Volcan Mountain.  This is in my mind one of the best 5 milers in San Diego county.  I've done it in the driving rain, after a heavy snowfall, in the late fall, and now I've done it to complete the 2022 San Diego Six Pack of Peaks Challenge.  Every time I do this trail I feel like it consists of three different hikes all rolled into one.  You've got the typical Manzanita and Oak section, the mountain meadow sections, and the whispering cedar and pine woods sections.  We started the day with Cuyamaca Peak and then started this hike at around 1030-ish.  The weather was a tad warmer than Cuyamaca owing it being later in the day but it was still cool enough to put some welly in it and we got it done in an hour and forty five minutes not including the 15 minutes we spent trying to find the cool daddy summit board prop to take our pictures with.   No worries though we made due with using the plaque commemorating the old air mail beacon.  We only came across nine other hikers during the hike so the solitude factor wasn't affected too much and we did get lucky enough to watch a supremely healthy looking coyote stalking voles on the uppermost meadow.

Lunch Report:  Wynola Pizza is the absolute bomb after hiking Volcan.  The pizzas come in one size (8 piece Med) but they ain't too shabby when you've got your hungry on.  The staff was very cordial and they serve the elixir of the God's Lagunitas IPA in the bottle.