San Diego’s Elfin Forest is the kind of trail I’d avoid on a weekend. Even on a weekday it had a good number of feet parading up and down its trails. The good part is that the further you get from the parking lot, the fewer people you have to share the trail with. In fact, once you walk a few miles in, on a weekday, you may not see anyone else at all.
Many of the trails in San Diego aren’t trails as much as single lane dirt roads. It’s basically impossible to lose the trail. I’m sure there are some less used and less maintained trails out there, but I haven’t found them yet.
This reserve offers a spider web of trails throughout, so you can mix and match up to almost as many miles as your day hike can accommodate. One of my sisters and I walked about 8 miles, from the trailhead up to the Lake Hodges overlook. We didn’t see much wildlife outside of numerous water birds on the reservoir, and some crows and turkey vultures who shared the dry land. The unseen wildlife were more coyotes than most trails have, as at the reserve’s higher, and more remote elevations, we stepped over a lot of their scat.