Afoot & Afield: San Diego County
282 Spectacular Outings Along the Coast, Foothills, Mountains, and Desert
Your essential trail guide to San Diego County
Since 1986, Jerry Schad's Afoot & Afield: San Diego County has been the premier trail guide for hikers, backpackers, and mountain bikers. In fact, the Los Angeles Times called it the "bible of San Diego hiking." This fifth edition features 282 trips, ranging from short, self-guided nature trails to challenging peak climbs and canyon treks. Coauthor Scott Turner has fully updated this edition, which includes new maps and more than 30 new hikes.
The book encompasses almost all public—and a few private—lands within San Diego County, including Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, Cleveland National Forest, the Cuyamaca Mountains, and numerous county and city parks. It describes routes ranging from brief, family-friendly hikes to multiple-day overnight trips in remote regions of the backcountry, providing equal weight to the scenic and recreational value of each trip. For every route, you'll find at-a-glance essential information, including distance, hiking time, and elevation gain/loss; notes on which trails are suitable for children, mountain bikes, dogs, equestrians, and backpacking; and accurate and precise driving and hiking directions. Plus, each trip features at least one significant botanical, cultural, or geological highlight with detailed information about what makes it special.
Jerry Schad (1949–2011) was Southern California’s leading outdoors writer. His 16 guidebooks, including those in Wilderness Press’s popular and comprehensive Afoot & Afield series, along with his “Roam-O-Rama” column in the San Diego Reader, helped thousands of hikers discover the region’s diverse wild places. Jerry ran or hiked many thousands of miles of distinct trails throughout California, in the Southwest, and in Mexico. He was a sub-24-hour finisher of Northern California’s 100-mile Western States Endurance Run and served in a leadership capacity for outdoor excursions around the world. He taught astronomy and physical science at San Diego Mesa College and chaired its physical sciences department from 1999 until 2011. His sudden, untimely death from kidney cancer shocked and saddened the hiking community. Scott Turner’s various interests include psychology, photography, writing, songwriting, and music production. He serves a variety of populations as a marriage and family therapist, and he covers an assortment of hiking trails across California and beyond for modernhiker.com and locally for sandiego.org. He generally hikes more than 1,000 miles per year across much of California and frequently leads guided hikes independently or with agencies across the county.
