The hook
An hour up into the mountains east of San Diego is a gold-rush town that ran out of gold and reinvented itself around apple pie.
01Why it's worth it
In 1870 a formerly enslaved man named Fred Coleman spotted gold glinting in a creek in these mountains, and San Diego County had its own gold rush; the Eagle Mine went in that year and worked the quartz veins until 1934. When the gold gave out, the settlers found the cool high country grew apples beautifully, and that's what Julian became famous for instead, until today you can hardly walk its short main street without passing another pie shop. It's a genuine nineteenth-century mountain town at forty-two hundred feet, wooden storefronts and all, and you can still go underground on a tour of the Eagle Mine to see where the gold came from. The same Fred Coleman's strike, incidentally, is the one that shows up in the history of Stonewall Peak over in Cuyamaca nearby.
02How to experience it
It's about an hour east of San Diego up in the mountains, roughly eight hours from the Bay. Walk the historic main street, get a slice of the pie it's known for, and take the Eagle Mine tour for the gold-rush history. Fall is apple season and the busiest; winter can bring snow up here. It pairs with Cuyamaca and Stonewall Peak nearby.