These hiking poles are sturdy, and great to help keep your balance on short or longer hikes
Mission Trails Regional Park in San Diego is one the largest urban parks in the United States, with over 8,000 acres of historical landmarks, rugged hills, vast valleys, and tall peaks to explore. Within this beautiful park, the Oak Canyon Trail is one of the most diverse hikes, showcasing interesting landmarks, giant oak trees, dramatic rocky gorges, and beautiful creeks and waterfalls. This trail is especially breathtaking during the spring with all the wildflowers. You can hike the Oak Canyon Trail as an out and back. However, we recommend doing this trail as a loop by combining Oak Canyon Trail with Grasslands Loop to create an even more diverse and exciting hike.
Besides being beautiful, the Oak Canyon Trail in Mission Trails Regional Park is one of those hikes you can combine with other interconnecting trails to make it as long or as short as you like. We love this because we can tailor our hike to how we feel that day!
Oak Canyon Trailhead:
Starting from Old Mission Dam
10164 Father Junipero Serra Trail, Santee, CA 92071
32.839649, -117.041896
There is a small parking lot in front of the trailhead. You can also park along the Father Junipero Serra Trail road.
The gate right after passing the Kumeyaay Lake & Campground opens from 8am and closes at 5pm. It might open later in the summer.
Free
There are Porta Potties in the parking lot in front of the trailhead.
Pets are allowed but they must be on a leash.
3.8 miles as a loop
3.2 miles out and back
As loop: 400ft
Out & Back: 249ft
Easy to Moderate.
Takes an average 1 – 3 hours depending on your route.
The trail is open year-round and is beautiful to visit anytime. If going on a weekend or holiday, we recommend getting there earlier for parking.
The trailhead for Oak Canyon Trail and Grasslands Loop is located at the Old Mission Dam parking lot inside Mission Trails Regional Park in San Diego. From the corner of Father Junipero Serra Trail road and Mission Gorge Road, drive west for about 0.6 miles to the small parking lot for Old Mission Dam on the right. If the lot is full, you can park along the Father Junipero Serra Trail road. The gate right after passing the Kumeyaay Lake & Campground opens from 8 am and closes at 5 pm. It might open later in the summer. So, make sure you don’t get locked in if you plan to hike earlier or later than the opening hours.
Oak Canyon Trail is a wonderful hike either by itself or as a loop using the North Fortuna Perimeter Trail and Grasslands Loop Trail. It is also a segment of the Fortuna Mountain Trail, which connects to the summits of both the North and South Fortuna Mountain. In this blog, we’ll cover the Oak Canyon Trail to Grasslands Loop.
We did this hike on a Saturday, so it was very busy. Even so, we were lucky to grab a parking spot along the Father Junipero Serra Trail road not too far from the trailhead. The Oak Canyon Trail starts at the Old Mission Dam parking lot. It runs between the San Diego River and the Father Junipero Serra Trail Road for a short distance.
At about 200ft, the trail passes by the Old Mission Dam on the right-hand side. Most likely built in 1803, Old Mission Dam was one of the first major irrigation engineering projects of the Pacific Coast of the United States. The dam was used to impound water from the San Diego River for the fields of the Mission San Diego de Alcalá. Now, the Old Mission Dam is a nationally registered historic landmark. This is a great spot to take a look or hang out. Even though the calm water looks very enticing, you are NOT allowed to swim or tube here.
After leaving the dam, we followed the wide path for about 600ft to a long metal bridge. This is the first of many bridges that you will cross. At the end of this bridge, the trail bends around a rocky area before climbing up more rocky path. Make sure to wear some sturdy hiking shoes with good traction. This is just the start of all the bumpy sections.
Soon after, we saw a set of stairs leading up a distance hill on the right. We also came to an intersection where several trails meet. This is the start of the loop if you’re doing the Oak Canyon Trail to Grasslands Loop. Going straight (left side) will continue the Oak Canyon Trail, where you’ll get the creek and all the rocky part out of the way first. Going right will take you up the stairs and through the Grassland Loop section. We went straight because we wanted to do the Oak Canyon Trail first. Along the way, because the Oak Canyon Trail intersects with multiple trails, it can be confusing. As long as you follow the signs and stay on the Oak Canyon Trail to the rocky gorge section, you should be fine. If you’re not sure, we recommend downloading an offline map from Alltrails +
After leaving the beginning of the loop trail, we continued along one of our favorite sections of this trail. The trees in this section are magnificent. They are towering over the trail. We also found a cool tree right on the trail. This big tree bends itself backward to create a little bench. We also crossed over a small wooden bridge. About ⅕ mile away, there is another fork for the other side of Grasslands Loop. We stayed left to continue along the Oak Canyon creek.
About 250 ft after the fork, we found a giant oak tree on the left-hand side. This tree is so massive that its branches form a big tree canopy, a perfect place to take a break. Please DON’T CARVE on this beautiful tree. It is over 200 years old!
Once we said goodbye to this giant oak tree, we continued our way to cross over another small bridge before reaching the first gorge section. The trail also becomes a lot rockier. When we were there, there was a small pool at the bottom of this gorge. After a good rain, you might see a small waterfall here. Be careful of your footing in this area, especially with small children. There are drop-offs on one side of the trail, and the rocks can be slippery.
