Balboa Trails - Golden Hill Part 2 of 2

Hey There:

Many many many months ago I posted photos about one of the Golden Hill Trails, promising to post again once I did the whole 4 mile trail. And I've done it (several times) and I have the pictures, but I have the makings of a procrastinator and if I don't do something right away, it won't get done...for weeks or months in this case.

Now that we'll have more daylight it's time to leave the gym treadmill and use the natural really hard trails nature gave San Diego. So here are some of the photos I took of the path and I hope they are useful to you since I made quite a few wrong turns the first time I completed the whole trail. The pictures were taken late in the summer and most of the greenery is dried out. But this time of year and thanks to all the rain, the trail looks much nicer.

Continuing from my last post, once you get up that little hill, you'll end up walking for a bit on a residential street.

You'll pass through a park where you can normally see people on picnics and once I saw a wedding there and another time I saw a guy peeing in the bushes.

Then you continue on Upas Street just following the signs.

You will pass through another dog park, go across it to reach the next sign. This is where I made a mistake that cost me going up and down a hill.

Now starts one of my favorite parts of the trail. I know it looks like all dirt and desolate but....

...you can always count on cute military guys using the trails either jogging or on bikes.

Eventually you'll get to the intersection of Pershing and Florida/26th street.

And you continue on 26th street until you reach your destination. There are no signs here, and this is were I made another wrong turn, wanting to take a shortcut that nearly killed me because it was so steep.

Finally you'll reach the starting point, it takes me about 1 1/2 hours to do it. If you jog, have a long stride and don't stop to gawk at other joggers then you can make it in less time. Click Here to check out the map of the trail. From the map you'll see I've completed Trail #22, next one to complete will be Trail #23.

One of the most memorable things about walking these trails was the time I had to think about the book I'm writing. As I walked I thought about the plot, characters and many scenes. Had time to listen to several Audio-books and thanks to all those hills, my butt feel great!