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By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO – There are plenty of mammals indigenous to Cowles Mountain, the highest point within the City of San Diego. Among them are squirrels, rabbits, coyotes, raccoons, possums. But the critters that Chief Ranger Tracey Walker of Mission Trails Regional Park seems to worry most about are the dogs and the cats—and possibly a chimpanzee.
In the case of the dogs, he worries about what will happen to them if their owners foolishly let them roam the mountain paths off their leashes. In the case of the cats, he has nearly the opposite concern: what will they do the small animals and birds that populate this area.
In October, there was a report from a credible hiker that an unidentified two legged animal—perhaps a chimpanzee—had been seen on the mountain. The animal hasn’t been spotted since, but there are plenty of places where such an animal could stay out of sight. Walker says the park staff is considering posting the mountain with signs asking hikers to report any unusual activity atop Cowles. As cute as chimps might be, when they grow to adult size they can be quite dangerous, Walker said.
Meanwhile, the chief ranger’s daily animal worries are more prosaic. Letting dogs run loose is strictly prohibited anywhere in Mission Trails Regional Park. If Walker or his staff catch you doing it, he could give you a citation that will end up costing you $250. It’s not that he’s unsympathetic to people who want to take their dogs out for a run, but dangers lurk everywhere for them.
As Walker lectured to one fellow coming down a Cowles Mountain Trail on a recent weekday, curious dogs are likely to go investigating rocks and plants off the trails, and be taken by surprise by a rattlesnake. Or their ears may perk up at the sound of yipping, and they’ll run off to investigate—only to find the source is not another dog, but a coyote, and it’s not alone; it’s hunting with a pack. “That’s the last time an owner will see his or her dog alive,” Walker said. “I don’t care how tough the breed—even a Rottweiler can’t defend itself against an entire pack of coyotes.”
Those house cats that you might think are so gentle revert to their wild animal state when they go on Cowles Mountain, Walker says.
“Once a cat is outside, even if it has been neutered, it will go feral,” says Walker. “They hunt exactly the same as a mountain lion. The only difference is the size and weight, but they hunt the same. A cat can get into a burrow, can devastate anything down in a burrow. They can also hunt on the surface, and eat any animals smaller than them. They get up into the trees and take care of all the birds nesting up there – eggs, babies, whatever. They will even go into Kumeyaay Lake and Lake Murray (which are also located within Mission Trails Regional Park). People will say, ‘oh, no, ranger, cats don’t like water; it can’t be so.' But if they are hungry enough, they’ll go in. And that is one of our primary concerns.”
Cowles Mountain has one major defense against the cats: the coyotes which roam freely in the elevated wilderness above the neighborhoods of eastern San Diego and the City of Santee. As far as the coyotes are concerned, house cats make some mighty nice eating. Sometimes the coyotes will go looking for cat meals in the neighborhoods instead of waiting for the cats to come to them.
So, Walker stresses again and again to pet owners, if you’ve have a pet in the Mission Trails Regional Park, keep it on a leash. And if you have a house cat, keep them inside at night.
The chief ranger says that the 1,591-foot-high Cowles Mountain is the most popular hiking trail in all of Southern California. He can’t really prove that, he admits, but a fellow ranger telephoned to other popular spots to see how many would claim between 1,000 and 2,000 hikers on weekend days, as is fairly routine on Cowles Mountain. None of the other venues came close, he said.
There are times when one can watch from the base of the mountain and see a long, multicolored caterpillar line of people descending the mountain. On the December weekday that I accompanied Walker on a jeep patrol, we easily passed about 200 people, most of whom greeted the ranger with a friendly wave.
Cowles Mountain was named for George A. Cowles (pronounced Coals). According to a biographical sketch prepared for the park by Bill White, Cowles was a former president of the New York Cotton Exchange who moved out to San Diego for his health in the 1870s and purchased 4,000 acres of land, comprising two ranches on which he earned a reputation as the “Raisin King of the U.S.”
Cowles left an estate of nearly $500,000, an amount that might be the equivalent of 30 times as much today. The very eligible widow was courted by Milton Santee, who after their marriage in 1890 helped to develop some of Jennie’s land holdings, including what today is the nearby City of Santee.
Notwithstanding Cowles’ and Santee’s legal titles to the mountain, San Diegans during the 20th century got used to calling it by another name: “S” Mountain, after the large luminous initial that students at nearby San Diego State used to paint on its western side. Painting was something of a night-time ritual for students whenever the large initial faded. But after Cowles Mountain became designated park land in the 1980s, the half century old ritual was banned and the ‘S’ has all but faded from the mountainside—if not from memory.
