It's barely a month after more than a foot of late-season snow fell on the 6000-foot-high Laguna Mountains. The forest atop these rarefied heights is responding in a sluggish way to the melted snow and …

Two hundred twenty-seven years ago, a small party led by the Spanish Colonel Pedro Fages chased after army deserters from the Presidio of San Diego, trekking through a narrow declivity known as Oriflamme Canyon on …

Pinyon Ridge stands just high enough on the Anza-Borrego desert rim -- and therefore gets just enough rain -- to support a sparse growth of pinyon-pine trees. Hiking along this ridge, you get expansive views …

San Diego County's 135-mile portion of the 2600-mile-long Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) starts at the Mexican border near Campo, zigs and zags from one rounded ridge to another, and passes into Riverside County near the …

Have you ever driven down Interstate 8 east of Jacumba and, eyeing the immense boulder piles that rise on both sides, wondered what it would be like to clamber over them? Here's your chance. Follow …

You trudge ever upward with steady footfalls, steering clear of barely seen rocks and roots. Night vision rules, monochromatic and flat, supplied by the light from a three-quarter moon sinking in the west. As you …

Climb to South Fortuna Mountain in Mission Trails Regional Park via Oak Canyon and its trickling stream.

Flat Cat Canyon is the curious name given to a rugged gorge southwest of the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park visitors' center and not far outside the town of Borrego Springs. Park rangers once found a …

Where can you go to do some fat-tire bicycle riding after the winter rains come? Certainly not on many of the county's backcountry dirt roads and trails, which turn slippery when wet. Instead, try out …

After flowing across the pristine, oak- and sycamore-dotted Pamo Valley north of Ramona, Santa Ysabel Creek cuts southwest down a steep gorge and finally emerges on the flatlands of San Pasqual Valley. In the '70s …

Stark and barren, yet glorious in their nakedness, Anza-Borrego's skeletal mountain ranges conceal more than they reveal to casual passersby. If you want to know them better, you must leave the security of the automotive …

Hike Cowles Mountain by late afternoon sunlight, and return by moonlight or flashlight. Trek past Smugglers Cave into the Valley of the Moon. Bike around Mission Bay. Watch birds at San Elijo Lagoon. Circumnavigate Middle …

The ambitiously constructed Secret Canyon Trail, circuitously nosing its way down the canyon walls of Pine Valley Creek for 14 miles, traverses nearly the entire length of the Pine Creek Wilderness in Cleveland National Forest. …

Tranquil Mine Canyon and its several tributaries slash deep into the Pinyon Mountains of central Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. Day after day, year after year, the parched ravines and boulder-splintered hillsides lie open to the …

With more than 20 miles of trails for self-propelled travelers, the 3058-acre Daley Ranch offers more than any casual visitor should try in a single day. This former cattle spread and dairy is now Escondido's …

Straddling the San Diego: Riverside County line, Rockhouse Canyon and the broad, sloping alluvial basin drained by it -- informally known as Rockhouse Valley -- constitute one of Southern California's truly forgotten places. Not much …

Winter is an often perfect time for watching the sun rise or set in San Diego. Picture yourself on a clear late afternoon, perched atop a seaside bluff or on one of the hills that …

Anza-Borrego's Coyote Canyon, northwest of Borrego Springs, sustains the only dependably year-round stream in San Diego County's desert quarter. Near the lower end of the canyon, soggy Lower Willows, along with its primary source of …

A long and leisurely ramble up the sinuous course of Harper Canyon in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park leads hikers to Harper Flat, a four-square-mile valley hidden from casual view by rock-strewn ridges and peaks. The …

Routes for cross-country skiing exist on rare occasions at higher elevations in the Cuyamaca Mountains.

Anza-Borrego's Fish Creek Wash is the gateway to a fascinating labyrinth of rugged canyons, twisted arroyos, and mud hills covering the desiccated area known as the Carrizo Badlands. Why the name Fish Creek for a …

Arising on the west slope of the Volcan Mountains, Santa Ysabel Creek slides through Santa Ysabel Valley and soon enters the Lake Sutherland reservoir, northeast of Ramona. Once below the dam, water in the creek …

The Bayside Trail, sweeping downward from the old lighthouse at Cabrillo National Monument, offers an incomparable view of the city of San Diego and its watery environs. Amid the sweet,pungent sage scrub and chaparral vegetation, …

Thousands of years of cutting and polishing by water and wind erosion have produced the chaotic rock formations and slotlike ravines you'll discover in Anza-Borrego's Calcite Mine area. During World War II, this was an …

On a mid-November night in 1833, millions of Americans awoke to strange flashes of light. Peering outside, they discovered the night sky ablaze with meteors, pouring from the constellation of Leo at a rate of …

Fortuna Mountain, in East County's Mission Trails Regional Park, presides over a great deal of as yet undeveloped territory. Peering north and northeast from Fortuna's 1291-foot summit, you can see thousands of acres of empty, …

