TRJ Weblog

Last Saturday, I ventured to the Pine Valley Creek with my son in search of perhaps the last remaining native San Diego fresh water fish, the Stickleback. We hiked around a section of the creek beginning at the trail head of the Secret Canyon trail, located off of old Highway 80 between Pine Valley and Guatay. A really interesting area with a mix of chaparral scrub and live oak trees. This area escaped damage from the fires of 2003 and 2007 and is part of the Pine Creek Wilderness. This portion of the creek sits at about 4100 feet and you can easily tell the difference in the air up here compared to San Diego. Much cleaner and crisper. You can detect the various smells of the local vegetation as well as occasional presents left by local wildlife.

The stickleback is an interesting little fish that is not easy to spot unless you know what you are looking for. It is only about 1 1/2" long and well colored to blend in with the creek bottom. It manages to survive in this creek mainly because there are no other fish here, with the exception of a small trout population that was likely stocked in the creek long ago and managed to avoid being caught by fishermen. The creek also flows year round, which is pretty rare for much of San Diego. We walked about a mile along the creek and were able to spot the stickleback in sections of slower moving water in deeper pools. For the most part the creek was less than a foot deep, but we did run across some sections that appeared to be up to 6 feet deep, although nobody in our group was bold enough to stand at the bottom as I requested to determine the true depth.

This is probably one of the best times to visit the Pine Creek Wilderness. In another few weeks, it will likely be too warm and remain that way until November.