Stonewall Peak

on top of Stonewall Peak, Cuyamaca Rancho State Park, San Diego County, CA

These are some of the pictures from our hike last Sunday at Stonewall Peak. It was a beautiful day, sunny, blue skies, not so cold, not so warm (in the low 60s), just perfect for hiking. The trail meanders through gentle switchbacks, supposedly with old growth black oaks, sycamores and coniferous trees. However, all these were burned in the last 2003 cedar fire, which I mentioned in my Lake Cuyamaca post 2 weekends ago. 

trail meandering through burned forest

Vegetation however is recovering, some new branches are emerging prettily mixing with burned branches.

Life Continues On

The dead trees however for me reveal still a beautiful past, though their limbs barren, but they speak deep character of how life continues leaving us with beautiful images despite it may have passed away.

Completely Barren Trees, however, new life are slowly sprouting around it

The last section of the trail is on an exposed ridge, but it does have steps and a handrail for safety.

Steps To the Peak

For those who may think hiking is boring, climbers may consider rock climbing routes to the summit. At the top, one can take in the rolling topography of San Diego County.

Rolling Topography Seen from the Top of Stonewall Peak

There is no Pacific Ocean view at the top because looking West, the much taller Cuyamaca Peak blocks the line of sight. Below Stonewall Peak is the Lake Cuyamaca.

Lake Cuyamaca

Parking for Stonewall Peak hike is at Paso Piscacho Campround, and had a blast observing the acorn woodpecker making sounds on top of the trees, hiding the acorns on the hole, flying to get more acorns, and flying back to their granary tree.

Acorn Woodpecker with a acorn on his mouth (notice the many acorns on the hole of this

pine )

There were just too many of them, flying back and forth, making sounds as they peck the woods, only that it was so difficult to take them a picture since they were so high up in the tree, the sun was right above, and our lens was not very good for zooming since we don't bring zooming lens when we hike because of the weight. Hopefully when we get a chance to go back there, we will bring the right zoom lens so we can have better picture of these happy birds. Because it was not so easy to take a picture of the woodpeckers, I instead focused on the beautiful sky which seemed to be whipped gently by clouds.

the black dot you can see on the sky is not dirt from lens, it is a flying bird :)

Anyway, we had a beautiful day at the Cuyamaca Mountains, and the day ended beautifully for us as well by the sea.

From the Mountains to the Shining Sea, we had a beautiful day

♥♥