Afoot & Afield: San Diego County

Jerry Schad (1949-2011) was Southern California's leading outdoors writer. His 16 guidebooks, including those in Wilderness Press's popular and comprehensive Afoot & Afield series, along with his Roam-O-Rama column in the San Diego Reader, helped thousands of hikers discover the region's diverse wild places. Jerry ran or hiked many thousands of miles of distinct trails throughout California, in the Southwest, and in Mexico. He was a sub-24-hour finisher of Northern California's 100-mile Western States Endurance Run and served in a leadership capacity for outdoor excursions around the world. He taught astronomy and physical science at San Diego Mesa College and chaired its physical sciences department from 1999 until 2011. His sudden, untimely death from kidney cancer shocked and saddened the hiking community. Scott Turner's various interests include psychology, photography, writing, songwriting, and music production. He serves a variety of populations as a marriage and family therapist, and he covers an assortment of hiking trails across California and beyond for modernhiker.com and locally for sandiego.org. He generally hikes more than 1,000 miles per year across much of California and frequently leads guided hikes independently or with agencies across the county.