Since I kicked off the 2020 Challenge with Mt Woodson, I figured it only appropriate to start this year's Challenge the same way. I opted to approach via the Blue Sky Ecological Reserve this time and I really enjoyed the trail. Given the local popularity of Potato Chip Rock, I steeled myself for the inevitable crowds and figured the BSER route would be less crowded than the shorter, more direct route up from HWY 67 in Ramona. I hit the trail at about 0930 I passed by Potato Chip Rock and the long line of people waiting for photos right at noontime, my primary objective was to recover all the Survey Marks for Mt Woodson on this trip (I wasn't even aware of them the first time I summited, finding and documenting Survey Marks is a new-found hobby), a couple of weeks ago I located the Azimuth Marker (at the base of the mountain in Ramona) my goal for this hike was to locate 4 others at the summit. With a bit of rock climbing, I was able to recover all 4!

Before heading back down I was making one more sweep around the Lookout Tower and met two fellow challengers, Philip Yoho and Sierra Clarke, bagging their 3rd Challenge Peak for the day! It was great to meet them both and take an extended summit break to chat about all things hiking, too it was good to put a face to the name that kicked my butt on the trek to get All 18 last year! LOL.

The line at PCR was still crazy long as I passed by on my way back down the trail in the late afternoon sun, surprisingly I passed a number of people coming up the trail, most likely to get sunset pictures on the Rock. I had a quick and uneventful descent wrapping up 11.11 miles and 2,372 feet of gain while finding all 4 survey markers I set out to locate and logging my first SD6POP peak for 2021 ????