Black Mountain Open Space Park

Matt and I have been trying to get out of downtown San Diego on weekends, and hiking is our current preferred activity. Recently we've been to Black Mountain Open Space Park, about 10 miles east of Del Mar, and El Moro Canyon, on the northern edge of Laguna Beach. While I brought my camera on both hikes, I wasn't as inspired by the terrain of El Moro to take photos--we didn't have a view of El Moro Bay, and I already have plenty of chaparral landscape pictures. Plus, I was really hot; the sun just sapped my energy. Tyler had joined us on that excursion, and I do wish I'd captured his newly enlarged hiker's calves for posterity (he's been hiking quite a bit up in LA as a way to deal with his insane work schedule that finds him home, in front of a computer for days on end).

As for the Black Mountain hike, it was memorable for a few things:

*The group of hikers in the parking lot singing songs about chugging beer and making Matt quite uneasy. He thought them cult-ish, and I tried to allay his fears by explaining that some people don't give up drinking games just because they've graduated college. I still found him glancing worriedly down the hill, whenever we heard their chants in the distance.

*The two snakes--one a rattler, one harmless. Matt had a way of notifying me of the snakes' presence which did not put me at ease, at all. I couldn't explain why until the following week's hike with Tyler. We were walking, and Matt said, "A snake." (Long pause, Tyler and I freeze, trying to locate where the threat is approaching from.) "Was here earlier," he finished. Tyler pointed out that the delivery could have been made less traumatic, if Matt had not paused between the two pieces of information or had said, "These marks are from a snake."

Rattlesnake and a harmless snake (or so Matt tried to convince me).

*The microwave towers at the top that looked like big drums.


*The 360 view at the top of one peak. While the views to the north, south and east were dominated by development, the view west at sunset gave the illusion that you could walk off the top of the mountain directly onto the water.