Once the dishes are cleared from the table after Thanksgiving dinner and you’ve had a proper amount of time to snooze on the couch, consider heading to Fallbrook for this easy, family-friendly hike.
I chose a simple route for this week’s column, since a complicated hike may be the last thing you want to do after the holiday. But I’m a big believer in a post-meal walk. Your body will thank you for the movement and fresh air.
Toyon on the trailside, with its vibrant berries. (Maura Fox / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
This roughly 1-mile loop at the Los Jilgueros Preserve in Fallbrook is also great for families. The trail is nearly all flat and wide, making it an accessible option for wheeled-visitors. As a little test, I wore jeans and non-hiking boots to the preserve to assess if the hike could be enjoyed by the out-of-town family members who didn’t pack hiking clothes for their trip to San Diego. (It passed the test.)
All said, I imagine I’ll be returning to the preserve even by myself when I want a peaceful stroll through nature. On a crisp November afternoon, the preserve’s colorful vegetation shined against the greyish sky.
There are about two miles of trails in the 46-acre preserve. This route passes by a pond with ducks, and sections of the trail are shaded with tall sycamore trees. But don’t feel beholden to the path I followed, since the trails interconnect.
Los Jilgueros is managed by the Fallbrook Land Conservancy, which acquired the land in 1990. It was previously used for farming, and visitors will pass by a few pieces of old farm equipment on their hike.
According to the Fallbrook Historical Society, the preserve gets its name from an 1889 map that identified the stream running through the open space as “Arroyo de los Jilgueros.” The word means “goldfinches” in Spanish, and the bird does live in the area.
The trails at the Los Jilgueros Preserve are mostly flat, though there’s one section with an incline and a short set of stairs. (Maura Fox / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
To begin, park in the lot at the preserve located on South Mission Road, southeast of the Fallbrook Airpark. The preserve is open from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. and dogs on a leash are allowed.
Begin on the trail on the eastern side of the preserve that heads north. It’s easy to follow, so hikers can spend more time focusing on the scenery around them, including the sycamore and oak trees and green hillsides to the west.
At 0.4 miles, the trail veers west, and there’s a set of stairs up a short incline. Or, visitors can opt to simply walk up the hill to the right of stairs. Soon after, I came across a pond on the righthand side of the trail with more than a dozen ducks paddling around.
A small pond with ducks awaits about a half-mile into the hike. (Maura Fox / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
I continued on to the northwest corner of the preserve, where there were more intersecting trails to explore. Some sections of the trail were more narrow, but that just made the trees above feel more like a cozy canopy.
At 0.8 miles, hikers have the option to take a trail that runs parallel to S. Mission Road, but I instead chose to cut east across the preserve toward the trail I started on. But don’t just retrace your steps back; take the trail that heads down the center of the preserve, which will ultimately connect back to the entrance where you began.