also watch out for snakes! I have done this hike several times and have seen snakes each time. The picture is of a harmless gopher snake that I saw on the hike down