Epic Travel → North America → The West Coast → Southern California → San Diego Area → East County → Oasis Spring

Location: Laguna Mountains, Cleveland National Forest, east of San Diego

Distance: 2.0 miles roundtrip

Elevation Ascent/Descent: 300 feet/300 feet

Time Required: ~1 hour

Red Tape/Notes: National Forest Adventure Pass required. This hike his covered in Jerry Schad’s book 101 Hikes in Southern California, but he also published it nearly word for word in the San Diego Reader Online, here. The trail starts at mile 26.7 on the Sunrise Highway, at a gate dirt road heading off to the east.

What’s Nearby?: Kitchen Creek, Indian Creek-Pacific Coast Trail Loop, Garnet Peak

We like hikes with historic interest, and Oasis Spring is a largely forgotten site, which used to provide water for camps and cabins in Mount Laguna. Most of the trail is along an old dirt road and is an easy stroll through a recovering chaparral zone. The road eventually opens out with sweeping views of the canyon below before ending abruptly. A footpath continues on through the brush, rather steeply in sections, until it emerges at a spring and pump house, picturesquely situated high on the canyon walls overlooking the valley below.

Epic Travel → North America → The West Coast → Southern California → San Diego Area → East County → Oasis Spring