Saw a 3 foot turtle… on this trail!

This is my last hike for the six pack of peaks challenge in San Diego. I hiked with my challenger colleague Larry, who had already completed this peak as well as the 2025 challenge. Since I did not have a pass for CNF, which is required to park at the trail head, I parked at the turn-off from Buckman Springs Road. I then traveled to the trail head with Larry since he had a pass. The morning was slightly chilly. However, we were expecting it to heat up above 80 degrees given that there was a Santa Ana conditions. SoCal weather in December is great. At the trail head entrance, we noticed to other vehicles already there indicated we would likely pass some additional hikers on the trail. Could they possibly be Challengers as well? We would hopefully meet up and find out. Since there wasn’t any recent rain with dry weather for the past weeks, the trail was dusty and I had to keep a distance back at times when Larry was leading.

About a mile and half into the trail, there is a junction where a road crosses the trail. I noticed the “CM” sign on the other side from the web site picture. However, it was heavily faded with the arrow pointing to the left. It seemed intuitive to turn left onto the road, which I had started to do. However Larry had is All Trails map open and stated “This doesn’t look right”. We need to go towards the sign, which we did as we saw a slight opening to a narrow trail. “This is it, it may not be a road, but it is a trail”. I agreed as I had no reason to argue with a GPS system. We continued on and I was thankful for All Trails for keep us on track at that moment and the use of Gaia for all the other times I almost took a wrong turn.

Further down the trail, the hillsides opened up and we could the country side below and to the horizon. Everything was unexpectedly green which was most likely from the heavy rains we had a month ago. The visibility was perfect and allowed a magnificent view to the south and west. I believe it was Lake Morena off on the horizon. As we got closer to the peak, we were able to see the group of about six hikers coming back. We stopped for a chat and found out that they were from the Sierra Club where most in the group were completing this hike for the first time. We parted ways after determining we were all from different parts of San Diego County.

As we approached the peak, the trail seemed to be less apparent as the brush became less dense. We continued to let the incline guide us the rest of the way. In a short distance from what appeared to be the top, we saw a ammo box with a sign on top next to a rock indicating we had reached the peak. It had been years since I last saw an ammo box at a peak and it had my first to see a loose sign with the peak’s name and altitude. I didn’t open the ammo box as I assumed it contained logs and felt best to keep it closed. Larry took a pic of me holding the sign which was a good way to commemorate the accomplishment of completing my last peak of the Six Pack of Peaks Challenge for 2025.

On the way down going the same route we came up, it seemed warm. I asked Larry if he knew the temperature and showed me a thermometer on his backpack indicating 86 degrees. Parts of the trail had shade which we we enjoyed when it lasted. There seemed to be minor junctions from the trail which All Trails guided us back. After taking the lead, I came around the corner about 2 miles in from peak and was quickly started to see a round shell of a turtle! It’s shell was about 3 feet in diameter. The head was out with the front legs laying out. After about 2 seconds and looking closer, I was a rock on the trail that looked like the shell with a smaller rock in front shaped like a turtle’s head and a flat rock where the front leg would be.  I couldn’t wait to show Larry as we was a few seconds behind me. He agreed and we continued walking. After a few yards, I mentioned I wished I had taken a picture. I then felt that the further we got down the path, the more I regretted not taking a picture and decided to run back and take before we were too far to go back. If you get a quick glance of the picture, I’m hoping you saw what I initially saw.

We reached back to the trail head and talked about what next adventure we would do for overnight backpacking trip during a weekend. Completing the Six Pack of Peaks for SoCal crossed our minds. We shall see.