Walker believes the “S” Mountain jaunts helped popularize Cowles Mountain hiking. He suggested that other reasons for the mountain’s popularity is its urban location, and the fact that after a walk of a mile and a half one can reach a summit viewpoint that affords a 360 degree panorama of not only San Diego County but neighboring Baja California, Mexico.
There are two display boards that help hikers identify the landmarks spread out before them in left to right order, with some of the landmarks being quite close to Cowles Mountain and others being many miles away.
Whether one looks to the east or the west, a binational panorama awaits.
Looking east, one sees Mt. Woodson (2,894 feet); San Jacinto Mountain (snowcapped at 10,834 feet); Palomar Mountain (6,140 feet); Santee Lakes; El Cajon Mountain (3,675 feet); El Capitan; Cuyamaca Peak (6,512 feet); Gillespie Field; Viejas Mountain (4,187 feet); Grossmont College; Laguna Mountains; Los Piños Mountain (4,805 feet); McGinty Mountain (2,183 feet); Lyons Peak (3,738 feet); Tecate Peak (3,885 feet); Mount Helix (1,373 feet; San Ysidro Mountains and Otay Mountain (3,572 feet); San Miguel Mountain (2,565 feet) and all the way to the right on the panel Mesa Redonda ( Round table).
To the west, the view is more spectacular. At the left the ridgeline is Tijuana, Mexico; moving your eyes to the right you’ll see in order, Lake Murray, Los Coronados Islands (Mexico); Silver Stand, downtown San Diego, Cabrillo National Monument, Point Loma, Balboa Park, Naval Air Station North Island, San Diego Lindbergh International Field, Mission Valley, Qualcomm Stadium, Sea World, Mission Bay, San Diego River, Montgomery Field (a small airport), San Clemente Island; Mount Soledad (822 feet), Pacific Ocean, Mission Trails Regional Park Interpretive Center, Mission Gorge, Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, South Fortuna Mountain, Kway Paay Peak, North Fortuna Mountain (1,292 feet); Black Mountain (1,563 feet) and the San Bernardino Mountains.
However popular these two signs identifying the landmarks are, neither of them can compare in magnetism to a simple plaque at the summit which states that Cowles Mountain is the “dominant feature of Mission Trails Regional Park” as well as the highest point in the City of San Diego and a part of the Rancho Mission San Diego land grant. The peak named for the San Diego pioneer was purchased by the City of San Diego and the County of San Diego in 1974 and made into a park in 1984.
When people finally trudge up to the summit sign, it is almost mandatory for them to touch it – almost as if the walk hasn’t been finished until this symbolic act has been accomplished.
After performing this ritual Martin Mesvig, a former San Diego County resident who now lives in Miami, Florida, and Patricia Varriga of Mexico City, said they had made the hike three times in the last week. It took them just 31 minutes from the parking lot at the staging area to the summit. It’s good practice for Chapultepec Park in her city, Varriga agreed with a laugh.
The mile and a half trail from Navajo Road and Golfcrest Drive is the most popular climb to the top, even though it is the steepest and potentially the most dangerous of the various routes from the mountain's circumference.
“The percentage of the grade on this trail is way too high,” said Walker, “but San Diegans nevertheless love it. Every two years, it will cost us something like $190,000 to $200,000 to repair the trail. There are just too many switchbacks, and the grade in some cases is up to 23 or 24 percent, when it should be no more than 11-12 percent.”
The steepness of the grade almost guarantees erosion whenever it rains. “It’s not the quantity of water that matters, it’s the velocity,” explains Walker. As the water churns down the steep grades, it cuts V-like depressions into the paths, while taking sand, rock and gravel on its course down the mountain. This loose rock is easy to slip on, and the steep grades can cause a tumble to become a serious fall.
There are numerous twisted ankles and other injuries over the course of a year on these paths. Rescues by helicopter are common for people who can no longer negotiate the pathway.
A proposal to reconfigure the path so that it follows the natural contours of Cowles Mountain, keeping grades to the 11-12 percent range, has been making its way through the financially strapped City of San Diego bureaucracy. If the path were created, instead of a 1.5 mile walk, it probably would become anywhere from twice to four times as long, Walker said.
Anything done on Cowles Mountain is bound to cause controversy, whether it is substituting a safer path for a steep one, or even having four-wheel drive vehicle patrols.
Walker says while most hikers are glad to see him and his vehicle—especially because parts of the trail system can seem very remote from civilization—other hikers have argued that vehicles have no place up on the mountain because they stir up dust and could cause injury to an unsuspecting hiker.
The chief ranger, who drives slowly and carefully, says he believes the benefits outweigh these potential risks.
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