Recently, I was looking through Google Maps, virtually exploring the area near California State Route 94 near Jamul, and a place that I had never heard of before caught my eye. I saw it and thought to myself, what is Diego Henge?
Well, there’s really only one way to find out. So, I jumped in the car and headed to San Diego’s backcountry to get a first-hand look at Diego Henge.
To get to where Diego Henge is said to be, I took California State Route 94, an extraordinary drive through a scenic and historic part of San Diego County. The highway follows roughly the same path that the old stagecoach road that was the primary route between San Diego and Yuma followed. Because of that, there are a lot of noteworthy and historic places along this highway, despite it only being about 60 miles in length.
I’m not quite sure that Diego Henge will be one of those places that people drive out to this area to see, however.
The real Stonehenge has a lot of legends and conspiracies associated with it, but I don’t think Diego Henge has been featured on Ancient Aliens just yet. Unlike the real Stonehenge or even Carhenge in Nebraska, it doesn’t look like Diego Henge is man-made or even alien-made; it is an act of nature.
After leaving Highway 94 and traveling about four miles on local roads, we reached Diego Henge. While the rocks did look pretty cool, any comparisons to Stonehenge are quite a stretch.
Like most hills in the area, the one Diego Henge occupies is covered with boulders. The rocks that makeup Diego Henge kind of look like fingers coming up through the ground to me.
There is a perfectly reasonable explanation for boulders to end up like this, and it all has to do with the surface and subsurface weathering of a rising mass of granitic rock. Thousands and millions of years of water, both above ground and below it, have shaped these rocks.
There are a lot of hills and mountains in San Diego’s east county that are covered in boulders like this, which definitely isn’t unique. You don’t see a lot of boulders that look like pillars like these ones, though. It makes sense that rocks on the same hill would look similar, as they’d have all been subject to the same conditions over thousands of years.
I think the biggest mystery about Diego Henge is who put this on Google and why? I don’t believe Diego Henge is going to be competing with the San Diego Zoo or SeaWorld as a tourist destination any time soon.
If you want to check out Diego Henge for yourself, here are the GPS coordinates: 32.67719646930987, -116.73692535123739
It is located on private property, so please only view it from the road and respect the privacy of those living there.
A better option would be to continue east on California State Route 94 until you get to Campo. There, you can find the Pacific Southwest Railway Museum, the Gaskill Brothers Stone Store, and the Motor Transport Museum, as well as the remains of an old Army camp and one of the coolest-looking bridges in Southern California. Trust me, it’s far more interesting than Diego Henge.
And if you really want to see something Stonehenge like in the San Diego area, you can always check out the benches that make a “mini-Stonehenge” in Coronado.
Update: The listing for Diego Henge has been removed from Google Maps.
