Checking out the view from the El Cajon Mountain Cliff Face
Coming back, about half way down
Getting buzzed by the San Diego Sheriffs Chopper on El Cajon Mountain
What a great weekend for a hike. My buddies and I needed a training hike for our upcoming hike up “Cactus to Clouds“, so I took them to El Cajon Mountain, 12-14 miles of grueling up and down steep inclines in order to torture our legs and get our minds set “Cactus to Clouds” or how you will some times see it listed C2C. This is not a hike that you want to do on a hot day, in fact they close the park down during the month of August because of the excessive heat. This a great training hike for harder hikes to come, such as San Gorgonio, Mt Whitney, Half Dome, etc. If you decide to challenge yourself with this hike make sure to bring a lot of water, I went through 4 liters on a cool day, and start this hike early, like at least by 6am, so you can get up to the top before the heat starts. Lastly, after doing this hike several times I would suggest that you do the extra mile or so out to the cliff face, it doesn’t add that much as far as intensity to the hike, but the view is to kill for.