Last Saturday we drove down the Central Coast to go hiking at Garrapata State Park. Again. Yes, we'd been there just 7 days earlier. The weather was poor with fog covering the coast all day. Though we made the best of it we still felt let down... so we decided to go again this past weekend, aiming for better weather. Well, it turns out this weekend ( Read more... )

This Saturday we decided to venture back to the Central Coast. Yes, we were just there a week ago. We even went back to basically the same place, Garrapata State Park.  Our hike in Soberanes Canyon was a (partial) repeat of one we've done many times before, but our walk along the ocean bluffs opened our eyes to an area we'd overlooked on numerous ( Read more... )

As we've been to Garrapata State Park on California's Central Coast several times over the years it's tempting to think we've "been there, done that" and seen everything in the park. It turns out we haven't. It took the disappointing trail closure and poor weather during our visit this past Saturday to show us that.


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Saturday this weekend we traveled down to California's Central Coast to hike at Garrapata State Park. I wrote about the trip overall in a blog yesterday. Here I follow up with pictures and notes from our hike out & back in Soberanes Canyon.

As I noted in that other blog entry, hiking out & back in Soberanes Canyon was not our first choice. We ( Read more... )

Today we drove down to the Central Coast. Our objective was Garrapata State Park. It's a beautiful park on the coast with plenty of hiking, including canyons and ridges as well as bluffs overlooking the rocky coast. We've visited numerous times over the past many years.
So Many Cars

Getting to the park today took a bit more effort than it should have ( Read more... )

Last week was a rainy one across much of California. Dry weather that ran through December and most of January finally broke. And break it did, with a veritable "Atmospheric River" dumping precipitation across the state. When heavy rain follows an extended dry period it creates risk of mud slides as parched ground is not as able to absorb the rain ( Read more... )

A year ago a coworker who's (also) a frequent flyer travel hound and I were discussing road-tripping California's Central Coast. He lives 2500 miles away near Washington, DC, and was planning a drive over the course of a day or two up California Highway 1, aka the Pacific Coast Highway. I gave him several suggestions for activities along the way, ( Read more... )

We turned around from the summit of Cone Peak at 3 on Sunday. On the one hand we were eager to get down so we could see other sights on the way home before dark. McWay Falls, in particular, is always stunning. We also wanted get home before too, too late; we both had work the next day. On the other hand we tried to take care not to let the trek ( Read more... )

We arrived at the trail to Cone Peak after quite a drive Sunday morning. By the time we finished checking our packs and lacing up our boots it was noon. Later than we wanted to get underway... but it's not like we had anywhere else to be ( Read more... )

One of our favorite hikes along California's Central Coast- and there are many; favorites, that is- is the trek to Cone Peak. We haven't hiked it too often, though, because a) it's remote, b) it's a strenuous trek on a sometimes difficult trail, and c) even the drive to the trailhead is iffy. The latter got in our way when we tried hiking Cone Peak ( Read more... )