Daytripping through the Del Dios Gorge and Santa Fe Valley trails with Dan W.
Hey you got nothing to do, check out the Santa Fe Valley and Del Dios Gorge trails sometime, just not when I'm around. Seriously, and no dogs either. I'm sick of them.
Against my better judgment, I'll let you in on a family secret. Here's the best two hiking trips in the universe; or at least our orbit.
#1 The 2-mile Santa Fe Valley Trail starts by the Lemon Twist roadside stand, cuts through the San Dieguito River Valley from Lake Hodges Dam to Crosby Estate on Del Dios Highway. That's a 4-mile roundtrip you get on near the Lemon Twist or high atop Artesian Road for advanced students in a much more rugged route. Maybe 45 minutes, if you climb those hills to Artesian Road 75 minutes.)
#2 The 3.2-mile Del Dios Gorge hike starts by Hernandez Hideaway, loops to Lake Hodges Dam and takes like I dunno, 90 minutes.
Did you know: Concrete-arch Lake Hodges Dam is nearly overflowing right now for the first time in six years. It was built in 1918 and paved the way for the creation of Rancho Santa Fe. Look down and you can see the gorge that extends through the river bed.
You'll notice a whole bunch of eucalyptus trees, many burned by the 2007 Witch Creek Fire. They are descendants of the millions of eucalyptuses planted in the early 1900s by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, which had bought most of the Rancho San Dieguito land grant in 1906 from Juan Osuna.
OK, we all know the wood was no good for railroad ties. But Rancho Santa Fe-- location, location, location -- was just right and local homeowners formed the Rancho Santa Fe Association in 1928.
Here's a good place to start your hike to the damn dam. Start at Hernandez Hideaway Restaurant. There's a trailhead, so follow the narrow, beaten-down path that swings right, parallel to the shore of Lake Hodges in the direction of the dam.
You'll go up and down the trail, checking out the electric pumps and generators that regulate the flow of water between Lake Hodges below and the Olivenhain Reservoir, unseen on the high ridge above.
Fast-forward two miles to ye olde dam, heading through the gorge bottom on an unpaved service road, doubling as the trail route. The remnants of a flume that formerly connected Lake Hodges to a smaller storage reservoir, San Dieguito Reservoir, some four miles away, cam be spotted along the ridge-line.
Del Dios Highway traffic noise magically disappears as you enter “one of the most important archaeological sites in the United States (that) has been placed on the National Register of Historic Places,” according to the San Diego Archaeological Center, which opened in 2002 in the San Pasqual Valley near the San Diego Wild Animal Park.
Malcolm Rogers, an Escondido citrus grower, also an avid amateur archaeologist, started exploring this area in 1919. When a 1927 flood exposed more artifacts in the river valley on a farm owned by C.W. Harris, Rogers and others began an additional 10-year excavation project.
Their studies and others over the past 70 years have proved that people lived in this area for more 9,000 years, archeologists say.
Check out the steeply rising gorge wall along the scattered willows, oaks, and granite outcrops down along the riverbed. Restoration efforts should improve the habitat alongside the river.
That will encourage the growth of native vegetation and provide better foraging and nesting for birds where at least 29 species of natives will likely thrive again, including Western sycamore, according to the conservancy says. This habitat improvement will also likely benefit two endangered bird species: the least Bell’s vireo and the Southwest willow flycatcher.
And now, some 3.2 miles from the Hernandez Hideaway start, the trail swings sharply left and crosses the San Dieguito River on an elaborate iron footbridge.
You're a couple of miles down the trails now to The Crosby and the spot where the Del Dios Gorge Trail becomes the Santa Fe Valley Trail.
The Starwood Capital Group in 2001 developed The Crosby at Rancho Santa Fe, a 722-acre development of 443 homes around an 18-hole golf course.
The Santa Fe Valley Trail passes under that bridge and continues right next to the golf course in several places.
At its western end, the trail switchbacks up a few hundred feet. At the viewpoint, you can see miles of the river valley, bordered by that golf course and equestrian and agricultural estates.
You can download a map of the Santa Fe Valley Trail from San Dieguito River Park, sdrp.org/trails.htm. The trail is about two miles one-way; retrace your steps for a four-mile round-trip hike, allowing at least two hours.
