BGuthrie Photos: CA -- San Diego -- Mission Trails Regional Park

CA -- San Diego -- Mission Trails Regional Park:

Bruce Guthrie Photos Home Page: [Click here] to go to Bruce Guthrie Photos home page.

Recognize anyone? If you recognize specific folks (or other stuff) and I haven't labeled them, please identify them for the world. Click the little pencil icon

underneath the file name (just above the picture). Spammers need not apply.

Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.

Accessing as Spider: The system has identified your IP as being a spider.
IP Address: 18.191.147.190 -- Domain: Amazon Technologies
I love well-behaved spiders! They are, in fact, how most people find my site. Unfortunately, my network has a limited bandwidth and pictures take up bandwidth. Spiders ask for lots and lots of pages and chew up lots and lots of bandwidth which slows things down considerably for regular folk. To counter this, you'll see all the text on the page but the images are being suppressed. Also, some system options like merges are being blocked for you.
Note: Permission is NOT granted for spiders, robots, etc to use the site for AI-generation purposes. I'm sure you're thrilled by your ability to make revenue from my work but there's nothing in that for my human users or for me.
If you are in fact human, please email me at guthrie.bruce@gmail.com and I can check if your designation was made in error. Given your number of hits, that's unlikely but what the hell.

Help? The Medium (Email) links are for screen viewing and emailing. You'll want bigger sizes for printing. [Click here for additional help]

Share: Facebook Twitter Digg
[1] MTRAIL_110719_001.JPG	[2] MTRAIL_110719_005.JPG	[3] MTRAIL_110719_009.JPG
[4] MTRAIL_110719_016.JPG	[5] MTRAIL_110719_020.JPG	[6] MTRAIL_110719_024.JPG
[7] MTRAIL_110719_028.JPG	[8] MTRAIL_110719_033.JPG	[9] MTRAIL_110719_035.JPG
[10] MTRAIL_110719_038.JPG	[11] MTRAIL_110719_041.JPG	[12] MTRAIL_110719_044.JPG
[13] MTRAIL_110719_048.JPG	[14] MTRAIL_110719_052.JPG	[15] MTRAIL_110719_056.JPG
[16] MTRAIL_110719_058.JPG	[17] MTRAIL_110719_061.JPG	[18] MTRAIL_110719_065.JPG
[19] MTRAIL_110719_069.JPG	[20] MTRAIL_110719_073.JPG	[21] MTRAIL_110719_077.JPG
[22] MTRAIL_110719_080.JPG	[23] MTRAIL_110719_083.JPG	[24] MTRAIL_110719_086.JPG
[25] MTRAIL_110719_093.JPG	[26] MTRAIL_110719_096.JPG	[27] MTRAIL_110719_100.JPG
[28] MTRAIL_110719_108.JPG	[29] MTRAIL_110719_121.JPG	[30] MTRAIL_110719_122.JPG
[31] MTRAIL_110719_128.JPG	[32] MTRAIL_110719_132.JPG	[33] MTRAIL_110719_137.JPG
[34] MTRAIL_110719_142.JPG	[35] MTRAIL_110719_144.JPG	[36] MTRAIL_110719_148.JPG
[37] MTRAIL_110719_153.JPG	[38] MTRAIL_110719_159.JPG	[39] MTRAIL_110719_162.JPG
[40] MTRAIL_110719_175.JPG	[41] MTRAIL_110719_179.JPG	[42] MTRAIL_110719_180.JPG
[43] MTRAIL_110719_185.JPG	[44] MTRAIL_110719_191.JPG	[45] MTRAIL_110719_195.JPG
[46] MTRAIL_110719_199.JPG	[47] MTRAIL_110719_203.JPG	[48] MTRAIL_110719_207.JPG
[49] MTRAIL_110719_210.JPG	[50] MTRAIL_110719_226.JPG	[51] MTRAIL_110719_230.JPG
[52] MTRAIL_110719_234.JPG

Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. MTRAIL_110719_009.JPG: Southern Pacific Rattlesnake: Southern Pacific rattlesnakes are active year-around, especially during warm weather and on summer nights. Occasionally, they can be seen basking in the sun, but they will take shelter under rocks and bushes during the hottest hours of the day. These rattlesnakes are shy, and they prefer to retreat from danger rather than confront it. Like all animals found in the park, rattlesnakes must be treated with both caution and respect.
2. MTRAIL_110719_052.JPG: Wooden Flumes: This wooden pipe was excavated in the City of La Mesa. It supplied water to agriculture customers in San Diego County. The water originated in the mountains east of San Diego and was transported in a 36 mile long redwood flume built in 1885-86. The flume terminated near present day Grossmont Hospital.
3. MTRAIL_110719_083.JPG: The Replicated Flume: This is a modern interpretation of the historic flume that carried water from the Old Mission Dam to the Mission San Diego de Alcala, 5-1/2 miles below in Mission Valley. The gentle slope shown here approximates the Flume's angle as it descended through Mission Gorge. The slope was low enough to control the water as it snaked in and out of the steep canyons. The Flume was built by Kumeyaay Indians and designed by engineers who had been educated in what is now Mexico. The Spanish missionaries needed this project in order to have year-round water for their livestock, farms, and the inhabitants who were fathered at the Mission. The amount of water carried in this shallow flume is approximately 70 gallons a minute, equal to what an average gamily of four currently uses in about 5 hours!
4. MTRAIL_110719_153.JPG: Mission Dam and Flume After many attempts dating back to 1774 to provide a reliable source of water for crops and live- stock for Mission San Diego de Alcala, a dam and flume system was finished between 1813 and 1816 by Indian laborers and Franciscan mission- aries to divert waters of the San Diego River for a distance of 6 miles. The aqueduct system con- tinued in existence until 1831 when constant flooding caused the dam and flume to fall into disrepair. They were not repaired due to the secularization of the missions.
5. MTRAIL_110719_199.JPG: The Old Mission Dam: The dam was constructed from granite boulders and limestone mortar. Notice the gap, where in the actual dam, there was once a 12-foot wide wooden floodgate. A smaller gap on the opposite side of the dam held a wheelbox outlet, which opened directly to the flume and was used to run a water gristmill. Imagine the vital impact this water project had on the increase in crop production and the sustainability of life in this area.
6. MTRAIL_110719_207.JPG: Providing Year-Round Water: In the early 1800s, the Spanish saw the need to control the flow of water and to provide it year-round for their permanent settlements. To solve this problem, engineers trained in Mexico supervised Kumeyaay Indian laborers in building one of the first major irrigation projects in the western United States. The 250-foot long Old Mission Dam (formerly known as Padre Dam) was built 8 to 10 feet wide and nearly 12 feet high, using ropes, pulleys and hand labor. Rocks and boulders were cemented together with a mortar made of lime and crushed seashells. The reservoir created by the dam was three football fields long. A flume, lined with hand-made clay tiles, was built along the north side of the river to deliver water to the head of the Mission's crop fields (located where the Admiral Baker Gold Course is today), about three miles downstream from the dam. From the fields, a 2.5 mile clay-lined ditch carried water the remaining distance to the Mission, where it was then stored in a tank on site. To protect this unique and historic engineering achievement, the Old Mission Dam was registered as both a National Historic Site, as well as a California State Historic landmark.
7. MTRAIL_110719_230.JPG: Old Mission Dam built 1813-1816 A part of the first permanent irrigation project by padres and Indians [apparently they fixed an error here] in California . Market placed by the San Diego Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution. May 17th, 1941
8. MTRAIL_110719_234.JPG: The Lure of Water: Rivers provide a ribbon of life, stretching from the mountains to the sea. This life-giving water attracts both wild animals and humans alike. Deer drink from streams while herons stalk the shorelines and foxes pursue mice through lush streamwide vegetation. The Kumeyaay Indians thrived using the available water in this arid land. On the other hand, the inconsistent rainfall feeding the San Diego River was too unpredictable for the Spanish settlers to rely on for their crops and livestock. Can you guess how they solved this water problem?
Wikipedia Description: Mission Trails Regional Park
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mission Trails Regional Park is a 5,800 acre (23 km�) open space preserve within the city of San Diego, California, 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. It is the seventh largest open space urban park in the United States consisting of 6,150 acres. The highest point is 1,592 foot (485 m) high Cowles Mountain, which is also the highest point in the city of San Diego. The San Diego 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 over forty miles of hiking, mountain bike and equestrian trails, a rock climbing area, a campground adjacent to a small lake. There is also the modern 14,000 square foot Mission Tails Regional Park Visitor and Interpretive Center. It includes a number of exhibits, a library, a 93 seat theater that includes a Blu-ray projection system with a large screen. The Visitor Center also includes an art gallery where award winning artists display up to 55 photos and paintings. New artists display their talent every month. The most popular trail of the park is the Cowles Mountain trail, which takes hundreds of people per day to the summit for a breathtaking 360 degree panorama of San Diego County. Another popular stop is the Old Mission Dam, which was built to supply irrigation water to the Mission San Diego de Alcala, the first of the chain of missions established by Jun�pero Serra in California. Another popular destination within the park is Lake Murray, a reservoir supplying water to San Diego neighborhoods. It is also home to the Kumeyaay Campground which consists of 46 rustic campsites, and the Equestrian Staging Area(Multi-use) Staging Area.

Special annual events at Mission Trails include the Amateur Photo Contest which begins in February 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. The website for Mission Trails is www.mtrp.org. You may also sign up for the MTRP Foundation's free Newsletter on the park's webpage. You will also receive their free e-Newsletter with updates on the park's activities.

Mission Trails Regional Park is also supported by the Mission Trails Regional Park Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit coprotation. The website for Mission Trials is www.mtrp.org.

Natural history:

The park is in the California chaparral and woodlands Ecoregion. It has coastal sage and chaparral and riparian habitats and plant communities of California native plants.

2003 Cedar Fire:

A significant portion of the park was burned by the Cedar Fire in 2003. As is typical of a chaparral ecology, within a year the park had recovered and exhibited little evidence of recent fire damage.
Bigger photos? To save server space, the full-sized versions of these images have either not been loaded to the server or have been removed from the server. (Only some pages are loaded with full-sized images and those usually get removed after three months.) I still have them though. If you want me to email them to you, please send an email to guthrie.bruce@gmail.com and I can email them to you, or, depending on the number of images, just repost the page again will the full-sized images.
Connection Not Secure messages? Those warnings you get from your browser about this site not having secure connections worry some people. This means this site does not have SSL installed (the link is http:, not https:). That's bad if you're entering credit card numbers, passwords, or other personal information. But this site doesn't collect any personal information so SSL is not necessary. Life's good!
Photo Contact: [Email Bruce Guthrie].