For a taste of some fast-disappearing rural serenity in inland North County, try the following looping bicycle route through hills and valleys straddling the San Diego-Riverside County line. You'll gain and lose about 1300 feet …

The day begins bright and clear. The springtime sun vaults into the sky over drifts of freshly fallen snow on San Bernardino Mountain's sunny south side and begins to melt them. Gravity pulls the tiny …

The 1194-foot mountain dubbed "Kwaay Paay" in Mission Trails Regional Park managed to escape the flames that swept through nearly half of the park's area in October 2003. The welcome if spotty precipitation we've received …

Deep Creek Hot Springs in the San Bernardino National Forest has been a minor magnet for hikers and other nature lovers -- eccentric and otherwise -- for decades. Volunteers have spent years fashioning rock-bound basins …

The old, never-completed California Riding and Hiking Trail, pieced out of dirt roadways and previously existing trails during the post-World War II years, has never quite disappeared from San Diego County. One branch of this …

Wind-rippled grasses, swaying California poppies, statuesque oak trees, trickling streams, and a 39-acre vernal pool -- it's all there on a sunny spring day at the Santa Rosa Plateau Ecological Reserve. The 8300-acre reserve lies …

Last October, the rocky, brush-covered slopes of the Crestwood Ecological Reserve, east of El Cajon, were swept by the same flames that devastated the communities of Crest and Harbison Canyon. Now, some five months later, …

The 635-acre Sage Ranch lies west of the San Fernando Valley in the scrub-covered Simi Hills. The ranch owes its name not to the predominant sage vegetation growing there, but rather to the former owner …

Rising like a scruffy whaleback above a sea of luxury homes and ranchettes in Jamul, McGinty Mountain hosts a rich but circumspect treasure of botanical oddities. Several rare and endangered plant species make their home …

Dozens of elephant trees cling to the walls of Torote Canyon, a tributary of Indian Gorge in the southern reaches of Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. In Mexico, this tree is called torote, which means "twisted," …

Laurel Spring, a mini-oasis tucked into an upper crease of the Santa Ana Mountains, lies just three air miles away from the expanding edge of Orange County's outer suburbs. Groundwater coming to the surface here …

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 mule deer bounces across the pathway, pausing to take your …

Amid the windswept wastelands of the Anza-Borrego Desert, Borrego Mountain's twin buttes (the East and West buttes) rise with low and broad profiles. From a distance they may look unremarkable, but at close range they …

From San Juan Capistrano to Lake Elsinore, two-lane Ortega Highway (Highway 74) stretches like a snake over the midriff of the Santa Ana Mountains, giving road warriors a taste of southern Orange County's wild east …

South of the broad, gently shelving beach at La Jolla Shores, the shoreline quickly changes character, becoming rocky tidepools, a fringe of wave-tossed boulders and cobbles, and steep cliffs. Just offshore, the deep, submarine La …

One of California's historic hot spots, Placerita Canyon Park hosted the state's first gold rush (1842), farming, oil exploration, and movie-making. You can contemplate these historical details as you visit the park's superb nature center …

Wilderness Gardens Preserve, a 676-acre jewel of county parkland near Pala in north inland San Diego County, encompasses the grounds of an old ranch -- the former retreat of Manchester Boddy, owner of a Los …

Centuries-old paths, forged by the footsteps of Native-Americans, crisscross the county. West of the desert, periodic fires and fast-growing chaparral have erased the obvious traces of most of these trails. Yet in the drier, more …

Southern Orange County is richly endowed with regional and open-space parks, which helps to atone for the immense area of valley and hillside now brutally overrun with suburban development. These open spaces allow residents and …

The Highland Valley Trail, in northernmost Rancho Bernardo, runs along a hillside just above Highland Valley Road, with good views of the currently dry upper arm of Lake Hodges and the broad, agriculture-dotted San Pasqual …

During the 55-year existence of O'Neill Regional Park in Orange County, the park's area has grown from 278 acres to more than 3000 acres. During this same span of time, a spreading tide of suburban …

Winding fjordlike through the boulder heaps of the arid In-Ko-Pah Mountains, Bow Willow Canyon promises -- and delivers -- solitude. During a weekday-morning's exploratory venture into Bow Willow's moist upper recesses, no one disturbed my …

Wildwood Park in Thousand Oaks is Ventura County's most scenic suburban park. The scenery here has been imprinted in the minds of many in the over-50 age group: the area was once an outdoor set …

Now that San Diego County's historic megafires are extinguished, outdoor-oriented folks — and the just plain curious — are anxious to get out there and do some sightseeing. The full recovery of the natural landscape …

For half a year now, rainbows have been conspicuously absent from San Diego skies. This will surely change within a few weeks as we encounter the first of several winter storms spinning out of the …

