Flowers Brighten Pathways to Palomar’s Boucher Hill

Palomar Mountain is a state park for all seasons. Fall offers dramatic color changes, and blustery winter winds ensure far-reaching views from the peaks. During summer, when temperatures soar, the park offers a cool, green retreat. In spring, the dogwood blooms, brightening the park’s pathways with its clusters of white blossoms.

A mixed forest of cedar, silver fir, spruce and black oak invites a leisurely exploration. Tall trees and mountain meadows make the park especially attractive to the Southern California day hiker in search of a Sierra Nevada-like atmosphere.

This day hike, a 3 1/2-mile loop, is a grande randonnee of the park, a four-trail sampler that leads to a lookout atop 5,438-foot Boucher Hill.

Directions to trailhead: From Interstate 5 in Oceanside, drive northeast on California 76 about 30 miles. Take County Road S6 north; at County Road S7, head northwest to the park entrance. There is a day-use fee. Park in the lot at Silver Crest Picnic Area just inside the park. Scott’s Cabin Trail takes off from the right side of the road about 20 yards beyond the lot entrance.

The hike: A trail sign points the way to Scott’s Cabin, half a mile away. Noisy Steller’s jays make their presence known along this stretch of trail. Scott’s Cabin, built by a homesteader in the 1880s, is found on your left. The crumpled remains aren’t much to look at.

You’ll descend steeply through a white fir forest and reach the signed junction with the Cedar-Doane Trail, which heads right, east. This steep trail, formerly known as the Slide Trail because of its abruptness, takes the hiker down oak-covered slopes to Doane Pond. The pond is stocked with trout and fishing is permitted. A pond-side picnic area welcomes the hiker.

Continue past the Cedar-Doane Trail junction a short distance to Cedar Grove Campground. Follow the trail signs and turn left on the campground road and then right into the group campground. Look leftward for the signed Adams Trail, which cuts through a bracken fern-covered meadow. Once across the meadow, you’ll encounter a small ravine where the dogwood blooms during April and May. The trail winds uphill past some big cone spruce and reaches Nate Harrison Road.

The road is named in honor of Nathan Harrison, a Southern slave who followed his master to the California gold rush--and freedom--in 1849. Harrison laid claim to a homestead on the wild eastern edge of what is now state parkland and had a successful hay-making and hog-raising operation, despite numerous run-ins with bears and mountain lions.

Across the road, your path becomes Boucher Trail, which ascends a north-facing slope through white fir, then goes through bracken ferns and black oaks to the summit of Boucher Hill.

Atop the hill is a fire lookout and microwave facility. From the summit, you get a view of the surrounding lowlands, including Pauma Valley to the west.

Return to the parking area via the Oak Ridge Trail, which descends one mile between the two sides of the loop road that encircles Boucher Hill. The trail heads down an open ridge line to a junction of five roads, where it’s a mere hop, skip and a jump back to the Silver Crest Picnic Area.

Scott’s Cabin Trail

Silver Crest Picnic Area to Scott’s Cabin, Cedar Grove Campground, Boucher Lookout: 3 1/2-mile loop, 80-foot elevation gain. John McKinney’s new book, “Day Hiker’s Guide to Southern California,” is available for $12.95 (postpaid) from Olympus Press, P.O. Box 2397, Santa Barbara, Calif . 93120.