This mountain is the highest in San Diego county and located inside an indian reservation and with that said, there’s a fee to enter and you can’t start early as you want to be, unfortunately. But since we’re looking for challenges, that’s one of them as it’s quite a drive from where we came from. We were the first group that got there, 8am to be exact, the time they supposed to open. The reservation’s office still closed and we were kinda lost as no one to ask about the fee situation but decided to just head to the sheriff’s station next door. As my friends step out the car, someone approached, I’ll say out of nowhere, and told us we have to pay $10/person and we can go ahead and drive to the gate. He said he’ll follow us and he’ll open the gate. We were a little apprehensive after handing the money to someone that didn’t show any identification that he works with the reservation. He said he’s new and he doesn’t have a key to the office. To make the story short, he was able to let us in (thankfully)and of course, he doesn’t have a map to give us. He gave us directions how to get to the TH but once we were inside, we were in another challenge… finding the trailhead and the right parking????.
The short road to the TH is directly opposite the Los Coyotes sign, before the restroom. We parked just close to the locked gate. There are few roads in the area and one can  missed the gate and get lost easily. I guess if the CG is occupied, it’ll be easier. We used Alltrails and it’s spot on.

Once the TH is located, navigating to the mountain is a no-brainer. The first 2 miles or so was a continuous incline along the fire road, felt like it wasn’t going to end. It flattened a little bit and some patches of snow started to show. We noticed some paw prints that seemed to be too big for a dog and our over-active imagination kicked in????.

We encountered a group with a couple of kids in a jeep, passed us and just a few feet, were stuck in a ditch that the driver was unable to maneuver to get out off. Probably showing off  they were in a jeep and we were walking (by choice)—- karma????? They were gone when we headed back.

Upon reaching the tower area we decided to continue a little farther to find the benchmark.  This one has an actual trail, bushy at times with manzanitas. Not too long until we figured out that the marker is on top of the boulder. There are two obvious way points, there’s the rope to ascend or rappel and the aluminum ladder that will reach just the top of the lower boulder, about 8ft, then has to figure out how to reach the top. My acrophobia tagged along this time so didn’t try either. Tried to squeezed in between boulders but chickened out that there might be snake waiting????????. Took some pictures and set off to the tower for scrumptious lunch. Stayed about an hour for more pictures and head back to the parking.