The hike up El Cajon Mountain is a 5.65 mile trail, making for an 11.3 mile round trip. It took me 7 hours and 13 minutes.

I first hiked this trail Christmas 2012 with my son. Here is my report from then. I stand by every word, so I won’t be repeating some of the pictures and my lamenting. But I can’t help it. I just recently hiked the Haleakala Crater, and then down hiked Pikes Peak. Both were strenuous hikes in their own right, both were of similar length, both were at much higher altitudes, but in terms of exhaustion, El Caj0n takes the cake.

Two reasons:

I talked about the first reason when I hiked it 13 years ago that it’s uphill, both ways. How can that be? Let’s look at the elevation profile over time:

As you can see in the graph above, after you go up, have have do descend quite a bit, before you get to climb again. The trail is very step everywhere, so going downhill is hard on the knees, and it’s dangerous because it’s easy to slip, fall or trip. And then you get to climb again. This is bad on the way out, but twice as bad on the way back, when you just want to get to the car, and there are all these terrible hills to climb.

The second reason is because it was hot. The trail is exposed to the sun all day, and it was one of those high 80ies in November days with a blue sky.

In the photograph below taken at the beginning of the trip, you can see the peak in the distance. That’s where I am going, 5.6 miles uphill, both ways.

Here is a closeup, about 20 minutes before I reached the top. You click on the image and zoom in and you can make out the faint trail with some people on it. The white arrow points to a person, if you look very carefully. The rocks on the top are huge boulders. That’s the peak.

Finally, after 3.5 hours, I am there. In the background you can see the mountains of East County, San Diego.

Looking southwest from the peak is San Diego. You can’t make it out in this picture. It’s too far away in the haze, but the bright line in the distance is the Pacific Ocean.

I said earlier that it was hot. Uncharacteristically, I didn’t bring enough water for this hike. I had only packed two liters. I needed more. Lucky for me, the park service, or some trail angels, left caches of water. I refilled my bottles here on the way up, and on the way down. If it hadn’t been for these caches, I would not have been able to make the hike. I consumed at least four liters over the seven hours.

Thanks, trail angels!

In summary, when all the guide books for hikes in San Diego tell you El Cajon is a very strenuous hike, believe them. This is not for the casual hiker. You can get  yourself into serious trouble on this trail if you are not experienced, if you don’t have the right equipment or stamina, and if you don’t have enough water.

I was exhausted when I got home, but it was a good exhausted. Let’s see if I will want to do it again in 13 years.