San Diego County is actually very many different kinds of places. It must be seen from a variety of vantage points to be truly appreciated, so lace up you hiking boots (or scroll through this page to get a general overview).

"We left the overpopulated highways of the coast. We climbed, first through citrus groves, then through range land, then up valleys rich in live oaks. We came out among the ponderosa pines of the high country. Beyond we descended into a different world. Less than 100 miles from the ocean, we dropped behind the wall of the coastal range, down the dry side of the mountains. The desert spread away before us. ...[The desert] makes no concessions. You approach it on its own terms. It possesses a kind of reticence that only long acquaintance overcomes." - Edwin Way Teale, writing of San Diego County in Wandering Through Winter

above: One of the small islands in Mexican waters just southwest of San Diego. This view from the hill at the back of our property. (No, this is not my house, it's a home across the canyon. Nice view though!)

California is said to be representative of the entire West because examples of all of the west's features are to be found here. For the same reason, San Diego County is representative of California. The area is not easily characterized -- apart from stating that it is generally dry (something which might also be said of the West generally). When most (visitors and residents alike) think of this area, they think of metropolitan San Diego, it's beaches, bays, marinas, freeways, military bases, waterfront restaurants, burgeoning urbania. There is much more. The county is larger than the combined area of the US states of Rhode Island and Delaware. The area contains exceptional geological and ecological variety. More species of plants are native here than in any area of comparable size in the United States. More species of birds are found here than in any area of comparable size in the nation. *(Note that I reference total number of species, not total number of individuals, an important distinction).

above: Beyond a 6533 foot summit, cumulonimbus broils over the desert. Jeffrey pines in snow. Smoke tree in a desert wash.

Ecology and geography: Coastal bluffs and beaches, lagoons and salt marshes, riparian canyons and dry sage-scrub hills, chaparral and elfin forest, conifer and oak clad mountains, flowering deserts of ocotillo, creosote bush, brittlebush, cacti and smoke trees... all in my big 'backyard'. Sea level on the west (Pacific Ocean) and east (Salton Sea) bisected by the Peninsular Ranges, with many summits of a mile or greater height (to more than 6500 feet, or about 2 kilometers)...
History: California's first county (initially, the entire southeastern third of the state) -- the first area "discovered" and settled by Europeans on the west coast of what is now the US; here pirating British naval ships once stalked Spanish galleons returning from the Philippines ...

Perhaps all of this is of little or no interest to the average San Diegan, who thinks that both history and wildness are found somewhere else, and would rather watch television than think about such things. Yet, for thousands of years before material civilization inflicted it's 'progress' on this land, it was the home of sea otters and grizzly bears and California condors and jaguars. They, the pronghorn antelope and the southern steelhead (that used to spawn in San Mateo Creek), have been extirpated over the past two-hundred years -- but for the student of nature there remains some of the rarest plants on Earth, perhaps some of the oldest living plants (Larrea tridentata), a few cougars and a few peninsular bighorn sheep, a few kit foxes, and a few bald eagles each winter. Off-shore, in very small numbers -- the largest animal that ever lived -- the reclusive blue whale is sometimes seen. In much greater numbers during seasonal migration, gray whales are easily observed.

above, left to right: poison oak, wild rose, barrel cactus. below: Cuyamaca Mountains.

Within the county's diverse plant communities are a dozen species of oak and more than a dozen species of conifer, most of which are pines. The most common pine of the mountain woodlands is the Jeffrey (Pinus jeffreyi), which produces nuts of excellent texture and flavor. On warm September and October days the winged seeds flutter down from the open cones, providing the appreciative hiker with a hearty snack. The county's native trees (which I would guess number between 50 and 70 species) are found mostly in the mountains and in threatened riparian areas which were far more extensive in the days before European settlement and the human alteration of the watersheds.
Some of the county's back country is well known: Mount Palomar is home to a small state park and to national forest lands (but is most famous for it's massive Hale telescope); Anza-Borrego Desert State Park is, essentially, the eastern third of the county. Anza-Borrego is the second largest state park in the nation (the largest outside of Alaska). Edwin Way Teale wrote of it's strange land forms and fascinating vegetation in the opening chapters of Wandering Through Winter. A popular retreat for San Diego urbanites is Cuyamaca Rancho State Park with it's myriad trails, campgrounds, abandoned gold mine, giant sugar pines and (relatively) abundant wildlife. The Laguna Mountain Recreation Area, including the SDSU observatory, is part of Cleveland National Forest, which is scattered across the center third of the county. Also among the national forest lands are some (relatively) rarely visited wilderness areas including the San Mateo Canyon and Agua Tibia Wildernesses.

above: an abandoned fire lookout on Hot Springs Mountain; sycamore, poplar, and oak in riparian canyon. below: common dolphin are often seen in great numbers... a raccoon that raided our camp in the Lagunas.

San Diego is known for its bays and beaches, which must have been quite wonderful in less peopled times, these days they tend to be congested and polluted. However, on a quiet weekday, if one spends a couple of hours kayaking here, he will enjoy a relaxed intimacy with the water, and with loons, grebes, coots, gulls, cormorants, pelicans, and the occasional harbor seal.
Here, and throughout western North America, our natural history is less distant than in areas where man has dominated and degraded nature's riches for long centuries. But don't pack-up and move to San Diego, you may be surprised to discover the natural, historic, and biotic wealth of your own 'back yard.'

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_ Gray whales visit San Diego's waters in great numbers each winter. Click on the image above to see more images of the fauna of this and other areas.	_	_ Western black oak on Mt Palomar. For information on the flora of San Diego County, and some trail information as well, click on the image above.