San Diego: Iron Mountain Trail
Tackle a heart-thumping 5.6-mile, out-and-back scramble over boulder fields to a 2,700-foot peak perched high above the coastal haze of the Pacific.
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Trail Facts
- Distance: 4.5
Waypoints
IM001
Location: 32.9772033691406, -116.972831726074
Pass through rows of trees into chaparral slopes of Iron Mtn.
IM002
Location: 32.9774894714356, -116.965774536133
Enter zone of yucca blooms and fragrant wild sage still regenerating after the Cedar Fire of 10/03; look for softball-sized white-fungus puffballs mixed with orange and yellow wildflowers in meadow ahead
IM003
Location: 32.9772758483887, -116.959899902344
Straight @ 3-way; cross seasonal creekbed to begin ascent into rocky canyon of neon-violet Indian Warrior plants growing in black-ash soil
IM004
Location: 32.9776725769043, -116.952941894531
Reach saddle swathed in southern mountain misery shrubs (whose resinous foliage smells like witch hazel); peer through ponderosa pines for first views E into vast layers of Cleveland NF and Laguna Mtns.
IM005
Location: 32.9759254455566, -116.952033996582
Veer R @ 3-way, continue around E side of 2,696-ft. Iron Mountain
IM006
Location: 32.9738883972168, -116.952842712402
Silt-soiled path leads through false summit of big redrock boulders covered in tiny, black-cupped lichen
IM007
Location: 32.9734077453613, -116.955123901367
Zigzag up rocky terrain of white-and-black sage and wild irises
IM008
Location: 32.970703125, -116.955490112305
Solitary cone of Iron Mtn.; full-circle mountain vistas in E over to radiant Pacific with Coronado and Catalina Islands in W; to S, fingers of San Vicente Reservoir reach into the Barona Valley. Retrace route to car