For years, my sister has been my trusty hiking companion. The two of us have summited peaks like San Gorgonio — the highest in Southern California — and Mount Baldy, along with completing more modest local hikes like the routes in Mission Trails.
We make a good duo, keeping a similar pace and identifying the plants and animals we see along the trail. It’s special to think back on our hikes over time and where we were in life during each of them — in college or our late 20s, with our conversations on the trail ranging from work and relationships to our parents.
We’re in a brand new era of life now, as my sister just had a baby this summer. So while we’re not yet back to climbing mountains together (and we will certainly be back), we have been exploring some local, stroller-friendly options. This week’s hike was more of a walk, but I know I’ll still look back on it fondly. It’s a marker of this time in our lives when our sister duo gained a plus one.
We completed a roughly 2-mile out-and-back walk on the southeastern side of Liberty Station along the San Diego Bay. Visitors can travel on the hard-packed dirt trail that runs closest to the water, or opt for the sidewalk, which offers equally pretty views.
The USS Recruit on the southern end of Liberty Station. (Maura Fox / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
The route starts near the USS Recruit, a Navy ship located at the southern end of Liberty Station. More than 50,000 recruits a year learned naval procedures on this model of a destroyer escort. But the ship never touched water, gaining it the nickname “USS Neversail.”
There’s a parking lot near the USS Recruit, along with several other free parking lots around Liberty Station.
Begin walking east away from the ship, and hop on the sidewalk that runs north along the bay. Visitors will first pass by a few hotels, but the path soon reaches the Liberty Station NTC Park — featuring a large grassy field just waiting to be picnicked on.
There is both a paved and dirt walking path along the San Diego Bay at Liberty Station. (Maura Fox / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
There’s are a few bathrooms along the way, as well as a children’s play structure. Near the 0.4-mile mark, walkers will come to Louis Rose Point, honoring San Diego’s first Jewish settler, and later on, the Hugh Story Memorial Rose Garden, a small space holding a variety of roses.
The best part of this walk, for me, came around the 0.7-mile mark, when the dirt path veered toward a lookout point over the water and became lined on both sides with vegetation. There was a mix of intersecting dirt paths, and it was nice to feel a little more connected to nature here.
We went a bit farther after the dirt path turned to sidewalk again, and ultimately turned around on the sidewalk near Truxtun Road, on the northern end of Liberty Station. From there, we retraced our steps back.