Bright and early on Father’s Day, I jumped into the truck and headed down to the Southbay area of the county. Jamul would be the closest town for a Father’s Day ride with some of the Bonita Biker’s crew. We met up at the 1,000 trails RV park on Otay Lakes Road.
There were lots of folks I had not meet before. Ali, “Mr Izi, Jose, James, Gil, Rob were some of the name I caught. Forgive me (and contact me) if I missed your name. The ride today was billed as a social ride on some of the fireroads in the and Jamul Mountains. Having not spent much time in this area I was interested. We started off north and worked our way through some valleys until we came to a bit of San Diego history.
This is the remenants of the Jamul Cement Works factory which first started making cement in March of 1891. Jose knew the history of this place quite well and was quite the cultural tourguide here. The San Diego Historical Society has a good article on the history of this place that is well worth a read. Don’t miss the link to the period photographs of the plant.
A couple of barn owls call this place home and we spooked them off as we approached. At the bottom of the kilns were lots of scat and bones of small rodents. It was quite the little killing field these nocturnal birds of prey had going.
A view from the inside looking out.
Once back to rolling we had a bit of climbing to do. It was not long but it had some steepness to it. Rob made it look almost easy with the Big Hit.
Another view of some uphillage
Israel trying to break a sweat.
After the climbing section we dumped off all of the elevation rather quickly. There were some mighty silty sections on the fireroad descent that made following someone really interesting. I wanted to call the descent “Powder Puff” hill. Once back down the valley floor we did bit of untrammeled trail riding to connect back to the 1,000 trails RV park. I thought a section of the California Riding and Hiking Trail went through here, but it may have been destoryed in the fires that went through here a few years back. Something to investigate later.
A handful of folks had to split at this point for some early Father’s Day commitments. The rest of us set out to do a loop to the south of Otay Lakes Road. It was a fireroad affair, but it was still pretty cool being new dirt for me. Before we started climbing in earnest we enjoyed the shade of some large oaks which were just past the line were the 2007 wildfire was stopped in this area. Once we turned up hill there were some mild grinding to to for a bit as we worked up out of a valley.
On a climb.
Along the way we went by an old well. It had older wooden parts down below and somewhat newer stone work up near the top. There was still water in the well.
We would do a bit more of ridgeline climbing before turning the bikes back down for another fast and silty descent followed by a quick road connect back to the 1,000 trails RV park and some waiting refreshements. All together it was about a 16-17 miles jaunt. Not a big ride but plenty interesting with good folks to boot. A good time indeed that had me home with plenty of time to enjoy Father’s Day with the family.
