April 8, 2024
Climbing El Cajon mountain (3,675') is considered to be the most challenging hike close to the city of San Diego. Last December (2023) Ernie and Jeri, our friends who live in Los Angeles, climbed El Cajon Mountain with us following the standard up-and-back route from the Blue Sky Ranch trailhead off Wildcat Canyon road.
The remarkable thing is that Ernie and Jeri are each quite a bit older than Patsy and me. Ernie is 93 (and two-thirds!) years of age.
Ernie and Jeri hadn't had yet enough of El Cajon Mountain. They returned to climb El Cajon mountain again, but this time by following the more interesting, but more difficult "Over the Hills" route. After setting up a car shuttle we climbed the mountain following the regular route but, rather than reversing our tracks, this time we went over the mountain. We struck off to the East through the brush before reaching the "Westside Truck Trail" and following this jeep road down to El Monte Park road.
To our chagrin, it appeared that all the winter rain had caused the chaparral to grow at a pretty good clip except that it hadn't been clipped. We last did the entire route about a year ago and it appears now to be considerably more overgrown. Ernie and Jeri are both troopers and followed me as we all crashed our way through the brush.
When we stopped for a break about halfway through the chaparral I discovered a tick in my beard. Patsy later found a tick (that hadn't yet embedded) while she was taking a shower after the hike. Yuck!
Ernie and Jeri had been planning to take us out for a Japanese meal after the hike but it was so late by the time we'd finished and collected their car from the Wildcat Canyon Road trailhead that we had to eat at Dennys. When we walked into the Dennys on Town Center Parkway in Santee we were greeted by a faint stench of sewer gas so we reconsidered and ended up eating instead at the Dennys on Kearny Villa Road in Kearny Mesa.
Then, to Patsy and my abject horror, Ernie and Jeri drove back to LA.
Patsy and I were tired. We went home, showered, then went to bed and promptly fell asleep.
The next day Ernie told us that he did most of the driving, didn't get to bed until 4 am, but slept until noon. I don't know that I would have, let alone could have, driven the two and a half hours back to LA after this hike.
It just goes to show that age, per se, isn't a strict indication of how "over the hill" each of us is :-)
12 miles, 2,513' gain, 3,645' loss