Due to my travel schedule, I decided to knock the last 4 peaks of this San Diego Challenge out in 4 days.  I realized that these last four were all centrally located around Julian and I was just coming of the 1st section of the PCT with a few friends and I figured it would be wise of me to knock these out and complete this challenge.  In the end it worked out perfectly, but my biggest issue was reserving a campground with the park service.  They have so reservation rules that can make last plans difficult.  But in the end I was able to find camping spots pretty easily and was able to complete my peaks with not problems.

Hot Springs is basically a fire road to the top which actually was a nice warm up for the next three peaks on my calendar.  It was interesting to learn about this Indian Reservation and to have a chance to hike on their land. The check in process was easy.  An interesting weather phenomenon happened as I as walking through a small forest area.  The temperatures must have dropped below freezing the night before, because all of the trees had ice accumulation and as the sun was shining on the day of my hike, they were slowly melting and dropping like ice cubes from a refrigerator!

The trail leads you directly up the peak and when you get near the top there are bright ribbon hanging from the trees to guide you to the summit rock.  There was a rope to help you get up and some climbing bars were also embedded into the rock. I was by myself on this hike, so getting down as a little scary, but not too bad.

I started around 10:00am, and reached the top at 12:00.  There was a survey marker on this rock. The views from the top were awesome! This was a very easy hike and I if you are an early starter, you definitely could combine this hike with the another peak on this list.