A fellow hiker and I went to hike to Potato Chip Rock and Mount Woodson recently. Knowing that it is a popular hike on the weekends, we went on a Wednesday. To beat the heat, we started our hike by 6:30am. The downside to starting that early is that the restrooms at the park were still locked. Thankfully, there are a couple sets of Porto potties along the trail. It was a foggy morning, so thick that we couldn’t see the lake except a bit by the lakeside. Eventually, we hiked above the fog and saw the sun. We passed several massive boulders on our way up. When we reached Potato Chip Rock, there was a couple hikers there taking pictures. Once they were done, we had our opportunity to take some photos before moving on to find the Mount Woodson summit. We hiked up to some towers but didn’t find any specific designation for “the peak”. From there, we went down the service road to Hwy 67. It was on this service road where we passed a few more hikers. When we reached Hwy 67, we saw a couple law enforcement putting flyers on cars. They said there have been lots of break-ins lately, especially cars with baby car seats. We had to walk a small stretch of the shoulder on Hwy 67 to get to the Fry Koegel Trail. That trail had some trees for some much welcomed shade. There’s much more foliage on that side of the mountain. It was in the shade where we encountered some bugs flying near our face but they weren’t too bad. The Fry Koegel Trail then met up with the Old Fry Koegel Trail, but we stayed on the trail we had been traveling on because that trail led to a vista point I saw when I was mapping out the route. The vista point was up some boulders and it looked out towards Lake Poway where we started our day. After the vista point lookout, we rejoined the Mt Woodson Trail to head back to the parking lot. On our way down, we were able to see the Lake Poway and it was a beautiful shade of blue. From Lake Poway and looping back on Fry Koegel Trail and the lookout, we hiked just over 11.5 miles and probably came across a little over a dozen people in that time.