Lake Poway Trail

For a while now I have been wanting to do a little something about the trail around Lake Poway. It seems that I start or stop some of my hikes from there, so to let others know about this gem, here goes.

I got up early on January 1st 2009 to hike around the lake and take some pictures.



Lake Poway is located at the eastern end of Lake Poway Rd off Espola Rd in Poway CA.

The lake is normally open from sunrise to sunset and there is a small entrance fee for non-residents of Poway. It is hit and miss if they are collecting the fee or not.

There is plenty of grass, picnic tables and play areas to keep everybody happy. They have a snack bar and fishing boats for rent if that is what you want to do.

I started my hike at the snack bar and went south on the trail around the lake. The trails are well maintained, but sometimes closed just after heavy rains to clean them back up again.



After you leave the snack bar and walk to the south end of the lake the trail starts to climb and soon you reach the highest point on the trail.



There are portable toilets around for about the first half of the hike around the lake.

At about the 1/3 point is the turn off that leads to Mt.Woodson, Warren Canyon, and Fry-Koegel trails.





When you get to the dam end, the trail heads down a series of switchbacks that eventually puts you at the base of the dam. There is another trail that meets the Lake Poway trail at about the 2/3 mark. It leads down to a campground and connects to the Blue Sky, and Ramona Dam trails.



Here is a view of Ramona Dam at the end of Blue Sky Eclogical Perserve.



Once you get to the top of the dam, the trail splits off to the north. This section of the trail isn't used much but it adds a little mileage and brings you to a good view point at the top of a hill a little off the trail.



The trail merges back with the original trail and taking the left fork will lead back to the parking lot.

Total mileage for this trip is about 3.2 miles.

ENJOY!!

Lake Poway Recreation Area at EveryTrail

Map created by EveryTrail:GPS Geotagging