El Cajon Peak for the Third Time
Today's peak bagging shit! A group made me their groupie stick. I told them I wanted a selfie of my back so the female in the group graciously shot me from behind.
"Why are you subjecting yourself to so much difficulty?" RN asks me all the time when it comes to my hiking.
I met Chad again on a hike to Suicide Rock at Idyllwild six months after and I would have melted from shame for being remembered as the one who turned around had I not bagged El Cajon by then. I am reminded of the big screen every time I hike: "Go big or go home."
There I was sitting at the fence of El Capitan Open Space Preserve waiting for RN to pick me up in the Fall of 2012. Short of breath, I just told another hiker to let Chad, the meetup organiser know that I was quitting. RN and I later drove to Barona Casino which is less than a mile from the parking lot for breakfast. I never returned to the casino after partaking in the losers breakfast offering and coming face to face with the pot bellied laughing Buddha promising good fortune especially if one rubs it big round belly. But I vowed, eversince that shameful day at the parking lot of El Capitan Open Space Preserve to bag "the box" by all means.
I met Chad again on a hike to Suicide Rock at Idyllwild six months after and I would have melted from shame for being remembered as the one who turned around had I not bagged El Cajon by then. I am reminded of the big screen every time I hike: "Go big or go home."
El Capitan doesn't sound synonymous to El Cajon. When I hear El Capitan, I am reminded of Juan de Anza Borrego, the explorer referred to as El Capitan which I think the El Capitan in Yosemite Is named after. San Diego's El Capitan which is the El Cajon Peak may be the lesser El Capitan in California but to me, it is the most fucking difficult hike in the county.
At 3,675 feet above sea level elevation, it is not an exaggeration that the 56th highest peak in the San Diego county has an elevation gain of 4,000 feet and one of the most difficult. Having bagged the peak for the 3rd time, I'd still say dying on the cross would have been easier.
This glorious holy shit revisited El Cajon Peak with usual fucking Japanese snail mode the second year in a row. Gaining and losing elevation alone on the trail, I thought of the mountain lion sighted in the area. I don't use hiking poles so I could not make myself feel taller than a mountain lion and shoo him away if he appears. I decided that if ever encounter the mountain lion while hiking alone, I would plead to the big cat to spare me because I will be adopting him. I will bring him better quality of meats every week. He would not enjoy any old human meat, anyway. I will also give him a name: Goeff Yousef!
Why am I subjecting myself to so much difficulty? Blogging rights, of course! What else could I brag about at Facebook? 
Yellow mariposa lillies are more exquisite than California's state flower. 
I never saw them elsewhere but I recognized them from the Santa Rosa Plateau windflowers brochure where I also came to know about blue dicks, white globe lillies, chocolate lillies and lupines. The yellow mariposas must be endemic to the area. 
Amid whatchamacallit flowers which may be red California monkeys, I am in my Japanese snail mode overlooking the Barona Casino in front of Mount Gower. I wondered whether the real El Capitan was a Kumeyaay chieftain who made settlers believe they were buying the "big box" valley with a pouchful of beads. The Barona Casino is operated by Native American tribes who stupid gringos still call "Indians".
The Mile 3.5 marker is like past the washout area where no post could stand but where wildflowers bloom. 
The lilac bushes reminds me of Bobit's flower fragrant lilac tree in Canada. 
Stacy's wooly blue curls. I wish the hike was a nature walk with the San Diego Canyoneers instead. It would have been easy.
And there's the rusty jeep! I have always been glad seeing the old beat up and battered abandoned jeep. The jeep is the only artifact marker in the entire trail. It is about a hundred feet or meters to the mile 5 marker. How it got all the way? The fucking swine flew!
I think these wildflowers are called "chia". The plant seems to get the best of the earth's bounty from the wash out.
The bush poppy flowers planted by the Lord and nurtured by Mother Nature himself were breathtaking. I was short of breath the whole time because of the elevation gain.
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