I added “Hike at least 250 different trails in San Diego County” to my Bucket List in 2014. I’ve had good and bad hiking years since then, but I’ve stuck to the goal, and plan to achieve it regardless of how long it takes. In fact, I’m not in a huge rush. A few weeks ago I passed the century mark for trails and today I passed the century mark for completed hikes. The difference between those 2 things came to be on my 99th hike. I messed up on the navigation and we only completed a little over half of the 7 mile hike. We’ll go back one day soon to fix that mistake, but until then I’ll have a half of a hike on my list.
I’m following the list of hikes in the book Afoot and Afield in San Diego County. The list was started using the 4th Edition that had 250 unique hikes in it. The current, 5th Edition, has 282 unique hikes. I have not updated my Bucket List or tracking page, Afoot and Afield in San Diego County Hikes, but I will one of these days.
I don’t always go with the same people, my wife and youngest son are usually there, but not always. Occasionally we have a bigger group, but not often. I’ve only done 1 or 2 alone, but not long or remote ones. I don’t “redo” trails very often. Before I set the goal, I repeated several of the more popular trails in San Diego multiple times. Cowles Mountain, Iron Mountain, and Mount Woodson to name a few. These are gorgeous and popular trails, but the goal is to explore new trails, so that is what I’ve been doing. A few of the hikes in the book are loops that take you back over at least part of a different trail in the book. But in general I have not done a lot of repeat trails since starting the Bucket List tracking.
I tried to pick a meaningful hike, and of course a special place for my 100th trail. The hundredth trail ended up being Batiquito Lagoon. A very worthy hike in a beautiful coastal lagoon area. We had volunteered to clean up there a few years ago. Usually going out on the water is prohibited but for this special event volunteers are allowed on the water for the cleanup. We kayaked out onto the lagoon to collect garbage. The kayaking was fun and I was pretty proud of the tire I brought back to shore!
Batiquito Lagoon Cleanup September 2011
And as a trail for the 100th hike, it was up to expectations as well.
Red Wing Black Bird on Batiquito Lagoon trail
California Least Tern with stretched neck on west side of Batiquito Lagoon
Dusk view of Batiquito Lagoon
Jenny and Eric near the end of the Batiquito Lagoon hike
I will continue to get out and hike in San Diego regularly. Not every available weekend, I have other things I want to do, vacations, projects around the house, and of course friends, 6 children and 3 grandchildren to hang out with. Like any goal, I want to finish it, but it has to fit into my life, and I think I’m good to go to continue hiking for at least another decade and hopefully more!
Here's to a Full Life 