I feel like I grew up out here.
I have soo many memories of exploring Mt. Laguna from when I was younger. Pops first took me camping here when I was still in diapers. Slowly, I’m beginning to learn the lay of the land and what trails lead where. The area is so insanely large that it really hard to fully comprehend the magnitude of these mountains. They may not be that big compared to some ranges, but the history in them is insane and I feel it is what has inspired many aspects of my life.
My dad grew up here in the 70’s and 80’s, long before many of the environmental laws now in place. He always told me stories of how he hiked this and this with so and so and ate this and that with only nothing at all. He’s shown me Native American cemeteries. We’ve also found Native grinding stones and arrowheads. Back in 2003, there were the Cedar Fires and much of the Lagunas burned at that fire has forever changed the entire landscape of the mountains. They still are gorgeous, just now it is obvious that fire has touched about everywhere you look.
Above, in the photos, the car wreckage, was from a really bad accident that had to have happened in the 40’s. The car is a very old car, the kind with suicide doors. It is about 200-400 feet from the road, down a cliff. I just really wish I knew the entire story about it. Why did they never pull it up? Did everyone die or not? I may never know.
Pops and I went out there for two nights with his new trailer. The first night there was a high wind advisory where gusts were up to 50mph! It was only 50° or so but the wind made it feel like 20°. The next two days were pristine. Soooo gorgeous. So many stars out that I looked out the window and told my dad, “Look at the plane’s flight path. It’s coming right towards us.” About 15 minutes later, that ‘plane’ was still there. That ‘plane’ was actually a planet.
Pops has also found over 2,000 geocaches. If you don’t know what geocaching is, click HERE. While we were out there, we found 23 geocaches which puts me (AWLF) over the 50 mark! We also found the oldest cache in California. Lots of the finds out there were ammo boxes which was cool cause there was a lot of S.W.A.G. but personally I prefer magnetic micros or something small. Also in the photos up above, in that wrecked bug photo, there is supposed to be a geocache there but we looked and looked but couldn’t find it. There was also one by that cabin and in that cool looking tree.
Can’t wait to go back. Anyone want to ride from there to downtown? It’s only 60 something miles I think..
geocache! gotta cache ’em all!