I had been COVID-19 off the trail since late February, waiting for this National Emergency to play out some, I was ready to get back on to the Six Peak Challenge and had researched open trails and El Cajon came up. I had read this was a strenuous trail, San Diego's hardest hike so understood the challenge ahead and had planned on going up the week before but some excessive heat warnings were in place for Lakeside so I delayed for better weather – no need to risk it.

So May 13 was a good day to hike cooler weather and cloud cover until the last couple miles, big lift by mother nature cause this hike is tough! Keep your eye on the weather as this hike comes up; no shade and your exposed to the sun the entire 11 miles – full sun and a hot day could turn this hike into trouble. I read to take 3 L of water so I had a 2.5L in my camel back and a 30 oz container – on this cool day I returned with 1 L of water in the camel back and drank 15 oz of the container at the peak – so a comfortable amount but on a hot day water will go fast. I missed my alarm, I set if for next Tuesday and this Wednesday I got up late, at best I was going to miss my 0700 start by 1.5 hours – I thought about it – cool weather, even a 20% chance of rain so rather than miss this hike window I went for it and got started at 0830. So roughly I arrived the peak at 1116, spent about 30 minutes at the peak with a ham sandwich and water…and back to the car at 1408.

The hike is an like most with a lot of long steep ascents followed by long steep descents. While mostly going up for the first 4 miles there are 4 long ascents and four long descents – at 4.25 miles its all up to the 5.5 miles to the peak. And that mile and half plus is very aggressively up – I was pretty grumpy at the peak – normally your thrilled! But the grind to the top and the knowledge of those descents and and steep ascents awaiting the way back – had to keep my game face on all the way to the last mile mark. The old mine and abandon jeep are kind of neat landmarks – there are nice vistas and some spring flowers but honestly I spent most of the time with my head down looking where my next step as on the aggressive up and down sections so didn't look up much!

So read this hike up – know what your getting into, start early and have plenty of water. On the bright side the trail is in great shape, well marked, provides real informative signage that keeps track of your progresses and how much elevation needed to peak.