Mt. Gower P300 SDC

Continued...

I had attempted Gower a year earlier with my daughter. It is not a difficult peak to climb and has a trail going nearly to the summit. Or at least what we thought was the summit at the time. We had climbed to the top of the slightly lower west summit where we found a register and made the usual leap to conclude we were at the top. I hadn't bothered to even check my map which would have shown the label on the east summit half a mile away, all quite obviously. Oh well. Turns out my daughter might not have appreciated the actual summit since it involved actual bushwhacking. It was probably for the best.

In San Diego for only a few days this holiday with the family, I had only two days for some quick peakbagging. Not enough time to drive out to Anza-Borrego, but enough time to do a few SDC peaks that I had remaining around the Ramona area to the north. I used the same starting point on Sarda Ct. as described in Jerry Schad's book. It looks like one starts up a private driveway, but it has an easement to a water tower above the home and seems to be used regularly by the locals.

It took an hour to make my way to the west summit where the last vestiges of a trail disappear. The remaining distance took 25 minutes to cover a mix of easy terrain and heavier brush, some of it over head level. Luckily it was not too thick and only slowed me down a bit. I found a small, flat pile of rocks near the highpoint, one of several likely-looking spots around the large summit area. There was an old stake from a survey tower with some steel wires still attached. The views from the summit are decent, but not spectacular by any measure. Ramona lies to the west and northwest, San Diego Estates to the southwest. El Capitan Reservoir can just be seen to the south. The best view was of Eagle Peak (and SDC and LPC peak) to the east though obscured somewhat by haze.

On the way back I stopped to check out a mine shaft I spotted from the trail. It wasn't very deep, perhaps 20ft and looks like nothing was gotten from it save for perhaps a few blisters. I was back shortly after noon, the whole outing taking only about two and a half hours. As it was Christmas Eve and we had a big dinner planned back at my mother-in-law's, that was it for the day - time to wash up and eat!

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