Evil Mt. Woodson

Yesterday, Alma and myself decided that we were going to tick off one of the items on the San Diego bucket list.  It was time to conquer Mt. Woodson.  It didn't matter that it was nearly 30 degrees - we were like totally pumped people.

So off we headed, laden with camera, food and water (the bare essentials) to kick the living crap out of THE MOUNTAIN; a seemingly harmless trail 2.9miles in length that offers a view of the spectacular "potato chip" and a bonus crock of gold at the end of the rainbow.

What they don't tell you of course, is that you've to walk about a mile to get to the 2.9mile trail and that the 2.9mile trail is actually the road to hell.  We were about half way when Alma in all her innocence casually asked someone who was on the descent if we were almost there.  The guy - almost embarrassed to answer - was forced to tell her that we were about half way (why couldn't he just have lied !).  Half freaking way !!! calf muscles burning, sweat dripping and almost two thirds of the way through our water supply.  Still though - the views were nice ... plenty of rocks and that kind of stuff ... yeah man !

Rocks, through trees.

A large rock.

Oh oh  - a view through some rocks.

As if that wasn't motivational enough we then encountered some young fellas on their way down wearing oxygen intake limiting masks - cos it's not like it's already difficult enough, and then there was this other psycho lady who walked up; ran down (only half way mind you) before walking back up and running the whole way back down ... and I don't think it was because she left something behind the first time she was up there neither !!!

So after about - I don't know anymore - 2 hours or so we reached the location of the world renowned "potato chip" and boy did we feel just great.  It had all been worth it ! (sarcasm to the extreme for those of you not familiar with the concept).  There was a massive queue of people waiting to climb out on to it so that they could pull some crazy pose and have their picture taken.  We decided that it probably wasn't wise to descend El Mt. Woodson in the dark so we turned around and started skipping back to the start.

Alzers at the top - ok, so it's not the potato chip but it's just across from it - honest !

The world famous "potato chip" - and no it's not photoshop'd.  This is why people put themselves through the grueling pain.

 

Some other poor fools who decided to climb Mt. Woodson that day.  "I know - aren't these socks just ridiculous, tee hee".  "Ah crap - it's going to take us forever to get back down there again, isn't it?".