Potato Chip Rock

This weekend we did TWO hikes! But one was small and involved a lot of food and and the other was much longer. 

On Saturday morning, we met with our friends at 10:30 to go on a hike in Sycamore Canyons, the park by our flat. We were walking over when one of them messaged us with a picture of us! They'd seen us from the road and pulled over to drive us the rest of the way. 

It was really windy that day and before long my ears were hurting from it. But we hiked all over and even stopped for a snack (kindly supplied by Susan) in the shade of a big boulder. The previous times we've visited the ground has been all brown and dried out from the sun, but since the rain over Christmas, the area around here has exploded into green. For once it was green hills we looked out over and not just rock. 

This was it in June 2021

This was this weekend! (spot the snow on the far mountain)

Me and Susan sitting on a windy rock

After we'd made the loop, we all headed to our favourite breakfast place in the town centre area. I got an omlette and Mitchell some avocado toast. Andrea had also brought some cheese and guava pastries from her favourite bakery downtown for us all, so it ended up being a very big breakfast!

On Sunday, the wind had dropped so we went for a big hike to see Potato Chip Rock. We drove down to Lake Ponway, which is close to San Diego and took about an hour and a quarter to get there, and we arrived just after 10am. We paid $10 for parking, which was worth it as they have toilets and a cafe, and the hike is much nice than the alternate route which has free parking, but no view of the lake. 

We began the trail by circling the southern half of the lake which was so blue! It looked so pretty with the newly green grass all around. We soon started to climb and left the lake behind. As we went, we could see more and more of San Diego and in one direction could actually see the sea! There were lots of huge boulders which made excellent vantage points where we could stop for a quick snack and some photos. 

You can just about see the sea on the horizon here

Spot the Emily

It was pretty steep the whole way up (which was about 3.5 miles) but not too hard for us to do. It was around 21 degrees, but felt warmer in the sun, so it was perfect weather for hiking. We arrived at the top in two hours and got to see the reason we'd hiked all the way up here. 

Potato Chip Rock is called that because it looks like a potato chip! It's a very thin slice of rock that sticks out over the edge of the mountain and is a very popular place to take photos. There was a short queue of people waiting to walk out onto it, and I joined this while Mitchell took his place with the camera. I didn't have to wait too long, but there was quite a gap between the rock I was waiting on and the potato rock, with a long way down between them, but I managed to half jump and then scramble up on my hands and knees. You definitely do not want to try this without good grippy shoes! 

It wasn't too bad to walk out on, it was actually quite flat and as long as you didn't look down it was fine. We got a couple of photos and then I had to get back down. There was a different route people were taking down which was straight down the edge of the rock. Luckily, there was just enough bumps that I could shuffle down and not slip. 

Pictures done, we then went the 0.2 miles to the summit of Mt Woodson and picked a spot for lunch. We actually got quite chilly in the shade and once we were done and were rested, we began the descent. It's the same route back down, but going downhill seems so much faster! We still didn't make it back to the car until after 3pm, making this hike one of the longer ones we've done so far. It was a really nice route with excellent views and nicely mainted trails. Even if there hadn't been a famous photo stop on top, it still would have been a nice hike to do. 

In other news, I had some interviews this week and have accepted an offer to become the new marketing and digital communications coordinator for Riverside County Library System. I start at the end of February and am very excited to be bringing in some money so we can start doing fun things that require expensive tickets! I'll tell you more about it when I start I'm sure.

Lots of love,

Emily and Mitchell

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