Sombrero Peak rises head and shoulders above the southern margins of the Anza-Borrego Desert, overlooking a hundred-square-mile expanse of rock-strewn mountains and gorges, sun-baked valleys, and distant badlands. Conversely, the peak itself is a prominent …

When zillions of photons dart among billions of spinning, microscopic ice crystals in cirrus clouds high above, order may gel amid apparent disorder, creating a bevy of optical effects in the atmosphere. These effects include …

The early-autumn sun continues to scorch the desert's lowest elevations, yet it far more kindly illuminates the 4000-foot plateau of Pinyon Mountain Valley, high amid Anza-Borrego's central mountain range -- the Vallecito Mountains. Eighty-degree days …

Here and there amid the gently undulating folds of San Diego County's highest elevations, crystal-clear water charged with sweet-tasting minerals seeps to the surface, wetting the ground and nourishing grasses and year-round greenery. At Dyar …

The Point Loma peninsula has a split personality. In the north, block upon block of houses spread over the peninsula's broad spine. Spacious military land and parkland (Cabrillo National Monument) encompass the peninsula's narrower south …

Behind the easternmost houses and condominiums in Tierrasanta, a sparsely vegetated landscape of rounded ridges -- a part of Mission Trails Regional Park -- stands head and shoulders above the urban plain. Months of heat …

While most of the Anza-Borrego Desert swelters, the temperature hovers as much as 10š Fahrenheit cooler at the "high desert" locale of Culp Valley, 3400 feet above sea level. Culp Valley is the only designated …

A great blue heron ambles on stilt-legs across the reed-fringed shallows, stabbing occasionally at subsurface morsels of food. Nearby, a willowy egret glides in for a perfect landing, scattering concentric ripples across the surface of …

With two steep ravines spanned by quaint footbridges, scores of well-kept, historically significant homes, and mature landscaping, Banker's Hill is a monument to the elegance of the past. The work of early-century architects Irving Gill, …

"Elevation 6000 feet," says the roadside sign posted on Sunrise Highway in the community of Mount Laguna, but a close inspection of a topographic map of the area reveals the road's true height of just …

For a unique look at La Jolla -- bottom to top -- climaxed by the conventionally famous yet still fabulous view of the city from Soledad Park, try this unconventional six-mile (round trip) walking or …

Crickets sing, cicadas buzz, and bullfrogs groan. A sparrow hawk alights upon a sycamore limb, then launches with outstretched wings to catch a puff of sea breeze moving up the canyon. A cottontail rabbit bounds …

Normally by the time early summer arrives, water flowing down the larger canyons of San Diego's backcountry slows to a trickle. This post-El Niño summer season is proving to be the 10- or 20-year exception. …

This year, the Palomar Mountain summits have shown off their best vernal coloration rather late -- through June. It's still a fine time to visit Palomar Mountain State Park, which features some of the finest …

The rapidly urbanizing East County community of Alpine once displayed a sign along the main highway boasting "Best Climate in the USA by Government Report." Apparently the town's boosters got what they wanted. Thousands of …

Familiar to most Del Martians but unknown to most outsiders, the Torrey Pines State Reserve Extension conceals itself amid the coastal bluffs inland from Del Mar and just north of the main Torrey Pines reserve. …

The six-mile-long Big Laguna Trail, high in the Laguna Mountains, wends its scenic way over gently rolling hills and grassy dales, never dipping below 5400 feet of elevation nor rising to more than 5900 feet. …

Here's a bicycle ride that's practically a land-based equivalent of a harbor cruise on San Diego Bay. Over an out-and-back stretch of 16 miles, you're seldom far from the water, and the ease of gliding …

Serene Lake Wohlford lies near the headwaters of Escondido Creek, its mirroring surface reflecting the shaggy-with-chaparral, boulder-studded hillsides that confine it. As early as 1895, water impounded for the benefit of Escondido's farms and households …

East of Jacumba, pressed against the California-Baja California border, is a series of scenic peaks and valleys in the Jacumba Mountains affording vistas of two counties (San Diego and Imperial) and two nations. Although American …

The sinuously curving rural roads on the far (north) side of Fallbrook offer a significant challenge to bicycle riders. Twenty-five years ago, the brushy hills and wooded backcountry canyons between Fallbrook and Temecula were sparsely …

Tucked into a dry and isolated corner of the Cleveland National Forest, the oak-rimmed oasis of Barker Valley is an incredible surprise. The perennial west fork of the San Luis Rey River gurgles through the …

Thanks to the crusading efforts of Descanso cabinet-maker Duncan McFetridge, affectionately known by some as the "Robin Hood of Cleveland Forest," two inholdings (islands of private property inside public-domain lands) near Descanso are being added …

East County's Oak Oasis Open-Space Preserve covers 397 acres of oak woodland, boulder-studded hillsides, and mature stands of chaparral. Try visiting as soon as possible this month, when almost every living thing in the plant …