Sycamore Canyon

Sycamore Canyon is just a bunch of fun.  It is by no means a difficult ride.  The north end of the canyon has the highest elevation so any trail heading south is mostly a gradual downhill.  The northeast corner of the canyon is known as Martha's Grove and it has a really nice rolling single track running right through the middle of it.  The valley runs north and south and so do most of the trails.  Sooner or later all the trails run together so it is hard to get lost in the canyon.   There is a more advanced trail known as the Crestline or East Ridge trail depending on who you are talking to.  There is also an area just north of the canyon known as "Tip-Top"  which adds some bonus mileage and elevation.

This page need to be updated - Particularly if you are going to access this area from the south. MCAS now patrols the the area on the Stowe trail that crosses onto the base. Please refer to the San Diego Mountain Biking Association's website until I update this page.

Topographical Map of the Canyon

Download the TOPO! File

Directions:  There are three main parking options.  The man trailhead is located at the north end of the canyon and medina is located at the south end.   I have not used the HWY 67 option yet. 

Hazards: This place could get really hot in the summertime.  

Ride Report from FEB 6th 2002:  This was an afternoon hooky ride from the office.  We blazed out of the office at lunchtime and headed for the trailhead at the north end of the canyon.  It was exceptionally warm for a February day even by San Diego standards.  From the parking we took a single track off to left of the parking lot as look down fire road that goes down into the canyon.  The single track at this point was mostly scrub.   This single track eventually took us down to an area called Martha's Grove.

Views from the single track that goes from the trailhead down to Martha's Grove

This is the area known as Martha's Grove.  It was nice and shady here.  There was a trail that headed west as well as one that headed south.  We took took the trail that headed south.

After cruising down the some more single track we were dumped out onto a fire road.  From here we went left and climbed a hill.  The fire road end a T-intersection just past the top of the hill.  We went left (North) from there and continued climbing on a fire road.   The climb provided some pretty nice views of the canyon below.  After climbing the fire road, Mike (who had not ridden here in some years) discovered that some of the "honey" trails were now gone due to development so we decided to some trail exploration to the west.  (We were not northeast of the trailhead.)

    After some "trail and error" we ended up back at the trailhead.  From there we took the main fire road down into the canyon and cruised down past the ranch house.  We eventually went around a fence and continued south for a few miles before we turned around.   On the way back we went along some single track that runs along the bottom of the west ridge.  

To the left is Mike Roach working a climb along the west ridge in February 2002. To the right is Michael Paul and Keith Ross working up the same climb in December 2004.

Here is a panoramic shot near the south end of the canyon

    Eventually the single track dumped us back on the main fire road north of the ranch house.  It was getting close to quitting time back at the office so we took the main fire road back to the trailhead were a nice brewsky was waiting for us.   My kinda day of work!

Video

Here is the video of some fun riding out in Sycamore Canyon on May 4th 2002

20MB

2003 Firestorm Pictures

These pictures where taken by "MTBCHIP" on October 31st

Here is a link to a bunch of fire damage pictures on the Goodan Ranch Website.

2004 Update

           
Some views from the upper trailhead

December 2004 - The canyon is recovering well from the 2003 fires with plenty of green grass covering the ground.  You will certainly have plenty of views now as most of the trees are gone.   

The Martha's Grove trail now show some exposure that I really had not appreciated before.  There has been some extensive work on the trail to control erosion but it sanitized much of the trail.

Here is some of the "moonscape" that you will see on Martha's Grove now (589kb file)

Tip Top

Tip Top is a "bonus" section we typically do in conjunction with Sycamore Canyon.  Once we get to the north end of the canyon at the top of Martha's Grove we leave the park on the paved road and hang a right on a dirt road maybe 150 yards of the road.  About 2/10ths of mile up the dirt road you come to a gate.  Go across the horse crossing and continue up hill as the dirt road is now in the "fire road" category now.   At the first intersection, hang a left and continue uphill. You next turn will be a Y junction.  Go to the right (you will be coming down from the left on your way back).  From here we take the old fireroad uphill where it will dwindle down to a single track.  You will eventually come up to a ridge top where you come to a T-junction with another singletrack.  There is plenty of exploring to do up here, but we typically hang a right and follow the single track for a ways and then catch the first singletrack to the left and work our way back down the ridge.  I'll try to get some better direction up once I do some more exploring in that area.

Here are some pictures taken on Tip Top on December 12, 2004

Here is a pan shot from Tip Top looking back at Sycamore

A few more shots from the Tip Top area on Christmas Eve
       

Spring 2005

The huge amounts of rain that Southern California has received during the winter of 2004 and 2005 has helped to speed up the rebirth of this place.  These pictures do a very poor job of capturing the pure beauty of this place in this magically time of the year. 

It is amazing to see what the power of flowing water can do to reshape the trails in such a relatively short amount of time

I'll shut up now and let you take a look for yourself