Nothing But Blue Sky

Longtime readers of this blog know our family celebrates the day after Thanksgiving by going on a family hike. The location is kept secret until close to the date, and participation is mandatory. Our older daughter couldn't come home for the holiday, so her little sister once gain stood in for both of them.

This year I chose Blue Sky Ecological Reserve in Poway. It's close to our house and since I didn't make it to a group run here a couple of months ago, I wanted to see what I missed.

The entrance just off Espola Road has parking for about 75 cars and is open this time of year from sunrise to sunset. The trailhead is easy to find. Here are my daughter and husband heading toward the entrance.

We did see a hawk and mistook a crow for a vulture. Lots of aviary life and strange sounds coming from the creek that runs alongside the first half of the trail, which is shaded by live oaks, many of them damaged severely by the 2007 wildfires.

Time out to take lots of photos, including this one of yours truly and Alex. What's significant is she smiled a lot on this hike, signaling perhaps that the years of constant complaining about these outings may finally be behind us. (That or she's figured out we never listen to her and her sister anyway.)

This part of the trail reminded me of Los Penasquitos Canyon's main trail, which is close to our house. It made me eager to start climbing just to see something new.

There were several of these signs to keep people out while nature works its magic after so much destruction during the 2007 fires.

Almost a mile later, we started to climb toward the Lake Ramona Dam.



We saw several runners, all alone and all men, but only one that ran this way and made it to the top without stopping. He was impressive.

Definitely bring water with you on this climb. We're almost to the top now.




On one side is Lake Ramona; on the other are the kind of soaring views of the landscape that make all that huffing and puffing well worth it. Everyone agreed with me.


That's the Lake Poway Dam to the left of the photo.



Time to head down and return to the riparian trail and then head home. I have a funny shot that I am going to save for next Wednesday's featured photo.