2 min
Overview
Much of coastal San Diego lies upon a series of sandstone terraces cut deeply in many places by intermittent and perennial streams. This characteristic “mesa and canyon” topography has been made less conspicuous by decades of barely restrained development. Today, subdivisions, shopping centers, roads, and a handful of municipal and county parks occupy, but do not entirely obscure this topography. While open space has been a major casualty of San Diego’s rise as the state’s second largest city, foresight has protected some of the most valuable of the coast’s remaining open space parcels. Chief among these is the Del Mar Mesa Open Space Preserve. The preserve protects a mesa on the northern slopes of Penasquitos Canyon in the Carmel Valley/Sorrento Valley/Rancho Penasquitos area. Within the preserve, hikers will find old-growth coastal chaparral, cryptogamic crusts, vernal pools, riparian woodlands, and, perhaps most intriguing, a dense forest of scrub oak on the preserve’s north-facing slopes. For years, the Del Mar Mesa Preserve had remained off-limits to recreation. Despite this prohibition, countless hikers and mountain bikers continued to enter the preserve illegally. In 2015, the preserve opened a part of the trail network to the public, although it kept some of the most sensitive vernal pool habitat closed to recreation. This network of multi-use trails visits most of the other features of the preserve, including the popular “Tunnels” section where the trail passes through the scrub oak forest. The easiest route into the preserve follows a community trail around a small, but extremely high dollar-value subdivision separate from other neighboring wealthy subdivisions before reaching the trail network proper. From the street parking, follow this community trail as it parallels Rancho Toyon Place and then wraps around the southern end of the subdivision. At .8 mile, a kiosk at a four-way junction indicates the entrance to the preserve. The dirt road that continues straight ahead runs east-west along the south
Trail Stats
7.2 km
152 m
135 m
61 m
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