My friend’s flight was today so we knew we had to be back in San Francisco with time to spare. There seemed to be some scenic waterfall trails to do that were relatively short so we elected to try out Kings Creek Falls. After our big peak hikes the two previous days this did feel like a break but it was NOT a simple 2.3 mile stroll. And it’s not precisely a loop either, you can keep going after the falls to do a bigger loop that has offshoots if you want.

The nice thing about camping is waking up with the sunrise! So we had no issues getting up early this morning. I brought eggs, breakfast sausages and instant coffee for us so we had a nice big and hearty breakfast. Although I didn’t pack olive oil or salt so that’s something to get for our next camping trip haha. One annoying thing about this campsite is that they placed this huge concrete table on an incline so the whole thing is tilted.

I recently turned 30 and I knew for my birthday I wanted to get some camping and hiking time in. I’ve been to Lassen before but on a motorcycle roadtrip where we didn’t do much besides the scenic drive and swimming in a lake. Lassen’s snow takes a long time to melt and mid-July is in fact the best time to try to go for high elevation trails to be open.

We’ve been getting a lot of rain in San Francisco this season but we got a brief respite – the perfect day to go on a local hike! We decided to check out Angel Island State Park To get to Angel Island you must take a ferry, either from Tiburon or from the ferry building in San Francisco. The San Francisco ferry only runs twice in the morning but is convenient in that it takes clipper cards, including clipper from your phone.

Aw man! The trip had to come to an end eventually :( In Bend, we started out day out getting breakfast at The Sparrow Bakery Northwest. The original location apparently had a lot of sparrows flying around, hence the name. The Ocean Roll is a famous type of pastry with cardamom and vanilla. I didn’t really like it that much because cardamom is weird in my opinion. I did get a lox bagel and a mocha and was overall impressed with the pastries though.

Today was my Redwoods National Park hiking day. Planning this is kind of challenging because the park is actually a bunch of state parks bundled together and some of the hikes are about an hour apart from each other. For instance, I was actually already camping in Redwoods National Park by camping at Prairie Creek. To start, I packed up camp and drove back up the 5 mile dirt road from the night before.

It was a quick drive to my first hiking destination – Russian Gulch State Park. It’s been on my list for a year or two. I picked out the waterfall trail called Fern Canyon trail which is 5.4 - 6.3 miles depending on the route you take. The barebones route is on a pretty smooth path, nearly a fire road. You can definitely take bicicyles on it, you just can’t go all the way up to the waterfall with a bike.

As soon as I bought my car I knew I wanted to go on a road trip. One thing still hung over my head was the the Colombia River Gorge in Oregon. When I went in 2017 it was snowing so badly we couldn’t really see anything. Originally I planned to leave Sunday and just drive a lot on the first day. I think my intention was to use the entire day Saturday to prepare for my trip.

I thought it might be nice to include a bulleted list of destinations and resources so that if you’re planning your own trip, you can just grab information from here without having to dig through all my journals. Of course, I still recommend looking through the rest of the blog posts to see detailed advice and thoughts plus pictures! Coming up the California coast to Oregon, here’s what I did and where I stayed.

I’ve been really needing a vacation lately and this 3 day weekend was the perfect opportunity to get away! My boyfriend and I were in Napa not too long ago. His friends were interested in Sonoma though so we decided to switch it up. I’ve been to Sonoma once before in 2016 but I recall doing a wine bus tour and didn’t pick out any of the wineries myself. So this time around our wineries and restaurant choices were more curated as a group.

Thanks to my Utah and Virginia trips I actually completed my 2021 hiking goal already. I had a day off though and hadn’t gone out in a while so I referred back to my state parks list. Henry Cowell State Park is near Santa Cruz, so not too far away. I picked the Observation Deck trail because it is 5 miles out and back with 600 feet of elevation gain which seemed casual enough.

You’d think as a California native I’d have more experience in wine country but in fact, I’ve never done wine tasting in Napa before! I have been to Sonoma, Paso Robles and Livermore but Napa is the real deal! We were there for a long weekend, and stayed at Silverado Resort and Spa. I didn’t pick it out but it’s pretty dang nice and has pools, a grill, a golf course and of course a spa.

For this hike we originally were intending to go to Memorial County Park but I discovered upon arrival that park is closed from the fires still. For what it’s worth I wasn’t in charge of planning this hike! But also shame on Google for navigating me all the way there and not telling me it was closed! There was no reception there so I was almost unable to reconnect with my friends.

