Had an opportunity to go to San Diego for a few days so I took it.
Stayed at the Marriot, which is right on the water. There’s a naval base not too far so you’ll see a bunch of Navy boats going back and forth all day.
I use this trail app called AllTrails and it lists user submitted trails around your area. There was a famous trail called Ho Chi Minh trail not too far away and had a difficult rating so I decided to check it out. I found out there’s a few different ways you can traverse the trail. I, of course, took the most inaccessible way through the narrowest parts of the trail only to find a 25 foot drop at the end. The second way was around the upper part of the narrows that I was just in. Only catch there, was loose sand and at some parts a 30 degree angle drop. Once you get through that part there’s another drop but this time you are granted a rope to help you down to the beach. This is probably the most enjoyable trail that I’ve encountered to date. So much so, that I took four trips.
Noticed a bunch of para-gliders up the ridge and found a ledge to go sit on the edge of. After a while I went to check out where they were taking of. They were running off a cliff. There were also fighter jets doing maneuvers over in the distance. Some cool houses in that area as well.
Went to go catch sunset at La Jolla Tide pools a couple minutes south. It was like 3 minutes of light and I didn’t get to find a nice composition. Btw It’s very slippery down there.
That next day I went over to San Berndino Forest to try to go hiking. Didn’t work out. Half of that forest was a little crispy. The official story is someone was throwing firecrackers out of their car and started it. Ended the night at Joshua Tree. Stars were incredible and it go super cold and windy.
I went back to San Berndino Forest the following day to try to go hiking again. This time the ranger station was open and I grabbed a map. I wasn’t sure where I was hiking to but the goal here was to find the highest place place I could get to, to sit back, watch the sunset and eat my Clif bar. That high place ended up being a big boulder 2300 feet in elevation and a 3.5 mile hike up. Tracked my hike down so I didn’t risk running out of battery on the way up. That rock formation looks like some kind of petrified reptile.
