San Diego Mountains Fall Color

California Native Plants, Fall Foliage, Hiking, Plants, Wildflowers

Long before the 2003 and 2007 fires in San Diego, Scott and I embarked on a November hike to the summit of Iron Mountain in Cuyamaca State Park. I was struck by the fact that, from the mountain’s peak, there was no visible sign of human presence. At that time, before wildfires destroyed much of the century-old mixed pine and oak forest, the landscape was dominated by trees. What also amazed me was the sight of oak trees glowing golden and yellow in the November sunlight. I had never associated San Diego with significant native fall color, yet here it was in all its splendor.

Fast forward nearly 20 years. I largely avoided hiking or mountain biking in the local mountains, as the absence of trees was disheartening. However, two decades later, the tree canopy has begun to recover. Many of the oaks either survived the fire or have regenerated new growth from their roots. Additionally, new oaks are starting to grow large.

In 2023, we visited the Eastern Sierras to see the golden Aspens turn yellow

With no out of town travel plans this year to see fall color, I thought it would be fun to see what we could find in our local mountains. Like many places, we haven’t had much cool weather, but we still found some fall color when the trees and sun angle was just right.

Jim showing off his mobility of his left arm 5 weeks after reverse left shoulder replacement surgery.
Iron Mountain in the background, Black oak on the right and live oak on the left.

The oak in our mountains that is responsible for most of the fall color is the black oak, Quercus kelloggii. It has very wide distribution in California in the Sierras, coastal ranges and into the mountain of Southern California.

*Quercus kelloggii* range map from CalFlora

Oaks mixed with pine trees on the lower slopes of Cuyamaca Peak. Burned out stumps from the forest still visible higher up the mountain.

Since I’m still recovering from shoulder surgery we did a short hike on the relatively level and rock free Cold Stream Trail

Many *Quercus kelloggii* still had green leaves. They need to be backlit to show their golden color.

Backlit slopes dotted with live and black oaks.

A wonderful surprise were these snowberries, *Symphoricarpos albus* growing in along the dry stream

Just a couple of rabbit bushes in this area

New to me were these tiny blue flowers of *Eriastrum sapphirinum,* Saffire woolystar

Mountain Mahagony

But the real shop stopper were the seed pods of the Mountain Mahogany, Cercocarpus betuloidess. A member of the rose family, there are Cercocarpus throughout much of the mountains of the southwest into Mexico. The feathery curled seed pods refract sunlight when backlit. From a distance they are appear as white flowered plants or bands of white on mountain slopes.