During one of my monsoon visits to the Laguna Crest, I noticed an out-of-place looking blue rock a short distance away from the summit of Garnet Peak. No other rock in the area has this color or texture. The rock has an inscription on it and is probably 18-20″ long (~50cm), maybe more. It must have been considerable effort to get the rock up there and place it!
laguna mountains
Manza Benchmark
Manza Benchmark in San Diego’s Laguna Mountains is peak number 67 on the Sierra Club’s 100 Peaks list. We had a cool and partially overcast day, just right to hike it at the end of June. Steel gray clouds hung in the sky and a pleasant wind made for very comfortable conditions.
Pine Mountain
I have promised myself to get out once every week to do a hike or some other outdoor activity (besides my jogging routine and the Nordic walking Shuwen and I do on local trails), even during the summer months. It’s a mental health exercise as much as a physical one. When the tasks at home seem to mount, and all the tiny little things that want to get done combine and become overwhelming, getting away for just a few hours to hike puts things back into perspective, and makes everything manageable again.
Big Laguna drought comparison photos
Updated drought comparison photos of Big Laguna, the largest of the three bodies of water in San Diego’s Laguna Mountains. The “super El Nino” of the 2015/2016 winter that brought good rain and snowfall to central and northern California didn’t really had any impact in Southern California.
Laguna Meadows
Our Friday hike led us up to Laguna Mountains – it’s a bit early in the year to hike up there because unlike Boden Canyon or the San Diego River Gorge, spring hasn’t quite arrived yet at these elevation (around 5000ft/1500m). We went nevertheless, because the lower regions as well as the deserts of Southern California were suffering from an unseasonal heatwave that brought temperatures into the 90F/30C range in places (and temperature records were broken or tied all the way up to San Francisco).
Hiking Plan B
Fred and I set out for an afternoon hike at Laguna Mountains – the Santa Ana winds were supposed to die down by 10am on Friday and the forecast predicted sunny and a temperature ~60F up there. Sounds like pretty awesome conditions for hiking, right?
That wasn’t worth it
Late on Friday night we drove out east to Laguna Mountains. The secondary goal was to enjoy the night out in the back country and maybe make some photos of the night sky, weather permitting (the forecast said partly cloudy), then sleep in the car and get up early to achieve the primary goal: hike up to Garnet Peak or Monument Peak for sunrise. Something that has been on my bucket list for a very long time.
Wooded Hill
Wooded Hill in the Laguna Mountains is, blatantly obvious just from looking at its name, a wooded hill that has made it onto the Sierra Club’s 100 Peaks list, somehow. It’s probably one of the easiest peaks on the list – the Wooded Hill Nature Trail is a casual stroll through open Jeffrey Pine forest on a little loop, just a bit uphill. Views are, as the name implies, rather limited – that hill is wooded, and the only opening is to the south and southwest (see third photo below).
Garnet Peak
Garnet Peak is #59 on the Sierra Club’s list of 100 peaks in San Diego County. The hike is rather short, and the only challenge is the sheer drop down into the desert on its eastern side, if you’re easily feeling vertigo. It is probably one of the most impressive drops in the Laguna Mountains and well worth going there.