Awesome park! Great place for the whole family and there's always plenty of room and space to set yourself up. The trees offer plenty of shade and there's usually a nice breeze. It's great in the spring time because there usually a river flowing.

Hidden gem in Santee. This lovely park submerges you in nature. The giant trees offer ample shade. The atmosphere here is peaceful too. Great for all ages. Bonus points for the pickleball courts.

Playground: Dated structures with tons to do. One structure for younger kids and one for older kids. The flooring is tanbark and rubber. There was plenty of shade from large mature trees in the morning. A few benches to sit on. There is also a dry creek bed with climbable rocks. Bathrooms: A large bathroom structure is by the parking lot. Parking: Free small parking lot. Location: A medium sized park that is beautiful. Located in a neighborhood next to the Adult Enrichment Center. Safety: No unhoused, no trash, many kids, and many adults exercising or walking dogs.

This is our favorite local park. It has a seasonal creek, nice large paved loop, dog park, and two structures for different ages. Great for picnics and parties too, lots of tables and areas to choose from. And of course, the big rocks in the middle are fun for the bigger kids to climb on.

It's an amazing park. It's new and beautiful and packed with park like amenitues. There are sports and slides and swings. The dog park is fenced but mulched but the water fountain for the dogs is so cool. It's ground level and when you push the button the bowl fills up with water like a water bowl. Outside the park is a stamped concrete border that is labeled every few steps with "Sit" "jump," etc so my dog and I walked the border a few time and I was teaching him to do whatever the section was labeled. There's a parkour course for humans and one for dogs. The world would be a better place if every park were as nice as this one!

Used to play here as a kid!! Its fun to bring my daughter to the same park, I grew up playing at! Very clean and friendly!!

I usually like to take my kid there in Summer, because there are lots of huge trees which give you many shaded places, so you do not feel hot at all. Kids like the creek as well if after raining. They may find little fish, too.

I had a great time hiking up this trail. A huge plus is the abundance of shade at least halve of the time. It took around an hour to get up and an hour to get down. (Guide books may say three hours but that would be at a slower pace than almost all the hikers I saw) This is the East side of the Cowls mountain and the third possible way up to the peak. You won't be able to see downtown or the main parts of San Diego city for the most part going up this trail, as you would on the most popular and most crowded trail on the south side of the mountain. On the other hand you get great views of the enormous landscape of mountains surrounding the city, which you don't get on the south trail. I think this is the best way up the mountain if you are taking kids. Because of the shade on a large part of the trail even during the hottest midday hours, and also because it's the least steep trail (other than at the very end on the service road) and well serviced with wooden steps. There are several parts on the trails where you can veer off. For example, about a fifth way up the mountain you can take another trail to to Lake Murray! Imagine hiking up and down the mountain followed by a picnic at the lake :))

The playground is pretty nice, but the bathrooms are almost always gross or nonfunctional. Try not to go if it's too busy, especially if your family includes any people of color. There are so many people there who will give non-white kids the stink-eye just for playing, and after a single busy afternoon there you'll see where the "Klantee" nickname comes from.

This is a beautiful local park close to my home. My grandson loves the playground, and my husband and grown kids regularly use the newly surfaced Pickle Ball court. The East entrance is right next to the trail head.

Super cute park! I had to move to a different table because they were some bees coming after our food, but aside from that, it was a pretty great little park. Lots of shade in the playground in the field for the kiddos.

I love that this park has a playground for little kids and the other half for big kids but you can sit and watch both. The tiny river behind where you sit is a nice change of scenery in case you want to throw rocks at the water with your kids but not enough for them to get too wet or drown. It's inside a really quiet and safe neighborhood between a gated school and a nice dirt trail for an easy hike. Theres a really big grassy area to let your well-mannered dogs play without a leash (not a gated park tho), a volleyball net on sand next to a full court basketball and a bathroom on site in front of a large concrete area with lots of stone tables and benches. In the back of the park is the busiest part where there's a court that people play tennis, raquetball and pickleball all year round. This park has been amazingly well kept. Such a nice community and hard working maintenance!

Nice place to take a stroll, jog, or hike! Playgrounds, pickle courts, and picnic tables. Family and dog friendly.

Great space for kids, adults, and animals! Lots of trees, a covered area with several picnic tables with benches as well as spread out picnic tables aroundthe park, a spread out play area that has sections for different ages...meaning small slides and climbing areas and bigger slides and jungle gym areas. Lots of grassy area, tennis courts, basketball court, paved sidewalk all around, volleyball court, creek which has tad poles and frogs when flowing, and pretty well kept bathrooms open during "park hours" right by the parking lot. It does have light poles around it, so if you are there towards or past sunset -you're not in the dark. Good place to start on trails that go around the meadowy area and up into Cowles Mountain. Parking lot is a little small but there is plenty of street parking along Mesa Road.

One of our favorite parks to visit!. Plenty of shade from the trees and big playground area for the kids. There are also volleyball, pickle ball and basketball courts.

Visited here on a Sunday morning, very crowded, dogs are unleashed and running on the grass, 8 pickleball courts are all full and full of friendly people. You can even get free pickleball class on Sunday around 9am to 11am. A great Park!

The playground is a bit old, but overall this park is awesome. I love that it has a natural seasonal stream that runs through it and hasn't been cemented or bricked up in any way.

My granddaughter really loves this park, my wife and I went with her and my daughter for the first time just recently. Very nice place - have basketball courts they have a lot of tennis / pickleball courts as well. I understand every Sunday there are free lessons and pickleball and there are people playing pickleball just about all the time. If that's your sport, this is a great place to go for it. Of course I have the prerequisite restrooms, and an unleashed dog area - at least it's unleashed for a couple hours each morning. It was clean and were able to park the car very easily. Nice place to go. Not overly huge, but then you don't always need huge do you?

Nice park with plenty of tables and even BBQ facilities. 8 very popular pickleball courts and playground at the base of mountain trails.

My family calls Big Rock Park "our park" because it's where we spend most of our park days. Reasons why we love it: Space for kicking a soccer ball around, playground structures, pickle ball courts, basketball court, volleyball sand court, tons of shade, big trees, big rocks, a creek filled with tadpoles, lots of picnic tables, decent bathrooms, trail head to Cowles Mt, friendly free library, paved sidewalk for riding bikes/scooters, and the chance to meet dog friends!

This is a very fun park, off the maim streets with a huge playground, nice picnic areas with a ton of tables, and a small outdoor stage. I really likes the atmosphere of the park and especially the many different shaded areas, which is very nice on hot days.

Cool park with a basketball court & several pickleball courts. Watch out for snakes though! Just wish the bathrooms were cleaner