A quick Saturday hike

After the rains from the last couple of days, we didn't know if we'd pull off a hike today or not. But man, did I need one. It has been a long week of mainly being tied down to a chair and I was feeling sluggish by Friday.

Even last night, we weren't sure what conditions would be like when we all awoke.

Truth be told, I fully expected to head out on my own this morning.

As it turned out, I joined companions Bill and Linda in San Diego's east county, just east of Poway, for a rugged little hike near Iron Mountain known as the Ellie Lane Loop. The trail head is about a mile north of the main (and crowded) Iron Mountain trail head.

The loop consists of some big ascents (for urban hiking) up to two different saddles, then a descent over to Iron Mountain. An optional loop can take you up to the top of IM, and then you can return back the same way or loop back out to the parking lot and starting point.

Our first ascent confirmed that I can never take a week off from walking again. It's steep. And we started in the fog.

The storm front is moving away so we had clearing skies and decent trail conditions. In fact, below is probably the worst puddle we ran into.

So much for those horrible conditions!

Once up to the final saddle, we had a wonderful view to the valleys east of us and down into the village of Ramona.

I'm still not sure why these granite slopes aren't more frequented by rock climbers. If you look hard enough you can almost see the pie shops in Julian - far off in the distance. But I digress.

From this final saddle, we had a pretty steep descent in order to drop and loop over to the Iron Mountain trail.

So, by this point we had come 3.3 miles, plus a bit to get to the top of the Ramona Outlook. Today, we decided to skip the peak of IM, mainly because of the crowds already on the main trail. And hamburgers. We had planned on hitting the Hamburger Factory in Poway for our after hike meal and the place was calling us.

We hiked on towards the main trail head, knowing it would be another mile and a half past that to our cars. It was on this leg that we ran across Mr. Rattler, angrily letting us know we had disturbed his nap as he slid off into the bushes. See my earlier post about that encounter.

It was a great walk, nice weather, and really - pretty good trail conditions. If you are out this way, give the Ellie Lane trail a try and miss the usual Iron Mountain crowds.

Oh, and I'm getting the hang of my GPS, so here's a quick glance at our walk.

And the Hamburger Factory? Highly recommended!

http://www.hamburgerfactory.signonsandiego.com/

First Rattler Encounter

OK, that headline may not sound like much. After all, I live in Southern California and rattlers are everywhere and anywhere trails seem to be.

So running into one on the side of the trail isn't a big deal, right? Well, probably not until you realize that besides being old, I also have a real (I mean REAL) phobia of snakes.

So, seeing one is a big deal for me. And the good news is I didn't freak out today.

Some day I'll write down what I've discovered about phobias and dealing with them. But suffice it to say, not freaking out today was a milestone for this old hiker.