El Capitan Open Space Preserve May 11th, 2009 | by Nick Jordan
The Start of El Capitan
This hike starts off with the decision between my friend Jason and I to go on a tough, 12 mile-hike up El Cajon Mountain (part of the El Capitan Open Space Preserve) on a Saturday morning. I check the weather the night before, says it will be 80 degrees in San Diego. Skipping my friend's party that night, I get my hiking gear together and hit the sack around 11:30 PM.
I wake up at about 8 AM, brush my teeth, get my hiking gear on, fill up the water bottles, and head out. I pick up Jason and we get to El Capitan Open Space Preserve at 8:40 AM. We start up a hill and up a paved road. We follow some switchbacks up the mountain and everything's going well so far. Now we've reached the first mile marker.
"If that's the first mile and the hike to the top is only about 6, this hike can't be that hard," I tell Jason. So we continue. We both noticed it was pretty hot and thought, "this doesn't feel like 80 degrees at all." I take a swig of water and we take a moment to check out the views.
The views are spectacular already, and we're no where near the top. We get a good view of other mountains and the face of El Capitan. About an hour later, we decide to take a rest under the little shade that we can find. All of the sudden, three guys are coming down the mountain pretty quickly, nearly running. It's about 10:40 AM at this point, which means these guys started around 5 or 6 AM. Talk about dedication. We get up and start trekking up to the third mile marker. Then we are met by a view of a beautiful, green valley after hiking up the dirty and dusty side of El Cajon Mountain.
We pass some unlabeled, burned posts that might've been the 4th mile marker. We see some burned trees just a couple hundred feet later and realize this area had probably been hit by wildfires in 2003.
We run into a guy in jeans and a cowboy hat, looking like he's done this hike a million times in his life. We ask if we're still heading the right way, and he tells us, "Oh yeah, you're headin' to the top, but trust me, these hills are devilishly deceiving." We weren't exactly sure what he meant by that, so we thanked him and went on our way. As we went along, we encountered some of the steepest hills I've ever been on... only to lead to some really steep down-hills. As soon as we think we're getting closer to the top, we hit another downhill slope. We realize that this was what he meant by "devilishly deceiving." Finally, we reach what seems to be the last uphill and take one last rest by a rusted old truck.
Success!
After one very long hill up to the top, we reach the 5th and final mile marker. At this point, we're given the option to go left, right, or straight ahead. Left will lead up a tough, rock-laden path up to the highest point of the El Capitan Preserve. Straight ahead will lead out to the face of El Capitan, and to the right will lead to a set path up to the second highest peak of the preserve. We take the "blue pill"... I mean, we head right, and reach the top.
We rest for about 20 minutes and start up a short conversation with another guy who reached the top around the same time. After saying good bye to our fellow hiker, we start heading back down. I can honestly say I haven't been this tired and delirious from hiking since my friends (including the aforementioned Jason) and I hiked 22 miles up Saddleback Mountain in Orange County. We pass the two burned posts again and decide to keep going, rather than explore where the extra path leads.
I later found out that this path may lead to an old mining area, which isn't surprising considering a lot of the mountains around San Diego were mined for iron ore from decades to centuries ago.
Finally, we find the 1st mile marker and know we're really close. We reach the car and even though my seats feel like they're 150 degrees, I couldn't be happier. We head back to SDSU and recount how tough of a hike this really was... and how important it is to bring more water than you think you'll need.
