About Me

My name is Brad Spiess, and I live in Sunny San Diego.

I’m a personal trainer and one of my passions is hiking. I’ve been hiking for most of my life. I started hiking when I was about 6 or 7. I was living in Guam with my mother who was teaching there. We used to go hiking through all parts of the island by our selves and with the local U.S.O. I’m sure that’s part of what started me along this trail in my life. I’ve lived many places in this world, but it wasn’t really until I got out of the Army in 1993 and moved to San Diego that I really developed a love for hiking. One of the first things I did after moving down here was to pick up the definitive bible for hiking in San Diego; Afoot & Afield in San Diego by Jerry Schad. https://www.wildernesspress.com/product.php?productid=16509 Not long after picking this book up my cousin and his wife moved down to San Diego and we started hanging out a lot. We took this book and put tabs on all the hikes we wanted to do ( there is a lot of hikes in this book) and proceeded to mark off the hikes that we had done. Over the years I’ve continued to go on hikes here and there in San Diego and anywhere else I might be traveling to. Before the internet really took off it was hard to find information on where to hike, but now there is a plethora of information on where to hike, how hard the hikes are, topographic information, visuals, etc. I’ve decided that I want to put my unique skills to use sharing this information with everyone.

As I go on my hikes I will try to gather information on the trail, the topographic map, photos of the trail and descriptions of the trail offer them up here for your enjoyment.

See you on the trail.

Brad

Update: I wrote this out 6 years ago when I first started this page. I still continue to hit the trail whenever I can and write about new trails that I explore. One thing this has done for me is to instill in me a new passion ( obsession if you talk to my wife ) for Photography. While building this website I have strived to make better pictures to go along with the hikes that I write about. I bought my first professional camera a couple of years ago ( a Sony A7ii) and once that happened my passion really took off. I’m still fine tuning my set up, ( carrying a heavy full frame camera and lens up a 14 thousand foot mountain isn’t exactly pleasant ) and as I do so I’ll write about it more in the hiking write ups. You can check out my photos at my photography website Http://www.spiessphoto.com . You can also check out my other web site I started for my photography adventures Http://www.my-focalpoint.com where I discuss my road trips and adventures capturing our world with my lens.