At The Backroads

Distance: 3.5 mile loop
Elevation Gain/Loss: 200 ft
Difficulty: Easy
Address: 15027 Highway 79, Julian, CA
Direction: take I-8 East, Highway 79 North until you see the lake ( 15 minutes off I-8)

Nature spares! Nature Heals! Nature grows back! Lake Cuyamaca at Rancho Cuyamaca State Park is one of my favorite places in San Diego County to take inspiration from Mother Nature. The Cuyamaca Mountains, which has the second highest peak in San Diego County, was scorched by the 2003 Cedar Fire. Before the 2003 Cedar Fire, Cuyamaca Mountain stood as San Diego’s jewel mountain escape. Now, most of the Cuyamaca Mountains look like a ghost mountain of charred trees, but a beautifully haunting one.

Seeing the sprouting of a new life in the charred trunks and branches of trees makes me appreciate how nature fights back and regrow after a scorching fire. It feels both sad and yet uplifting to see how life goes back even in the burned branches of trees,

appreciating how nature takes care of our beautiful yet delicate earth. A visit to Cuyamaca, reminds me of how we, just like nature, can pick up the pieces and move on with life.

Thankfully, the area around lake Cuyamaca was spared from the 2003 Cedar Fire. The thick forest of oak and pines disappeared, except around Cuyamaca Lake.

What started the Cedar Fire last 2003? About 5 years ago, someone got lost in the trail and started a fire for rescuers to see him, that fire burned out of control driven by Santa Ana Wind. It burned more than 280,000 acres of land and claimed several lives. The Santa Ana wind are extremely dry off shore winds that appear once a while in Southern California during autumn to early spring when the high desert gets extremely cold. The cold air from the high desert sinks, but during its descent, it undergoes adiabatic compression which further dries and heats up the wind. During Santa Ana conditions, relative humidity drops to single digits, with wind gusts of over 50 miles per hour, all components of a fire. Extreme dry air may not be so much of a threat in other places with less vegetation, but not in the bushy and forested area.

But despite being a burned forest, Cuyamaca Rancho State Park still is an inspiring place to experience. The park has a lot to offer, such as the solitude around, the meadows, the migratory birds and the wildlife. A large variety of birds from the desert, mountains, chaparral and riparian habitat stop by, rest and visit Lake Cuyamaca. Deers and other animals can be seen along the lake shore almost any morning or evening.

Lake Cuyamaca is also a place for fishing, for more information on fishing, visit the lake’s website:

 http://www.lakecuyamaca.org/

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