The so-called Main Divide, or summit ridge, of the Santa Ana Mountains straddles the boundary between Orange and Riverside Counties, definitively separating the L.A./Orange County urban sprawl from inland communities such as Corona, Lake Elsinore, …

Poway's Iron Mountain thrusts its conical, chaparral-clad summit nearly 2700 feet above sea level, a height that is frequently well above the low-lying coastal haze. On many a crystalline winter day, the summit offers a …

Millions of years of tectonic uplift, weathering, and erosion created the maze of monzogranite boulders in the Wonderland of Rocks section of Joshua Tree National Park. Wherever you look in this region, your mind is …

The 5.5-mile Kelly Ditch Trail, completed in 1985, is perhaps the most beautiful pathway yet built in the Cuyamaca-Julian area. This hiking/horse trail is routed partly along a century-old diversion ditch. You'll also tread over …

An engineering marvel when built in the 1890s, the Mt. Lowe Railway above Pasadena and Altadena lived a checkered past full of both glory and destruction. Before its final abandonment in the mid-1930s, the line …

The striped skunk stood defiantly in the middle of the trail, its tail held straight up and its beady eyes tracking my every move. I slunk by, circumscribing a 180-degree arc of 10-yard radius -- …

At 3111 feet of elevation, Sandstone Peak lies at the very top of the Santa Monica Mountains. The view from the summit is panoramic, with distant mountain ranges, the hazy Los Angeles Basin, and the …

September temperatures remain warm on Mount Laguna, and both of the large national-forest campgrounds -- Laguna and Burnt Rancheria -- atop the 6000-foot mountain are winding down their busy summer season. During much of the …

Solstice Canyon Park, a unit of the sprawling Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, invites your attention, with superb oak woodland habitat to enjoy, and lessons in fire ecology to ponder. Since its unveiling in …

Rustic signs along some of Clairemont's major streets call attention to one of the oldest designated open-space parks in San Diego: the 900-acre Tecolote Canyon Natural Park. Using the park's network of service roads and …

On the eastern Angeles Crest, not far above the L.A. Basin's smoggy blanket of air, lies Big Pines Recreation Area -- a designated year-round recreation zone in Angeles National Forest. Blanketed by a heterogeneous mixture …

Work on the Trans County Trail ("Pines to Spines" Trail) between the pines of Torrey Pines State Reserve and the spines of the Anza-Borrego Desert continues. Some 70 percent of the trail's segments have been …

Sparkling and silvery like a freshly minted silver dollar, Dollar Lake lies cupped amid a talus-frosted natural bowl, not far below the highest summits of the San Bernardino Mountains. Snow lingers late on the steep …

Topanga -- "The place where the mountains meet the sea." That simple and descriptive Gabrielino Indian name aptly applies to both the famous canyon near Los Angeles and to the big state park sprawling along …

Summer is settling in at last upon the hills and dales of Julian, bringing with it the toasty smell of sun-dried grass and the cool, vanilla-like fragrance of Jeffrey pines. Bicycling is a good way …

The "top of the world" views from Twin Peaks ridge are among the best in the San Gabriel Mountains. Sometimes in summer (and often in winter) you can look south over a low-lying blanket of …

Providence Mountains State Recreation Area, billed as California's most remote state park, hides in the midst of what some call the "Lonely Triangle" -- a four-million-acre spread of Mojave Desert landscape bounded by Interstate 15, …

In the lush, shady recesses of Big Santa Anita Canyon, just north of the San Gabriel Valley community of Arcadia, you can easily lose all sight and sense of the mega-millions of people living in …

Eyes shut tight to ward off the stinging spray, wet hair plastered to your head, you hurtle blindly on a straight trajectory toward a sinus-filling finale. Flat on your back, you slip through roller-coasterlike curves …

On average, total lunar eclipses visible from any given locale occur about once every two years. Luckily for us, the year 2003 features two of them. Both eclipses take place (coincidentally and auspiciously) during the …

At a point on the toll road 34 miles east of Tecate and just shy of the village of La Rumorosa, exit the toll road at "Vallecitos," turn right, then make a 180-degree turn.

After a visit to Mount Palomar's famous observatory, I enjoy introducing friends to the delights of the natural landscape right below the telescope's looming dome. In a kind of reverse pilgrimage, we follow the Observatory …

Drive up a short mile from the speedway known as Sunset Boulevard in West Los Angeles toward Will Rogers State Historic Park, and you'll instantly leave the rat race behind. This secluded spot on the …

With five tiers and a total drop of about 150 feet, Tenaja Falls is the most interesting natural feature in Cleveland National Forest's San Mateo Canyon Wilderness. In late winter and spring, water coursing down …

Not many small- or medium-size cities can boast of three mountain ranges within its border, but Glendale, California, does. Stretching east and north from the San Fernando Valley, the city takes in substantial parts of …