Training Hike #6: Iron Mountain, Feb. 12, 2011

For this hike we got a late start, but we were determined to do the whole 13 miles.  I wore the Merrell walking shoes thinking they would be easier on my feet.  As it turned out, they were, but not so good for my knees.  I really need to get some good hiking shoes!

We started at the Iron Mountain Parking lot at the intersection of Poway Rd. and Hwy. 67.  We hiked to the junction with the Ellie Lane Trail 1.75 miles up, then we headed north on the Ellie Lane Trail. 

View from first saddle of Ellie Lane Trail when
approaching from Iron Mtn Trail

The trail passes a turn off to the right for the Ramoma Overlook trail.  This will be a possible extension to our next hike. 

We continued up to the first saddle.  From here there are beautiful views to the east and west.  Then the trail starts down.  There are three routes to take from here.  There is a fork a short ways down where you can go right and cross over to the next small mountain and traverse around the west side, or you can take the fork to the left and continue down the north side of the hill and end up in the bottom of the canyon where the small grove of trees is.  We had cut across and taken the highest route along the mountain side the last time and had come up through the grove of trees on the way back so we decided to take the right trail but stay on the lower path this time.



View from second saddle

It was a great trail.  Not too rocky and very pretty.  It is my favorite route now.  It ends up in the same place as the higher trail.  Where the two trails meet you can either go up to table rock from there, or take a lower route that passes below Table Rock.  We decided to take the lower route.   This too was a really interesting trail.  We eventually ended up at the next saddle by Table Rock.


We then headed down to Ellie Lane which is about a mile from Table Rock.  We went all the way down to the parking lot this time.  The trail passes some homes and a really pretty field with cows, horses, sheep, squirrels, rabbits, etc. 











Ellie Lane Staging Area.

Then we retraced our steps back up to Table Rock where we ate lunch at the picnic table that is hidden under the one big tree up there.



View from top of Iron Mtn.

 We continued back on the same trail we came on.  The middle trail is really nice coming back too.








When we got back to the Iron Mountain trail we continued up to the top of Iron Mountain where we took a short break, then back down and making it back to our car just as the sun set. 

My knee had started hurting about halfway through this hike.  I eventually wrapped an ace bandage around it which helped a lot.    It feels better now (10 days later). 

We did the entire 13 mile hike in 6 hours and 15 minutes, so are keeping with our goal of 2 miles an hour.

The Iron Mountain/Ellie Lane trails are pretty rocky and have some very steep inclines, so it's really good practice for Mt. Whitney.  I don't think Mt Whitney is quite as steep.  Soon we will have to start doing some elevation training!