Trust the signs to the trail head

I’ve hiked to Potato Chip Rock in the past with family and friends always starting from Lake Poway. This route is popular, but my hiking buddy as well as a Peak Challenger and I decided to go to Mt. Woodson from the east side. I had read reviews on where to park and entrance of the trailhead. Parking is along the side of the freeway and easy to spot as there are other vehicles there as well. This indicates you are at the right spot to hike.

As we prepared for our morning hike, I noticed that it was overcast and a bit chilly. I was glad that I had layers for clothing, but decided not to wear my jacket as I knew the hike would warm me up. I noticed a hiker who had parked a few cars in front of us started walking away from us along the highway. After I had put on my hydration pack, I looked back up an noticed he was gone. I thought this was strange as the entrance road to the trailhead was much further away from where the hiker had started and it seemed too far for him to turn into in the few seconds to get my pack. I concluded that he must have been a runner rather than a hiker which explained the disappearance in a short period of time.

We started the hike and made a right at the road off the highway where the trailhead started. My hiking buddy had the All Trails app and stated we were on track. As we went further up the road, we saw a sign that had an arrow pointing back to where we came from stating the trail started back in this direction. Since all we saw was a chain link fence, we thought this must have been for a different trail back towards the Fire Station a little further down the highway. After traveling further down the road, we realized we were in a residential area which gave us a feeling that we were not getting anywhere close to the top of Mt. Woodson. After an All Trails location check, it appeared we were way off track from the trail. We decided to head back admittingly stating we were not lost, just didn’t know how to get on the trail. We also knew that the sign may have indicated to go down the highway and start at the Fire Station. As we headed back and came across the sign again, we noticed a trail was behind the chain link fence and was not passable for even hikers. We knew this was the trail and the entrance was further back and most likely down the freeway. Sure enough, there was a small opening in the chain link fence with a hand made sign stating this was the trail head. For us, this seemed easy to overlook as brush made the fence opening obscure while walking towards the road entrance. After going through the fence, up a small trail through the brush, we ended up on the Mount Woodson trail. We noted the small trail turn off so we wouldn’t over look it on our return route.

The trail is well kept and wide as it was a service road for vehicles to go to the top of Mt. Woodson. I felt the incline was modest and challenging at certain spots, but gave a magnificent view when you looked back towards the direction from where you started. The overcast slightly lifted yet stayed during the hike and made for great hiking conditions. What is interesting to note is that the trail traverses between very large boulders along the route. As we approached the top, I noticed that there were a wide variety of plants that seemed well arranged. It appeared that someone had landscaped this area rather than done by nature. As we were getting closer to the top, we could see several antennas peeking through the vegetation.

As we arrived to where the antennas were, we noticed that the top of Mt. Woodson is more of a complex with roads going to buildings as well as a low roar of generators keeping electronic equipment running. We looked for a sign or plaque indicating Mt. Woodson, but couldn’t find any. We decided to take pictures of us standing next to the iconic antennas, which seemed to be quite a few and quite large. We decided that the top of Mt Woodson was our goal. We both had previously been to Potato Chip Rock and enjoyed the less traveled route from the east.

We headed back down and did meet a few hikers going back, but couldn’t reconcile this with the number of cars parked on the highway. We concluded that many had continued to Potato Chip Rock. We found the trail head again and this time with ease and felt that this was good hike and provided an experience of what the back side trail from Potato Chip Rock was like.