Another lessons learned— focus on the road and stop talking so you won’t missed your turn (me talking to myself after the fact). Try to conduct a little more research????

A small mishap enroute the CG… I entered the address for Cuyamaca Rancho SP in waze the night before the trip as logically it should be that address where the TH is for it’s namesake peak, right? It didn’t dawn to me that i should put the CG address for Paso Picacho, which I’d been to before on our first attempt to peak (I wasn’t driving that time)????. Upon reaching the SP address, which is also along hwy 79, that I knew it wasn’t the right one. What were the giveaways? No one was there, not a CG and no TH to the peak!????????

Good thing I have a friend with me to witness my challenges. To add to this mishap, we were to meet another friend at the CG, where she was dropped off and waited for us. Of course, no cell service. Thank goodness the CG is just about 5mi from where we were and able to meet after 40mins of agreed time to start due to my direction ability (or lack thereof)????????

Even if we had a late start than usual, the hike still enjoyable. We headed out Azalea trail which was quite relatively flat at the start then gradually inclined. A lot of snow patches that made it a cool hike to add to some shady areas. Alltrails noted that this is a heavily trafficked loop trail, however, at time of our visit, we only met 6-8 people  bothways. Felt like the trail was all by ourselves.

Upon reaching the top, there were more people already that opted to use the fireroad. This, however, will not going to give you a ‘trail’ hiking experience as you’re just walking on the pavement but on the other side it’s shorter.

Finding the marker apparently was not as easy if it was your first time as well as the people that we asked about it. After a quick lunch, I scrambled to go up where the tower is located (typically that’s always the case) because we were not leaving without our photo taken next to the sign????????. Luckily the light bluish colored wood sign lay atop the USGS marker. It didn’t attach to a wooden post so it can be easily missed. Having the sign for ourselves was an opportunity for tons of photos. Once satisfied, we started to head back to the CG continued along the fire road to finish the loop.