Hereafter, the Oak Canyon Trail becomes rougher as it drops into the rocky creek bed. You’ll have to scramble a bit, but it’s nothing too challenging since you’ll be hiking in the creek bed. Depending on the season, you might encounter water here. It was bone dry when we went. This is a good spot for a break. We noticed many hikers turn back at this point. So the rest of the trail was way less busy. We highly recommend to keep going.
As for us, we continued to follow the Oak Canyon Trail to cross over the creek. Along the way, we passed over 3 more wooden bridges before the trail smoothed out. Soon, we reached another junction with 3 different routes. This is where Oak Canyon Trail intersects with Fortuna Saddle Trail. We followed the middle trail to the sign for Oak Canyon Trail.
The trail continues to weave under tall trees and crosses over more bridges. The tree tunnel section was also quite pretty. If you come here when everything is lush, we bet it’s beautiful. Eventually, from the Oak Canyon Trail, we could see Highway 52 bridges above. The trail then comes to a rocky area. It was super fun to scramble around. If you want to stay on the main trail, follow the faint dirt path on the right-hand side, which becomes more prominent as the trail gets closer to the Highway 52 bridges.
Since we loved to scramble, we went left to check out the rocky area. Here, we found a really cool mini slot canyon full of water and even a trickling waterfall. If you love slot canyons, check out the local Annie’s Canyon in Solana Beach. We also love The Slot, a short hike in Anza Borrego State Park. For a more challenging slot canyon hike, we recommend Rope Canyon or Painted Canyon & Ladder Canyon in Mecca. Here, if you just want to do an out-and-back hike, you can turn back. We wanted to do this hike as a loop, so we made our way to the dirt path that led up to a service road.
At the intersection of the dirt path and the service road, we went right toward the Grasslands Loop Trail. This service road is the North Fortuna Perimeter Trail. Going left will take you to the North Fortuna Summit. With the right turn, we climbed our way up the steep North Fortuna Perimeter Trail that ran along the freeway. This Perimeter Trail section is the only section with some decent elevation gain on this Oak Canyon to Grasslands Loop Trail.
The Perimeter Trail climbs for about 0.1 miles, then drops down for another 0.1 miles. At the bottom of this drop, you’ll want to go left to follow the less steep trail. It is another short climb before the trail curves its way left downhill to the Grasslands Loop area. Along this section, we could see part of the Grasslands loop on the right-hand side. The scenery was quite beautiful, with tall vegetation along the sides and looming mountains in the distance.
Once the Oak Canyon to Grasslands Loop Trail reached the bottom, we came to the start of the Grasslands Loop. Here, going right (counterclockwise) will shorten your hike and take you straight to the stairs we saw in the beginning. The left trail circles around the grassy meadow area before turning right to head between the mountains toward the Old Mission Dam area. There are a few intersections along the way. You should be fine if you follow the signs for Grasslands Loop Trail toward Old Mission Dam.
Toward the end of the loop, there is a short detour to a viewpoint overlooking the Old Mission Dam below. It was an interesting perspective of the dam from up here. Right after this overlook, there is another fork. At this fork, you’ll want to go left to go down the stairs. These are the same stairs that we saw at the beginning of the Oak Canyon Trail. Going right connects you to the other side of the Grasslands Loop. After going down the stairs, the trail will connect back to the Oak Canyon Trail. From here, go left to go back to the big metal bridge and, soon, back to the parking lot.
For a shorter and easy-moderate trail, Oak Canyon Trail has a lot of interesting and beautiful features. As mentioned above, we love how we can modify this trail shorter or longer depending on how we feel or who we bring. For more fun trails in the Mission Trails Regional Park, we recommend Cowles Mountain or South Fortuna trail. If you like little canyons and waterfalls, the Los Penasquitos Canyon Trail is mostly flat. For more challenging hikes, check out Iron Mountain or the Potato Chip Hike.
Happy Adventuring. Don’t forget to check out the related posts below for more inspiration on your upcoming adventures. While at it, follow us on Instagram and subscribe to our YouTube channel! We’ll love you forever!
These are the gear that we personally use and find helpful for this particular adventure. Don’t forget to check out our Recommended Gear section as well.
These hiking poles are sturdy, and great to help keep your balance on short or longer hikes
If you tend to have foot blisters on hikes, get this! We use this all the time.
Our favorite hiking/travel jacket. It's warm and packable, perfect to bring on a hike or a road trip.
Our favorite hiking/travel jacket. It's warm and packable, perfect to bring on a hike or a road trip.
This jacket is packable into a super small and light little ball. Perfect for when you just need a little…
This jacket is packable into a super small and light little ball. Perfect for when you just need a little…
It's always good to bring a GPS tracker with you. We use the Garmin inReach.
This is Vy's favorite hiking bag! It has tons of room for snacks and water!
Our favorite biodegradable, eco-friendly, reef-safe sunscreen!
This is our go-to camera for all of our adventures. It comes with us everywhere!
Compact GoPro pole that extends to 25", perfect to bring on your adventure.
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Hi! We are Dustin & Vy, the proud creators of Live That Adventure. We created this website because we wanted to inspire others to live their lives to the fullest. On here, you’ll find everything from hiking, canyoneering, kayaking, and snorkeling to adventure and travel tips, gear reviews, and bucket list items such as bungee jumping or wing walking. We’ll show you the ropes so you can do them too!
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