Mission Trails Park Offers Up the Wilder Side of San Diego

The people who run Mission Trails Regional Park--5,760 acres on the eastern edge of San Diego--say it is one of the largest urban parks in the United States. With nearly 50 miles of well-marked trails as well as ample parking and a superb interpretive center, Mission Trails is a great place to experience the wild side of the city.

When San Diego started planning Mission Trails in the 1960s, the park was considered off the beaten track. But suburbia has advanced on three sides of the park, and Highway 52 lies on the fourth.

A visitor center offers plant, animal and archeological displays. Heed the call of the wild on the walk up to the center and the unusual audio experience along the way.

The Visitor Center Loop and Oak Grove Loop trails start nearby. The 1 1/2-mile Visitor Center Loop is an 11-stop interpretive path keyed to a free brochure. The one-mile Oak Grove Loop drops into a tree-filled ravine with a seasonal creek. Hikers can improvise a kind of figure-eight by combining the two trails.

Two excellent publications available at the visitor center can assist your exploration of Mission Trails. “Walking San Diego” (Mountaineers Books, $15.95), by Lonnie Burstein Hewitt and Barbara Coffin Moore, is a detailed guidebook describing hiking at Mission Trails and nearby Mission San Diego de Alcala. It features more than 100 family-friendly hikes, all less than a one-hour drive from downtown. The other publication is the Mission Trails Regional Park Trail Map (Sunbelt Publications, $4.95), which is clear and colorful.

Directions to the trail head: From Interstate 8 in San Diego, a few miles east of its junction with Interstate 805, take the Fairmount Avenue/Mission Gorge Road exit. Turn north on Mission Gorge and drive 4 1/4 miles to the Mission Trails Regional Park entrance. Turn left on Father Junipero Serra Trail, then make another left to reach the visitor center and parking lot.

The hike: The Visitor Center Loop Trail starts back down the park access road by a vehicle gate. It descends to a woodland of coast live oaks and a signed junction with Kumeyaay Grinding Site Spur Trail, which branches to the right. This intriguing side trail reaches flat rocks near the San Diego River. The native Kumeyaay used stone pestles to grind acorns and seeds in the rock depressions. For kids, poking around the riverbanks often is the highlight of a trip here.

Back on Visitor Center Loop, the path travels west, then south above the river. The trail passes an old quarry site, then joins a wide dirt road for the ascent toward Mission Gorge Road and your return to the visitor center. The Oak Grove Loop I mentioned above starts across the driveway from the visitor center.

Other trails are easy to access too. Father Junipero Serra Trail, the park road that runs from the visitor center through Mission Gorge to the Old Mission Dam, is divided into a one-way lane for cars and a two-way lane for cyclists and walkers.

Depending on your time and energy, you can walk two miles from the visitor center to the Old Mission Dam. Or you can drive there and take trails that explore the environs of the San Diego River. The three-mile round trip from Mission Dam to and through Oak Canyon is one of the best hikes in the park.

Once familiar with the park, ambitious hikers can tackle 1,591-foot Cowles Mountain, the highest summit in San Diego. The classic southern approach (three miles round trip with an elevation gain of about 1,000 feet) begins at a trail head at the intersection of Navajo Road and Golfcrest Drive.

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For more of John McKinney’s tips, visit www.thetrailmaster.com.