Cowles Mountain Summit

Since we didn't get a chance to go to Sequoia, we decided to find somewhere local to take a hike. Cowles Mountain Summit was towards the top of the list of hikes in our area. When I was looking into it, it looked like it was under 3 miles round trip and was rated moderate which sounded doable to us. Although it's also the tallest mountain in San Diego, so we knew it wouldn't be super easy.

I was a little confused when we got there and saw the sign that says 'Difficult'.

The hike was beautiful and it was the perfect day. Sunny but cool out. We saw beautiful trees along the way.

In the bottom left of the picture below is part of the trail we popped out of. We started feeling like we had been going for quite a while (at least a mile) when we got to a sign that said the peak was still 1.5 miles ahead (all upward). 

We looked at our map and realized we had parked down at a different trail entrance, which was twice as long. Apparently we weren't on the moderate trail, hence the 'Difficult' sign earlier. We weren't going to turn back then.

From here on out (below) it went from consistent steady incline, to steep and very difficult. It may not look that bad, but it was not a walk in the park!

Another stop for some water and to take in the views along the way.

Finally we made it!

Below pointed out all the major landmarks that we could see from Tijuana to San Clemente Island.

It was worth the views!



On the way back down you can probably see a little better how steep it was. We had to pretty much sidestep half the way to avoid slipping. Everyone we passed heading up as we were heading down breathlessly panted "How much farther??" We were glad we were not them anymore.

I joked as we were heading down "Wouldn't it be awful if we went down the wrong trail and had to go back UP again?"

We got almost the entire way down when I realized I wasn't recognizing the trail. Eric and I stopped to look at our map, and a nice passerby stopped to help. They kindly told us we missed our turn. We would have to go halfway back up to catch our turn off, then twice as long back down from that point.

After laughing to keep from crying, we eventually made it. Which is how a 2.9 mile hike turned into a brutal 6+ mile hike. We got back to the car content that we didn't need to experience Cowles Mountain Summit again. Worth it, but once was enough.