Yesterday was an awesome Saturday that included some of my favorite things — time with my hubby and puppy, football, a yummy dinner (veggie & mozzarella panini with basil pesto), frozen yogurt, and the activity that took up a chunk of our day: hiking Mount Woodson, a mountain by Lake Poway that offers a spectacular 360 degree view of San Diego County once you make it to the top (we also spotted Catalina Island and Mexico up there!).
Yesterday was a chilly day here, so I wore a new Everlast workout hoodie I just got for Christmas that has the hand cover thingys to keep my knuckles warm. It was a good move, as it pretty damn chilly at the top. There were even patches of snow towards the mountain summit!
Neither Adam or I had ever been to Lake Poway before, and it is a gorgeous site to see!
[Note that my husband is a maniac. He had a weighted vest & 50 pounds of gear on!]
The Mount Woodson trail itself is about 6 miles, but to get to the trail from the Lake Poway area, you first have to hike about 1 mile each way.
We also parked far away because 1.) it was really crowded and 2.) we had no idea how to get to the trail, which added a significant amount of mileage as well. When all was said and done with our hike, my FitBit clocked us in at hiking 10 miles. It was quite a trek for us!
There were a few things that stuck out to me about Mount Woodson. Instead of it having steep inclines and then periods of plateaued land like many places I’ve hiked here, it’s more of a steady incline the vast majority of the time. I thought this was a bit harder because it never allowed us to recover and get a break while still hiking. Mount Woodson also has great views and lots of cool rock formations:
After reading some reviews online, we decided to not bring Harley along. I felt a little bad leaving her since she’s usually my hiking buddy, but I just didn’t think that she’d have enough endurance to make it through this hike well. I’m sure we could have pulled her along and she’d survive, but I’m glad we left her home for this one. There were tons of dogs on the trails that seemed to be doing just fine yesterday, but in the summer I could see Mount Woodson being really tough for a lot of dogs. I think it also just depends on how much endurance your pup has. Harley is more of a sprinter and I think that hiking Iron Mountain with her might be her comfortable max.
Towards the end, we were starting to get tired. It seemed like we were about to get to the top for quite awhile, but we kept pushing ourselves to keep moving. Once we made it up to the summit, the views were beautiful! There were a lot of people hanging out up there taking pictures, resting and snacking.
At the top, Mount Woodson’s famous ”potato chip rock” was getting plenty of attention. We debated whether or not to wait in line to jump onto the rock and snap a photo, but decided that we had to get the shot since we were there. It’s a little scary because in order to get to the rock, you have to jump and safely land on it, then either slide down it afterwards (we saw a few people totally bust their asses) or use your fatigued leg muscles to prop yourself back up the way you came. I got slightly freaked out in thinking that I’d fall getting onto or off of the rock, but I conquered my little fear and did it anyways:
It took Adam and I 1 hour and 40 minutes to hike up the mountain from our car, about 1 hour and 15 minutes getting down it, and then we spent 40 minutes at the top.
[Side note: My new heart rate watch sucks at calculating calorie burn. 589 calories?! My FitBit clocked me in at 1,200 calories burned… I’m going with that number!]
The only thing I didn’t love was how crowded the trail was. On our descend, we got stuck behind a group of obnoxious frat boys. We passed, got passed, and wound up in the middle of them more than a few times. It gets a bit annoying when you’re hiking and it’s super crowded for this reason, but all in all, it was a really fun hike that it totally worth doing!
Post-hike, I found myself pretty wiped. I did a weight training workout on Friday, so my arms were pretty achy yesterday. I woke up this morning with even more sore arms and a pretty achy booty from our 10 miles of hiking! I think today is going to be a rest day. 🙂 Enjoy your Sunday!
That sounds like the PERFECT day to me. I love love love to go hiking but rarely get the opportunity. Just no good hiking spots in my area 🙁
I’ve been wanting a heart rate watch, but have read that the calorie burn is way off on a lot of those. I wonder if there is a good one to get that gives correct calorie burn info?
Aww yeah I hear ya, where I grew up in NJ it was all flat land and there were no good hiking spots around. That’s why I take advantage of living in San Diego now and like to hike a lot!
Funny you should say that about the heart rate watch, I’m going to do a post on them this week. The one I used for this hike is a new one, and I’m finding that the calorie burn is wayyy off. My older heart rate watch is much more accurate. I’ll be further elaborating on all of that soon!
This hike looks like a lot of fun. Would love to do it sometime soon!
You should, it was a great workout. My glutes are still sore 2 days later!!
What pretty photos! 🙂
Thanks, it’s easy to take pretty photos in such a pretty area!