El Cajon Mountain – Land of 1,000 Hills

Someone else had reviewed this trail and said it is “uphill both ways” and they were not joking. I started out at 6:45am and had beautiful mist settled over the the lower valleys around the trail. It got pretty warm, pretty quickly and the lovely flowers, butterflies, and lizards were only a distraction for so long. The trail was beautiful, brutal, and ultimately rewarding. Coming back, I did not remember ever coming down the vast number of hills I had to climb to get back, but I must have. There were a couple times I turned a corner and let out a curse word as I stared at yet another incline.

An equipment note – I don’t typically hike with poles, so I did some research on whether I should get some before going and found mixed information. I decided to brave it without and this was the first trail I’ve been on where I really think that having them would have been considerably safer especially coming back and doing some of the rock scrambling to get to the peak. I will qualify that by saying I am 5’3″ and climbing often requires my upper body because I just don’t have the reach for large steps.