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Highlights: Easy hiking, shade-giving eucalyptus trees, and migrating monarch butterflies

Buena Vista Lagoon

DESCRIPTION

For better or worse, eucalyptus trees from Australia have become a major component of San Diego County’s contemporary urban forest. More than a century ago, entrepreneurs planted tall varieties of eucalyptus all over San Diego County (and in other parts of California) in a misguided effort to produce wood for railroad ties. These trees largely escaped the ax after people discovered that eucalyptus wood cracks and splits too easily for use as lumber. Thus, young and old eucalyptus trees still drape some hillsides just east of I-5 and above Buena Vista Lagoon in Carlsbad, at a place called Hosp Grove. Within Hosp Grove, the city of Carlsbad maintains a small nature park and trail system, providing a patch of serenity in an otherwise busy corner of North County.

THE ROUTE

You’ll find the Hosp Grove Trail rising on the slope behind the park’s tot play area. Alternatively, heading west from the small Jefferson Street parking lot (Trailhead 1 sign), you can ascend gradually to a view of Buena Vista Lagoon just above the first switchback. From several spots along this section of trail, you can peer over the tall, obscuring vegetation on the shoreline. Bring along binoculars—or, better yet, a spotting telescope—to observe the birdlife below.