Week 17: Oak Oasis County Park

 So, as I alluded in my last post:  While river walk is complete, it is by no means "done." The San Diego River basin encompasses a wide array places and treasures of the outdoors and we have only barely explored the tributaries.  The most prominent of them all is likely San Vincente Creek, which joins the river in Lakeside (near Cactus County Park) and drains a good chunk of the Barona Valley, San Diego Country Estates and some other unincorporated areas on the outskirts of Ramona.  More importantly it contains the second largest reservoir in the San Diego River basin.  There's actually a fair amount of parkland and trails that follow it, though nowhere near as continuous as the San Diego River itself.

I love the geometry of this scene

 It's June and we're inland so it made sense to get an early start.  We arrived at the trailhead at maybe 8 AM or so.  Across the road at the trailhead for trail up El Cajon Mountain, dozens of pain seekers had already parked for the 12 mile roller coaster hike to one of San Diego County's more challenging summits.  For Oak Oasis, however the crowd consisted of some sort of you outdoors people group and a nice lady with a friendly dog.   It is said that Oak Oasis is less of a destination, more of a journey and is a great place to take folks who are open to hiking, but wish to avoid an El Cajon Mountain style death march.  Although there's about 3 miles of trails in the whole park, it gets nice really quickly and one wants to linger.  I do appreciate the reward of a long grueling hike to a prominent summit, but if you can't enjoy a quiet 2.5 mile stroll through a place like this, you've lost a little of your humanity.  We lathered up with sunblock and began our walk.

Another trail across the county

 It was barely 10 minutes before we were in the shade of a lovely forest for which the park is likely named.  This park hosts one small but delightful section of the Trans County Trail, another great work in progress, that will eventually connect the Salton Sea with the Pacific Ocean.  The link I posted captures one guy's adventure trying to thru hike it.  In the very old days walking was how we all got around.  Now we strive to recreate the experience of old in a world overrun with new.

Anita among the trees

Poison Oak

Tall trees

The forest for which the park is named

through the valley we roll

This region was hit with a massive brushfire abort 10 years ago.  The Oaks survived and even thrived in the aftermath.  The chaparral has reseeded and now grows 12 feet high.  The shade of the Oak forest gives way as the little perched valley in which we are walking drops off more steeply toward the reservoir.  from the first overlook, we gaze at the homes that are popping up all over the hillsides and contemplate the future routing of the Trans County trail.

Glistening hillsides

 As mentioned, this park affords some lovely views.  Most prominently the San Vincente Reservoir.  This lake is supplied not much by the local rains, but more so by the Colorado River and the network of pumps and aqueducts that lift it over and around the mountains.  This is why it is looking relatively full while other water bodies go dry.  They are in the process of raising the dam even higher now improving our storage capacity during wet years so that we can continue our prosperous living during dry years.

San Vincente Lake in all its glory

 We lingered at the overlook for quite a bit of time.  The lake takes up 120 degrees of the viewshed from here and seems surprisingly large given how little most San Diegans see of it (A small section of Highway 67 overlooks it, but I'm usually focused on the road when I drive it).  A buzzard circled overhead scouting out little rodents to much on.  The air warmed up.  It was this warming that finally prompted us to move on.

Buzzard in the sky

I think it's circling us

San Vincente Reservoir from the overlook.

Anita in the Chaparral 

 We went up an over two little summits, much of the time surrounded by 12 foot high chapparall that would have been nearly impenetrable were it not for the handy powertools of whomever carved these trails before us.  crossing an open meadow we were surprised to find ourselves only halfway along the loop. It seemed like we'd been out longer.  We were treated momentarily to a view of the summits of East Poway and South Ramona, that attracts so many fitness buffs and instagram selfies, though we had no idea which peaks we were actually viewing from here.  Above us shiny rocks glistened in the morning sun.  Oh to be here in a light rain.

Livin' on a Prayer?

The Hilltops of Poway

Looking down valley

Shiny!

Horned toad in 3-D

Somewhere in this backcountry we were delighted to encounter this fellow:  A horned toad.  We at first thought the lizard was just a skeleton, until I took a double take.  The lizard was very camouflaged and let us get quite close with cameras before finally scampering off and hiding in the bushes nearby, where it was even more disguised.   I understand these fellas to have once been more common.  Perhaps their tendency to remain still has been a liability among curious humans.  I wished him / her well on their journey after a few minutes of admiration.

Can you see me?

Maybe

Now I'm even better disguised

Don't get any closer or I'll spit blood out my eyes

 It was getting kind of hot and so we kept putting one foot in front of the other to make time while not exhausting ourselves.  Soon we were up and over the last little saddle and treated to a cool breeze and then the shade of the oak trees.  Here we lingered again taking photos and drinking water.  We got back to the car about 10:30'ish averaging 1 mph for the journey, but scoring much higher on other scales.

The chaparral trench

On the tree