Lake Poway (#29)

August 9, 2010- Lake Poway is the trail of the day. Poway, the self titled "Center of the Country," is not a place that I frequent often. In fact, I'm honestly not aware of a time in my 34 years here in San Diego that I've had a reason to come here to Poway. It's not that I'm the kind who doesn't get out much, mind you. I just don't "go" to Poway. But now I do! The first thing I can say about my Poway experience is that my first encounter with a local was awesome! When I arrived at the Poway Lake parking lot with a kid (of the college variety) and newly appointed "trail dog" (formerly "house" pet), Sandy, I was bummed to discover that I had come unprepared. No leash darnit! Hoping to borrow a piece of rope I went into the ranger station and explained to the Park Ranger, Annie was her name, my plight. She did much better than rope. She marched me out to her vehicle and pulled from her trunk a state of the art dog leash (the thing seemed to have shock absorbers) and said, "Here, you can borrow this!" How cool was that!? Thank you Ranger Annie! So hitting the trail, accompanied by the kid, the more than adequately tethered trail dog and Wilson the walkin' stick, the lake quickly came into sight. While it's not real big, it is very pretty. In fact, all of the views along the entire trail were great. A couple spots on the trail had enough incline/decline to get the heart and lungs pumping. Here the kid and the trail dog tromp along with the backside of the dam behind them. We turned off the trail loop heading north toward these trees to see what we'd find. It turned out to be a cool little "wilderness campground," no longer open for camping because of the recent history of wildfires. Wilson was enjoying the shade here cause it was a fairly warm day. Back to the trail! I'll let the pictures do the talking for a bit. The view from the south end of the lake. The lake has a good little boat dock complete with ducks and young people to feed them. When, at the end of our 3+ mile meander around the lake, I went to return the dog leash to Ranger Annie, she was very interested to share all kinds of information and maps of the many trails in Poway and surrounding areas. She was most certainly the right person for that job! Definitely, another GREAT hike! MAP