My wife had flown down to San Diego to join me for the weekend. No hiking yesterday while we attended to more family business, but after dropping her off at the airport around noon, I had the afternoon free. I decided to do a bunch of easy stuff down that way, only a few of which had any prominence to speak of. It was an easy afternoon, largely devoid of any bushwhacking.

Point Loma

This is the highpoint of the long, western arm shielding San Diego harbor. It lies inside Cabrillo National Monument. It draws lots of tourists, especially on a Sunday afternoon. It's a short walk from the Visitor Center parking lot to the lighthouse that sits atop the highpoint. The impressive fresnel lens has been removed from the lighthouse and is on display in an adjacent building. I made a quick visit of it, though there are plenty of other things to see and do in the Monument if one has the time and inclination.

Rock Mountain

This one takes a bit of work, usually. Most of the mountain is part of the Vulcan Materials quarry. Michael Sullivan's route is no longer viable as there is a new development being built where he started on the east side. Julie Ann Gregg simply drove up, a pretty bold move. I decided to try a route from the west that worked quite nicely. Sunday was good as there was no activity high on the mountain. I parked at the Avenida Palomino Park in a new neighborhood. There isn't much to the park, but it has a concrete trail dropping to the edge of the development. From there, I descended cross-country to the ranch road at the bottom of the drainage. I then followed a spur road heading NNE up the mountain, just outside the quarry property. One has to eventually enter the quarry property to get to the highpoint atop a loose pile of quarried rock. Views are hardly stunning. A little under an hour for the roundtrip effort.

Peak 804ft

This is the highpoint of Otay Lakes County Park. $3 park entrance fee, but the parking was all full on a busy Sunday, so I had to park outside. No fee to do so. It's a ten minute hike through the park grounds then up the rough trail network that is really just a repurposed OHV road. Nice view of the lake and dam from the summit. To the northeast rises Peak 1,953ft, a summit I had done a few days earlier. There is also a Border Patrol camera installation found on the way up. I thought it was amusing that there was a collection of discarded daypacks a short distance away, from the very folks they are trying to keep an eye on.

Mother Miguel Mountain

This is a minor summit on the side of the much larger San Miguel Mountain. A trail leads to the summit from Mt. San Miguel Park on the southeast side. It, too, is repurposed from OHV use. Only they have built an silly amount of switchbacks to make it more trail-like, but really just frustrating trail users. I noticed most folks were ignoring the Not A Trail signs anyway, myself included. There is an American flag on a pole sticking out of a large summit cairn. Nice views of Sweetwater Reservoir and San Miguel Mtn from the summit. It took an hour to make the roundtrip journey to the summit and back.

Horseshoe Bend

This is an even more minor summit below Mother Miguel. It takes less than five minutes to hike past a locked gate to the highpoint overlooking the 125 freeway.

Gobblers Knob

This is a drive-up, the entire knob now a suburban development. Take your pick as to which home is the highest.

Fletcher Hills

Similar to Gobblers Knob, this small collection of hills east of Grossmont College has been turned into more suburbia, though the ravines between them have been left as undeveloped open space. I turned around in a driveway at the highpoint and then headed back to Rancho Bernardo...

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