Mt. Woodson & Potato Chip Ledge

Trail around the banks of Lake Poway

 My feet don't just adventure out at 6mph + speeds. My feet also work together with my calves and knees to get me up and down gradual or steep slopes lined with shrubbery and boulders. While I run more often than I hike, I do typically go for a hike about once a week. I hike at two locations: Iron Mountain and Mission Trails (from Mast Blvd), both of which are a lot of fun. Today, however, my friend Rachel and I planned out a day hike to a place I had never been before: Mt. Woodson.

According to yelp, Mt. Woodson is approximately 8 miles round trip, and located near Lake Poway. We arrived around 11:00am, probably the best time if you want to sweat a decent amount on your way up and work on getting the best tan or worst sunburn you can. I did the latter, although I only managed to get my legs sunburned, which is an interesting feeling.

Lake Poway

The trail itself is not what I expected. I'm a dedicated hiker. By dedicated I mean I keep going and going and going and unless I'm parched I don't pull over to take breaks---I just slow my pace if I start getting tired. I should pull over more, because I'd probably get more decent pictures if I did. But I get sucked into the challenge of hiking, especially when the going gets rough, and I just keep going. Rachel had remembered the trail as a gradual incline all the way to the top, which is very similar to Iron Mountain. Pretty much the trail was anything but gradual. Going up the trail was fairly steep the entire way up. Not so steep that I was crawling on my hands and knees, but I definitely felt my calves working to get me up to the top. There wasn't much shade on the way up, but we did stop at a rock formation with several trees (that were climbable!) shading the area. We had some water and enjoyed the view before going on.

The rest of the way up was great, but also a big tease. You are not able to see the peak of the trail on your way up and the trail is steep enough that when you feel like you've gone a mile a signpost will indicate that you've really only gone .5 miles. Almost at the peak is one of the main reasons (at least according to Yelp) why people hike this trail. Potato Chip ledge.

Potato Chip Ledge

Ta-da! I don't actually eat chips, but thank you to the person who dropped one on the ground to allow me to take this lovely picture. This ledge is a rock formation where the bottom half has fallen away. It looks incredibly unstable but once I jumped to it, I felt much better about it.

The view was amazing, and I'm sure if it were clear you could pretty much see everything. There was fog (or smog?) in the distance but you could just make out downtown San Diego and follow the coastline until was too hazy.

Living life on the ledge

The hike down was good. I much prefer going up than down, even though up is more difficult. Going up I put in more effort and I definitely get a cardiovascular workout hiking inclines. Going down is another story. Usually it is a combination of catching myself in a slip and controlling my momentum. Downhill is definitely a very efficient leg workout and harder on my knees.

We wrapped up the hike with a walk around the banks of Lake Poway instead of taking a straight-shot trail to the parking lot. Total time for the trip was just over 4 hours. It took us about 1.5-ish hours to get to the top and an hour to get back down. Toss in time for a picnic lunch at the top and some exploring around the lake and it was a great day. I will definitely be hiking this trail again, although I might plan it on a cooler day or much, much earlier in the morning.