Most difficult part: The descent…

Decided to put this trail into Gaia since this was a new trail for me and my hiking friend who uses All Trails wouldn’t be on this trip. Another friend did go with me as we both just finished Trans Catalina Trail (TCT) a couple of weeks ago. This is a 12 mile hike with 3600 feet elevation gain. Seems challenging even after completing the TCT. Since we knew the trail head was at Oak Grove Campgrounds, we assumed this is where to park and pay the day parking fee of $5 as I have done before on hiking trails in the Cleveland National Forest. However when we arrived at the campgrounds, the park map didn’t offer any real place to park like other CNF campgrounds. While contemplating on where to park, a campground host asked if we were hikers. After we stated we were, he mentioned that parking was available across the street for free and to park next to the “Parking” sign. Things just got simpler. Lesson Learned: Check web site blogs for best places to park at a trail head.

The trail head is marked and made it easy to get on track with Gaia and start on Oak Grove Trail. The first half mile is flat and I forgot to start my Garmin watch which didn’t track the first half mile. After this, the incline significantly increased and left me wondering if it would be like this for the rest of the 6 miles. It didn’t. We reached a junction where the trail turned into a jeep road with a constant, modest incline for the rest of the trip going up. The best part was this road was on the north side of Palomar Mountain as it offered shade. With no clouds in sight, this kept the cool morning temperature to linger much longer than other areas that had direct sunlight.  There were the largest manzanita we had ever seen. It is interesting to note that some of these trees had some form of parasite on it as the leaves didn’t resemble rest of the Manzanita plant.  As we got further up into the mountain, the high desert chaparral had changed to a forest of oak and pine trees. There was plenty of shade and the oak trees offered magnificent colors which was a treat to observe when we reached peaks with a long distance view. This is the reason why Palomar Mountain is my favorite place to hike in San Diego county.

As we got closer to the top, we could see the lookout tower peaking through the trees and gave us the feeling that we were almost there. We reached a place where there was perfect grass along with oak trees dotting the area. It gave the look of a man made park where it offered a nice place to picnic and for kids to play in. It was here where gnats showed up and annoyingly followed us until we reached a shaded area called Sourdough Springs. We had camped here before by going up from the Observatory Campgrounds and knew this area well.

We reached High Point at the Lookout Tower and met up with several motocross bikers who were also enjoying the view. We decided to have lunch at a table with benches near the tower. A glider flew past us which we thought was interesting. As we ate our lunch, the Cal Fire lookout had approached us and asked if we hiked up from Oak Springs which we acknowledged. We asked how long he was a lookout and how did he get this job. He mentioned that he was a volunteer and had been doing this for 4 years. He would come up to the tower 1 night per month on weekends and asked if we were interested in signing up as a volunteer. We thought is would be a great experience and gave him our names and e-mail addresses.

After lunch, decided to retrace our steps back down the trail. It was about halfway down we realized this was a long hike. We reached the junction where the road turned back into Oak Grove Trail. Going down the trail seemed tricky as the rocks were loose and unstable. There was decomposed granite which made it slippery. I didn’t bring trekking poles and it was difficult and hard on the knees and ankles. The three miles of this started to wear on my joints. Getting back on flat ground was relief.

When we finished, we contemplated if High Point was more difficult of a hike from El Cajon Mountain. Since we did High Point with just Hydration Packs and El Cajon Mountain with full packs, it was difficult to say. Hands down, we did agree the down hill hike from Palomar Mountain was more difficult than El Cajon Mountain even with full packs.