Quiet Preserve : Los Penasquitos Creek Retains Gentle Beauty on 3,000 Acres

Crickets sing, cicadas buzz and bullfrogs groan. A sparrow hawk alights upon a sycamore limb, then launches with outstretched wings to catch a puff of sea breeze moving up the canyon. A cottontail rabbit bounds across the trail and stops to take your measure with a sidelong stare. Los Penasquitos Creek, rejuvenated by two seasons’ worth of above-average rainfall, slips silently through a sparkling pool and darts noisily down multiple paths in the constriction known as “the falls.”

Despite the noose of suburban development tightening around it, Los Penasquitos Canyon Preserve still retains its gentle, unself-conscious beauty. The preserve’s 3,000 acres of San Diego city and county-owned open-space stretch for almost 7 miles between Interstates 5 and 15, encompassing much of Los Penasquitos Creek and one of its tributaries--Lopez Canyon.

Down at the east end of the preserve, off Black Mountain Road, stands the refurbished, 1862 Johnson-Taylor adobe ranch house. Recent archeological investigation revealed its true antiquity: a section of the house was discovered to be the remains of an 1824 adobe cottage erected by Captain Francisco Maria Ruiz, veteran commandant of the Presidio of San Diego. You can tour the ranch house, with the help of the San Diego County Archeological Society, on the first and third Saturdays of each month, at 11 a.m. or noon.

Farther afield, hikers, joggers, and equestrians have the run of the preserve. Mountain bikers are welcome too, but they must stick to the main, 6-mile-long dirt road along Los Penasquitos Creek.

Listed here are directions for some of the better walks in the preserve. If you’d rather join an organized walk, call Friends of Los Penasquitos Preserve, 484-3219.

Penasquitos Canyon East

Start at the parking lot on the west side of Black Mountain Road, opposite Mercy Road. From there, follow the main dirt road hugging the base of the canyon’s steep, chaparral-covered south slopes. Mile posts along the roadside help you gauge your progress. You wind in and out of dense oak woodlands (draped with poison oak in places) and across meadows dotted with elderberry trees, now in fruit.

At the 3-mile marker the road winds up onto the chaparral slope in order to detour a narrow, rocky section of the canyon. After the road goes down again, take one of the paths to the right (north) which lead to the falls area in the canyon bottom. Here, flood waters have carved through erosion-resistant metavolcanic rock, creating stair-step pathways for the stream. Be very cautious if you choose to clamber about on the water-slick boulders--and keep an eye out for rattlesnakes.

Penasquitos Canyon West

Again, the falls are the destination. This time you approach from the west trail head along Sorrento Valley Boulevard. Take the Sorrento Valley Road exit from either Interstate 5 or Interstate 805, follow frontage roads to Sorrento Valley Boulevard, and go east past the industrial area to the large parking lot on the right (south) side.

On foot, follow the dirt road that veers left, going under Sorrento Valley Boulevard. A fenced trail then guides you into the broad, lower end of Los Penasquitos Canyon. After about three-quarters of a mile the canyon floor narrows and you stroll past scattered sycamores, cottonwoods, and willows--all looking healthier than they have in years. Wild grasses sway and chafe in the breeze, their shoulder-high forms bleached golden by the summer-solstice sun.

At about 2 1/2 miles (after the road has ascended onto a chaparral-covered south slope) listen for the falls, just out of sight on the left.

Lopez Canyon

Lopez is almost dry now, but the sights and smells of sage and chaparral and the stately sycamores down along the creek bed create a sense of a time long past when vaqueros herded cattle through this and many other coastal canyons. Cattle were grazed in Lopez and Los Penasquitos canyons until the late 1980s.

From the west-side parking lot walk east on the remnants of a dirt road up along Lopez Canyon’s bottom. After about a mile, the Old Lopez Road (now a trail) comes down the south slope from Pacific Center Boulevard. The Lopez family homesteaded this canyon early this century and built a cabin on a little flat just north of the canyon stream. You can look for the cabin’s remains next to an old pepper tree.

After traveling about 1 3/4 miles up the canyon, you’ll reach the last of the sycamores and oaks--just short of the towering Camino Santa Fe concrete bridge. This is a good place to turn around.