Hiking San Diego: Grinding Rocks Trail at Mission Trails Regional Park
Grinding Rocks Trail is a short add-on walk to several hikes in San Diego’s Mission Trails Regional Park. This walk takes you to the area by the San Diego River where the native Kumeyaay would prepare their meals.
Mission Trails Regional Park is huge and features over 60 miles of hiking trails. Many of these hikes are located near the state-of-the-art visitor center. Grinding Rocks Trail can be done as a 1-mile loop from the visitor’s center or combined with a longer hike.
The actual trail is only about two-tenths of a mile long. It runs from Father Junipero Serra Trail to Visitor Center Loop Trail. The entrance from Father Junipero Serra is about 0.3 miles down the road from the visitor’s center across from the south trail head for Climbers Loop Trail.
Father Junipero Serra Trail is a paved trail that allows one-way car travel from the visitor’s center to Old Mission Dam. There is limited parking along the road at several of the trailheads. Additional parking is by the Mission Trails Regional Visitor Center.
From the visitor’s center you can do a 1-mile loop to include Grinding Rocks Trail. At the one-way entrance to Father Junipero Serra Trail and the visitor’s center you take Visitor Center Loop Trail about 0.3 miles until you reach Grinding Rocks Trail which forks off to the right.
From Visitor Center Loop, Grinding Rock Trail is a short 0.2 mile hike to Father Junipero Serra Trail. It is a short walk back to the visitor center down the paved road.
In most cases, we combine Grinding Rocks Trail with another hike. These include the 1.5 mile Visitor Center Loop Trail, the 1-mile Climbers Loop Trail, the 1-mile Oak Grove Loop Trail or our bike rides along Father Junipero Serra Trail. Check out our Mission Trails hiking guide for more info.
Grinding Rock Trails is a popular guided hike and is great for school groups. It is a hands-on chance to learn about the Kumeyaay people who lived here thousands of years before the Spanish settlers arrived.
This is a shaded area where there were large oak trees that provided acorns. The Kumeyaay would grind in the acorns into edible powder on the smooth boulders along the San Diego River. Along the boulders you can still see the grinding holes the Kumeyaay used to prepare their food.
Mission Trails Regional Park is one of the few places in the city of San Diego where you can see how the region looked before the mass development of the 20th century. A short distance down Father Junipero Serra is Old Mission Dam which was built by the early Spanish settlers. At 200 years old it seems relatively new compared with the thousands of years the Grinding Rocks Trail was in use.
For more hikes in Mission Trails Regional Park be sure and check out our full guide. We also have a regularly updated hiking guide.
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