Mission Trails Regional Park is a open space preserve within the city of

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the eighth most populous city in the United State ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

, established in 1974. It is the sixth-largest municipally owned park in the United States, and the largest in California.

Description

The park consists mostly of rugged canyons and hills, with both natural and developed recreation areas, including beautiful flowers. It is the seventh-largest open space urban park in the United States, consisting of nearly . The highest point is Cowles Mountain, which is also the highest point in the city of San Diego. The

San Diego River The San Diego River is a river in San Diego County, California. It originates in the Cuyamaca Mountains northwest of the town of Julian, then flows to the southwest until it reaches the El Capitan Reservoir, the largest reservoir in the river ...

flows through the park. A one-way access road goes through the park, allowing hikers, bikers and pedestrians on one side and cars on the other. The park is open every day of the year. The park has 60 miles of hiking, mountain bike and equestrian trails, a rock climbing area, and the Kumeyaay Lake Campground with 46 camp sites adjacent to a small lake. There is also the Mission Trails Regional Park Visitor and Interpretive Center. It includes a number of exhibits, a library, and a 93-seat theater that includes a Blu-ray projection system with a large screen. The Visitor Center also includes an art gallery. The most popular trail of the park is the Cowles Mountain trail (pronounced Colz), which takes hundreds of people per day to the summit for a 360-degree panorama of

San Diego County San Diego County (), officially the County of San Diego, is a county in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 3,298,634, making it California's second-most populous county and the f ...

. Another popular stop is the

Old Mission Dam The Old Mission Dam is a historic water impoundment structure in Mission Trails Regional Park in San Diego, California. It was built about 1803 to impound the San Diego River to provide water for irrigation of the fields associated with the Miss ...

, which was built to supply irrigation water to farm land that supplied food for the

Mission San Diego de Alcala Mission (from Latin ''missio'' "the act of sending out") may refer to: Organised activities Religion *Christian mission, an organized effort to spread Christianity *Mission (LDS Church), an administrative area of The Church of Jesus Christ of ...

, the first of the chain of missions established by

Junípero Serra Junípero Serra y Ferrer (; ; ca, Juníper Serra i Ferrer; November 24, 1713August 28, 1784) was a Spanish Roman Catholic priest and missionary of the Franciscan Order. He is credited with establishing the Franciscan Missions in the Sierr ...

in California. Another popular destination within the park is Lake Murray, a reservoir supplying water to San Diego neighborhoods. It has a surface area of approximately 168 acres. The lake is periodically stocked with trout and bass. On December 17, 2014, West Sycamore was officially opened to the public. This increased the size of the park by just over 1,100 acres and includes 6 miles of trails. West Sycamore is located adjacent to the Scripps Ranch community and is at the very east end of Stonebridge Parkway. It is north of the main area of MTRP. Special annual events at Mission Trails include the Amateur Photo Contest which begins in March and entries are due by the middle of April. Each year the park celebrates Explore Mission Trails Day (EMTD) on the third Saturday of May. All the activities for EMTD are free and take place at the Visitor and Interpretive Center and at the Equestrian Staging Area.

Natural history

The park is in the California chaparral and woodlands

ecoregion An ecoregion (ecological region) or ecozone (ecological zone) is an ecologically and geographically defined area that is smaller than a bioregion, which in turn is smaller than a biogeographic realm. Ecoregions cover relatively large areas of ...

. It has coastal sage and chaparral and

riparian A riparian zone or riparian area is the interface between land and a river or stream. Riparian is also the proper nomenclature for one of the terrestrial biomes of the Earth. Plant habitats and communities along the river margins and banks a ...

habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

s and

plant communities A plant community is a collection or association of plant species within a designated geographical unit, which forms a relatively uniform patch, distinguishable from neighboring patches of different vegetation types. The components of each plant ...

of California native plants.

2003 Cedar Fire

A significant portion of the park was burned by the

Cedar Fire The Cedar Fire was a massive, highly-destructive wildfire, which burned of land in San Diego County, California, San Diego County, California, during October and November 2003. The fire's rapid growth was driven by the Santa Ana wind, causing ...

in 2003. As is typical of a chaparral ecology, within a few years the park had recovered and exhibited little evidence of recent fire damage.

References

Sources

* ''San Diego's Mission Trails Regional Park : Official Guidebook'', by Pamela Crooks, 2003,

External links

{{Commons cat, Mission Trails Regional Park
City of San Diego: Mission Trails Regional Park website
Parks in San Diego Nature reserves in California Regional parks in California San Diego River