Of all things, I was supposed to be in New Mexico this weekend, doing some peaks in the Albuquerque area. A pretty significant monsoon squall hit Phoenix on Friday afternoon, and although by the time I got to the airport the skies had cleared, the delays caused by the storm were still propogating through the system. Given the state of our air-traffic control system, this was not good news. My 2:50 flight was delayed until 4:30, which wasn't terribly bad, but when the desk clerk announced at 4 p.m. that our plane had yet to leave Los Angeles... well, I could have been at the airport all night waiting for that damn plane. I decided to just cancel my flight, accept a credit for my funds and try again some other time.

I went back home and decided on a whim to head out to San Diego and gain its highpoint, plus spend some time at the beach and visit my brother's family and, of course, my wonderful 14-month old niece Emma. As it was, I left Phoenix at 3:00 a.m. and proceeded west on Interstate-10, taking advantage of the cool night weather and lack of traffic. I took a series of back roads through Salton City and Borrego Springs up to Warner Springs, arriving at the Los Coyotes Indian Reservation gate around 9:00 a.m. The fee was $10, and I proceeded in. The weather was pretty good, but it was humid and I figured some storms might build later in the day (they did).

I first tried to follow Gary Suttle's description in his California County Summits book. I followed some dirt roads a total of about 8 miles to a point where he described a camping area... but I could find no such thing. I even backtracked and re-zeroed my odometer to check against any errors on my part. I tried some roads in the area, and found some that may have been the correct route, but I wasn't sure, and not very interested in hiking up dead ends. So, after about a half-hour of goofing around I retreated back to the entrance gate area and went up the more direct Hot Springs Lookout Road.

This road gains pretty steadily for about 2 miles, then undulates across the long ridge, and actually ends about 500 feet short of the highpoint, a 7-mile drive from the start. I opted instead to park after about 5 miles and make a hike out of the rest. I found a good wide area to stow my truck and started in, around 10:00 a.m. in cool breezy, partly cloudy weather. The hike was pretty straightforward: I followed the road up and down for about 1.5 miles, then up moderately steeply to the end of the road just below the old decrepit lookout tower. The tower is not at the highpoint, however. The highpoint is in the thicket of pine and chapparal just east. I found a use-trail that quickly dead-ended, and I ended up bushwhacking the final few hundred feet through the very dense growth until I came upon some massive rocks at the summit. Finding a way up these rocks was somewhat challenging, but I found a slit and some holds that helped me scale the 20 vertical feet to the top, where a cement slab (?) marks the top of the highest rock and the highpoint of San Diego County. A register was found in a crook of a pine at the base of these rocks, and I signed in. I did find the use-trail again as I hiked out, but it also gave out and I ended up battling the brush again for a short bit before coming out to the open saddle. Total time one-way was about an hour with about a net 500 feet of gain. I saw no one going up, but there was some litter at the summit area, and I could hear campers off in the distance. Coming down I bumped into a few more hikers, photographers and 4-wheelers. I was back to my truck at noon. The clouds were getting a bit gray and puffy, too.

Comment on the road: other than some sandy portions and places where recent rains had exacerbated some ruts, it was a good road that most vehicles would handle nicely. Only the final few hundred feet to the summit might require 4-wheel drive.

From Hot Springs Mountain, it was about an hour's drive to Oceanside and Carlsbad, where I grabbed a hotel and spent a few hours at the beach, my first time in 5 years. However, by 9 p.m. I was a goner, tired from a long day's drive, hiking, splashing in the ocean, etc., so I turned in early. Next day I made the 100-mile drive to Cucamonga to visit my brother's family, elicit smiles from Emma, then was on my way back to Phoenix, arriving home about 5:15 p.m.