50 Best Short Hikes: San Diego. Jerry Schad
BEST ARCHITECTURE AND HISTORY
33. Bankers Hill San Diego’s elite residents erected mansions in this exquisitely walkable neighborhood.
36. Gaslamp Quarter Stroll among San Diego’s most complete collection of historic buildings, now part of the city’s liveliest entertainment district.
VERY BEST BIRD- AND WILDLIFE-WATCHING
5. San Elijo Lagoon The waterway hosts birds of shoreline and coastal lagoon habitats, as well as small animals.
43. Lake Murray From hawks and ravens in the sky, to egrets and pelicans in the water, to coyotes and rabbits on the ground—Lake Murray has it all.
50. Imperial Beach At times, large flocks of seabirds congregate here.
VERY BEST FOR DOG WALKING
8. Elfin Forest Recreational Reserve Your pet (if physically fit) can roam in unlimited space.
16. Lake Poway Loop Both dogs and their masters/mistresses will enjoy this excellent exercise course.
43. Lake Murray The lake’s wide shoreline path accommodates all users, including leashed pets.
VERY BEST FOR EASY STROLLING
22. Coast Walk Some unpaved trails, but mostly sidewalks, lead the way to La Jolla’s best coastal vistas.
29. Shelter Island Feast your eyes on the San Diego Bay shoreline as you meander.
34. Balboa Park’s Central Mesa The paved walk welcomes you into the park’s most lavishly landscaped section.
VERY BEST FOR RUNNING
4. Swami’s Beach Several sets of cliff-edge staircases draw runners for serious interval training.
25. Circling Sail Bay A near-flat breezy course parallels the shoreline of Mission Bay.
32. The Embarcadero A totally flat course features San Diego’s best urban-coastal scenery.
48. Rice Canyon This mellow course winds down along an unspoiled coastal canyon.
VERY BEST FOR SMALL CHILDREN
1. Hosp Grove A sun-dappled eucalyptus forest is fun to explore.
30. Cabrillo National Monument The Whale Overlook and Old Point Loma Lighthouse, the tidepools at the south end of the Coastal Trail, and roaming interpretive rangers and volunteers delight young and not so young.
37. Coronado Beach From a small child’s perspective, here is where an ocean of sand meets an ocean of seawater.
VERY BEST SPRINGTIME WILDFLOWERS
19. Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve Coastal-region wildflowers put on a flamboyant show.
40. Oak Canyon The wildflowers common to inland San Diego County are well represented here with an added bonus of two seasonal waterfalls.
45. Hollenbeck Canyon Wet winters yield early-spring wildflower spectacles.
VERY BEST VISTAS
17. Iron Mountain The summit vantage encompasses 360 degrees from ocean shore to mountain crest.
19. Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve The reserve offers the most beautiful melding of land and sea in San Diego County.
23. Soledad Mountain You’ll find superlative urban and coastline vistas.
30. Cabrillo National Monument Walk the Coastal and Bayside Trails for spectacular ocean and San Diego Bay scenery, particularly in late afternoon.
42. Cowles Mountain It features the most comprehensive views of urban and suburban San Diego.
44. McGinty Mountain One of East County’s signature high points, McGinty Mountain offers a 360-degree skyline panorama that a soaring hawk or eagle might see.
Torrey Pines State Beach at Flat Rock
INTRODUCTION
Sunshine. Water and waves. Blue skies and mild temperatures. Sports and leisure. This list of attributes pretty much sums up the image that San Diego projects to the world—and that image is true!
Tourists visiting San Diego for the first time are amazed at the sheer magnitude of park spaces and recreational venues. Everywhere, it seems, people are engaged in outdoor recreation. People are not only swimming, surfing, boating, fishing, picnicking, golfing, and playing tennis, but they’re also running, biking, skating, and walking.
The focus of 50 Best Short Hikes: San Diego is all about walking, and doing it on the most outstanding 50 trails in this metropolitan region. The selection is so varied that you can match the trail to your time, your mood, your energy level, and even to what shoes you’re wearing—or not: the trail surfaces throughout San Diego range from concrete and asphalt to dirt footpaths and sandy beaches.
Geographically, the hike selections include the suburbs and nearby communities that surround the city of San Diego: just picture the Pacific Ocean coastline from Oceanside in the north to Imperial Beach near the Mexican border. Add to that the various bay and river shorelines. Then color in the hills, canyons, and valleys stretching east up to—within the parameters of this guidebook—about 20 miles inland from the coast. (San Diego County actually extends much farther east than that, encompassing mile-high-plus mountain ranges and a vast desert region. Those remote, eastern areas are covered in detail in a companion book published by Wilderness Press titled Afoot & Afield: San Diego County.)
The roughly 1,000 square miles of landscape covered in this book offer a year-round mild climate, easy to moderate types of terrain suitable for almost any hiker, and amazingly varied scenery. To put icing on the cake, you may reach the trailheads by car via one of the world’s most efficient roadway systems. In the next few paragraphs, let’s focus on these superlative claims.
Coastal San Diego County’s weather is often tagged as Mediterranean: generally warm and sunny, and winter-wet, summer-dry. Despite San Diego’s