Friday Morning Hike at Cowles Mountain

As you may have noticed in my posts, I hike pretty often with Harley. I think it’s a great way to spend time outside and get some exercise in for the both of us. Earlier today, I decided to try hiking a mountain we had never been to before, called Cowles Mountain. It took us about 1 hour and 20 minutes round trip to hike 3 miles, with the highest point being 1,591′ above sea level. I’ve heard that it’s one of the busiest trails in San Diego, and I can definitely see why. As soon as you begin climbing the mountain, this is the view:

PROS: Compared to the other mountain we usually hike (which is also part of the same huge regional park, Mission Trails), Cowles was interesting in that it was sort of like a maze, with the trails weaving up the mountain. The hike Harley and I frequent just goes straight upwards, so I found it neat that as we were hiking up, we could see people at different points in front of us making their way up or down. Check out the specks of people:

Another pro of Cowles Mountain is the gorgeous views, especially from the top:

CONS: One downfall of hiking there is how crowded it is. Being that there were a lot of hikers there on a Friday AM, I’m sure it gets crazy packed on the weekends. Having a overly excitable puppy with tons of people around isn’t as relaxing of a hike as being able to walk with Harley on less populated trails.

A [probably purely coincidental] con is that this morning, people didn’t seem as dog friendly as on the other mountain we typically hike.

How you can see this smiling puppy’s face and not smile back or appease her and say ‘hi’ for 2 seconds is beyond my comprehension, but moving on…

Why do I just keep saying “our usual mountain” instead of naming the hike? Because I do not know the name of it and actually thought we had been hiking Cowles Mountain all this time! A random dog owner informed me of this yesterday. Whoopsies, I’m so observant! After some Googling research, I’m pretty sure the hike we usually do is called Kwaay Paay Trail and Summit.

Overall, I really liked Cowles Mountain. It was a good workout, though it didn’t seem quite as challenging or steep of a hike as Kwaay Pay. Hiking that trail, I feel as though I’m going to fall and bust my butt way more than I did today, which oddly enough, I think I like better than feeling more steady! I think I’d like to be more adventurous with our hikes and try going to different mountains in the area more often.

Post hike, I enjoyed a mini watermelon smoothie with the rest of the melon I had leftover from yesterday, whole wheat toast, Trader Joe’s Stilton cheese with apricots (OMG – it’s amazing!), and a chopped apple with sprinkled cinnamon.

The rest of my day is going to be spent getting some work done, heading to the gym, and going out tonight with a girlfriend. Hope your weekend starts off wonderfully!

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