Hiking Monserate Mountain Preserve For The First TIme!

Over the weekend, Gene and I visited another awesome trail, a quick six miles from our house! This was our first time visiting the Monserate Mountain Preserve, in Fallbrook, CA!

It is located right to the side of the 15, so I felt more than a little silly knowing we had passed it all the time, never knowing people actually hiked it! All Trails had it listed as "strenuous" and yet people were reviewing that it was not... no friends, it was.

Down on the road where we parked, with Monserate Mountain behind me!
Shoes: ASICS GT-2000
Pants: From a few years ago, Target
Tank top: WalMart
Jacket: Baby Phat from Macy's
Cowl: gifted from my sweet friend Heather! Check out her Etsy shop!

This was what the trail quickly became

The trail at first was just a dirt trail, easy day! We were passed by a few guys with hiking sticks (you know, those ski poles people use for hiking) and thought "what have we gotten ourselves into here?!?!" Pretty soon we found ourselves on a rocky path to the summit! It was pretty awesome though to see this red clay along the mountain! Sometimes, when you drive along the freeway, the mountains look rusted!

This was about 0.2 miles into our hike!

This was when I was asking Gene if he knew anything about elevation sickness... I'm not kidding.

Climbing this mountain was no joke, friends! The summit sits at 1,567ft according to an article in the San Diego Reader! They say you climb about 1,200ft! I believe it. It took us about an hour and a half to get to the top, mostly because I make Gene stop and take picture of me almost the entire way up. We also stopped and took a few pictures of ourselves before two guys stopped and asked if we wanted them to snap some shots- how nice! We took them up on their offer and got some GREAT pictures of us with the surrounding scenery!

At the summit there is a little pile of rocks and an old ammo box and Rubbermaid container with journals inside, where you can just write little notes, like a guest book!

Gene and I didn't take the time to read through the notes, because it was cold (as you might be able to infer from the fog!) and we were more interested in getting back to being warm! We will definitely take another trip with the intention of hanging out over a picnic and ready what people wrote!

Another foggy shot, from near the summit.

Instead of heading straight back gown the mountain, the fellows we ran into mentioned heading south around a water tank, and being able to enjoy the vista behind the mountain, so we did! I thought that might be a bad idea, but then said "YOLO*, let's do it!" It was a glorious mistake. I thought I might die before we reached the end and once or twice we were convinced we were lost. It was breathtaking though, and the sun began to shine right as we were on our way!

Overall, we had an awesome hike! We pushed our limits, we saw some amazing sights I never thought I would see, and we came out alive! You are not going to want to miss our Saturday Morning Sessions this coming Saturday (23 March 2013) as we will be talking about all of the things we pack into our battle packs to go hiking! We'll be hitting another new trail next weekend also!



*Truth: I actually said "YOLO" to Gene when we were contemplating taking the long road home... who am I becoming?!?!