This hike deserves immediate posting to remember the pain it caused our bodies. 🤣 Though there’s a shorter route to hike Mt. Gower, we gave the longer version a try since it would only be a once in a lifetime (probably) hike. Why? Because there’s still so much to hike in Southern California. So we’d rather hike other trails than repeating a hard hike. A difficult hike for me is something that has not much shade that you have to bring lots of water to hydrate or you’ll be like a melted candy🍬.
Here, Laurence stands over some big granite boulders with backdrop of mountains we’ve already conquered hiking namely Iron Mountain, Mount Woodson and Palomar Mountain.
Along the trail you’ll see some interesting rock formations as this one below. We called it “The Fangs” of Mt. Gower. The next photo shows the base of the next challenge to reach the summit of Mt. Gower. The challenge was to look for the actual trail and how to get there without scratches.
Above picture shows the base of the two summits. What’s next? Scramble up the steep mountainside to reach the summit. Three teenagers went there fast and the two decided to sleep to recover.
That’s the middle summit people! I’m here at the real summit. Good job husband for taking a little “quiet time”.
Pictures don’t do justice as to how high we’ve gone up. If you just know how our hearts were exercised that day.
At the summit where we had our lunch were different species of 🦋 butterflies mingling happily. It’s so nice to be there and experience the breeze and seeing that extraordinary view of San Diego County. 
My Garmin watch was accidentally stopped when we’re more than 3 miles going up. So our hike was in between 8.4-9 miles @ 70s F weather. Going back was harder than we thought because we underestimated the need for water. We should have doubled our tank. The sun was up and draining us. That’s when we realized that this hike is not really moderate as what we perceived it to be.
Hiking list: Mt. Gower ✅
More hikes to conquer!
