Lake Hodges - South Side

The south side of Lake Hodges is a great place to take a beginner and an intermediate ride will find some descent riding.  There is quite a bit of singletrack out here with most of it being buff.  As you head towards the dam along the lake you find some technical features although only a few spots comes close to getting to the advanced level.   You can get in a total of about 12 miles if you do all of the stuff on the map. Also see the North Lake Hodges trail description as well.  This is not a ride you make a road trip for but it is worth a look if you are in the area.

Here is the map of the area.    

Here is the TOPO that contains both the North and South sides of Lake Hodges trail data.

 

Directions:  From San Diego, take I-15 North towards Escondido, exit Pomarado Rd/West Rancho Bernardo Road. Take West Rancho Bernardo Road west. Travel for may 3/10ths of a mile until you see a dirt trail head parking lot on the right across from a retirement home.   You can also go further up the road to the first stop light about 1/10th of a mile further and hang right.  Parking in the parking lot by the tennis courts. 

Ride information: (Points referred to in the description are shown on the map.)

This trail was burned in the 2007 Wildfires so refer to that status page until this page is updated.

From either the dirt parking lot or Tennis court parking lots follow the feeder trails into the open valley area.  From here you will see the large hill at Point M and a series of trails going off in nearly all directions.  

The far east portion of the trail system is the Piedras Pintadas interpretive trail.  There are some rock paintings here and there made by the Kumeyaay Indians about 500 years ago.

 

There is only one hill on the eastern end of the trail system (Point M on the map).   Here are a couple of pictures from the of the hill at Point M

 

 

 

The top of the hill at Point M looking east at the area you came in from. (Large File 650kb)

 

There are quite a few flatland single tracks around the hill that are worth exploring.  The is a singletrack that runs along the lake back towards Rancho Bernardo Rd which is a nice trail to hit on your way back to the trailhead. To the left is picture from that single track around Point P.

 

 

Looking Northwest from the low lying singletrack between Point M and N.

 

When you have explored all the stuff on and around the hill start heading around the lake towards Point P.   The trail is very predominant and is hard to miss.  It will soon take you over a bridge and bear to the right to roughly follow along the lake.  As you near Point N the trail will turn away from the lake and head towards a set of homes.  The photo to the left is of the waterfall just before Point N.

 

Around Point N you will cross over a creek and into a rather large clearing/open area. From here just follow the trail back towards the lake (North).  Once the trail gets near the high water mark of the lake it bends to the west and follows along its edge.  The trail is narrow of enough now to fit into the respectable singletrack category.  As you work you way along this trail you will go through some scrub brush, stands of trees and open meadow grasses.   A nice bit of trail.

               

           

As you work your way towards Point O the trail gets a little technical here and there in spots and the spots occur more often the further you go.  Below are a few pictures taken near Point O.   The trail continues on beyond Point O but it see significantly less traffic, but supposedly it continues all the way around to the dam.  

       

I was pressed for time on the day I did this ride so I did not venture on much beyond this point.   When doing the North Side of Lake Hodges ride near Point H, you can see a fireroad on the south side (Actually east side if you are near the the dam) so I am going to go back at some point and try to hookup with that fireroad and catch the singletrack trail along the lake and work my way towards Point O from the other direction.    This could make for a size loop on some interesting terrain.  Basically, the south side of Lake Hodges is still on the To-Do List.