Norbert Haupt

Mount San Miguel is the prominent mountain in the approach path for airliners into San Diego. It is the mountain with all the antennas on top, seemingly close within reach as the planes bank to the right for the final approach to downtown. Sometimes the planes fly so close to the mountain, it’s almost scary. After flying into San Diego for more than 25 years, I have always wanted to hike that mountain. And today we did.

This was not trivial. We had one false start last weekend just finding the right place to start. This is not a hike in Jerry Schad’s books, and while there is a decent, if rough, trail, there is very little hiker traffic. It’s one of those hikes you have to really want to do.

The peak is the mountain in the very back with the antennas. This picture was taken within 5 minutes of starting the hike. It is surrounded by suburbia and upscale housing developments, gold courses and reservoirs.

There is no trailhead and no proper place to park your car. You have to park in a residential neighborhood. There are two different places to park, one on Duncan Ranch Road, just north of the intersection with Proctor Valley Road. You walk down Proctor Valley Road about a quarter of a mile. There is a field to the left where a narrow trail starts that eventually leads to the ridge behind the homes and up. This start makes the hike three-quarters of a mile longer than it needs to be.

We  took the alternate route and parked in a neighborhood just beyond that intersection.

Parking for Hiking Mt. San Miguel

Park on Iron Gates Lane in the bend (red arrow). The main gate to the gated community to the north is right there.  There is a concrete access road heading west which is locked with a steel gate to keep cars out, but a hiker can easily walk around it. Hike straight up to the power post on the ridge, then turn right. You are now on the main trail to the peak.

Trail Map for Mt. San Miguel

The red arrow points to the place to park the car. Once you start hiking up the access road,  and turn right, the trail meanders through shrubs and bushes along the main ridge. It is almost always exposed to the wind, which today was welcome and cool. This trail simply climbs straight up and does not have a lot of switchbacks. The trail itself is rough, rocky and just what you’d expect from a trail that is not very popular and does not get a lot of use. From an intermediate peak it descends 130 feet before it climbs the main cone for the final peak.

Mt. San Miguel Trail Profile

Here is the profile. In a length of 2.5 miles, we ascended 1,750 feet, for the most part relentlessly up, except for the one dip. The whole hike up, including a few water and breathing breaks, took two hours. We were back at the car five hours after leaving, with ample time lingering at the peak and at the flag.

Trisha Showing the Way

Here is Trisha, showing where we’re going, on the intermediate peak, just before the dip.

Just before the intermediate peak, since it’s the day before Memorial Day, we took a little side trip so I could pose next to the flag posted there. The location of the flag is on the map above at the blue arrow.

Ready for Memorial Day

Finally, the views from the top are endless. We could see Mexico and Tijuana in the distance in the south, downtown San Diego and the ocean beyond in the west, and of course endless mountains to the north and east.

At the Top of Mt. San Miguel

You can’t get to the exact top, since the array of antennas is fenced in with razor wire on top, but it was rewarding to stand there, after all these years looking down onto this mountain from airplanes.