I picked this hike off of Google Maps so I don’t feel great about including it in the 2021 collection. That said, I believe we still clocked in 2 or 3 miles and there were some pretty steep parts. Anyways, Mori Point is part of Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy and is located in Pacifica. This is very, very similar to Pillar Point Bluff in its views. I would recommend Pillar Point over Mori Point though.

First post of 2021! Welcome to the new year y’all! This year my focus is definitely going to be on things inside my house or within driving distance so it is gonna be a quiet year for the blog. I’m thinking this will age better than this post from 2019… When it was coming down to the wire on my 2020 hiking goals, I heard about some of the Peninsula city parks and put them in my tracking document.

Tilden is a regional park in East Bay spanning 2,079 acres between Berkeley and Orinda. Getting there from the Peninsula is no problem but the roads around the park are pretty steep. We drove through some interesting neighborhoods and my car’s clutch tried its best. We started at Lake Anza and worked our way in a loop to Grizzly Peak, Inspiration Point and back for a 6.8 mile walk: There’s a lake right at the entrance that I guess in warmer weather people could swim in.

I found this hike through redwoodhikes.com, specifically the hike to Barnabe Peak. See also the things to do page on the state park website. My expectations were that this would be on a fire road type trail, clock in at about 5.8 miles, and have outstanding views. Start at Camp Taylor. Parking there as of 2020 still costs $8. I parked close to the entrance, but to get to the trailhead you should park further in.

Once again my girl over at Trees and Tents provided me with an in depth trail description and recommendation. I followed her instructions for the Brooks Falls Loops to a T, but it’s been dry lately so there was no waterfall. One thing I noticed right off the bat was how many critters there are here! I saw deer, tons of birds, chipmunks and even a rabbit. I suspect with the proximity to Pacifica that a lot of these guys aren’t too afraid of humans because these deer were very chill.

I am normally against these kinds of “city parks” because they don’t really feel that much like a nature excursion but I’m glad I gave up on that idea. I was expecting it to be cold, but it was actually a really pleasant winter day. I ended up putting two jackets and my beanie in my backpack. Here is the trail map. See the image for about half of the recorded path we took:

When my old coworker asked me if I’d like to meet up in San Luis Obispo for the weekend there was no way I was saying no! My old boss has an Airbnb there he rents out which we used as our home base. I left my place early Friday morning to go borrow a car from my parents and made the 3.5 hour drive to SLO, getting there around 11 AM.

I recently discovered an AWESOME blog called Trees and Tents and I got the recommendation for Pillar Point Bluff from there. Once again this is not technically a state park but I am still counting it, especially considering COVID and the fires! This puts me at 13 “state” parks in 2020. 7 left with uhhh 3 months to go! Since I’m side tracked, I was also thinking I should probably put a rating and difficulty section for hikes, to make finding the hike that’s right for you easier!

My roommate Sam is an experienced downhill mountain biker and she asked me if I wanted to give it a go. Considering my sad attempts at dirt biking, I was pretty nervous but I wanted to give it a try. She took me to a good beginner spot in Pacifica, called the Boy Scout trail. We walked our bikes up to the top of the trail, which had some really amazing views of Pacifica and Montara Mountain (which I intend to hike at some point as well).

Oops, did I not do anything for over a month? Anyways, my company has been nice enough to give us periodic “Friyays” where we get some Fridays off to just relax and do whatever. I wanted to get out of the house after a week of virtual chatting and staring at computer screens so I opened up my 20 State Parks in 2020 goal document and selected Butano State Park as today’s destination.

Muir Beach is situated nearby Muir Woods and Mt. Tamalpais. The beach and hiking trails were open but Muir Woods itself is currently closed. Even in June we encountered 60 degree F temperature and TONS of fog. There were still people attempting to enjoy a beach day though, and the parking lot was full. In this picture you can kind of see how many people were there. Lot’s of people in shorts and swimsuits that I felt sorry for.

California is in phase 2 of COVID recovery which is great, it means we’re at a pretty safe hospital capacity AND tracks are starting to allow trackdays again. My brother Sam is associated with Carters at the Track as an instructor so it made a lot of sense for this to be my first trackday since getting back from Texas. I can’t find any previous blog posts about trackdays, so you’ll just have to take my word for it that I’ve been doing trackdays at the pace of one a year (usually around this time of year, too) for the past four years.

It’s been a bit of a long weekend so I’ll be keeping this short. Corte de Madera Creek Preserve is open to hiking with proper social distancing. The bathrooms were closed but we didn’t end up needing them. This is another park that’s right off Skyline in Woodside, so very conveniently located. There’s actually about 30 miles of hiking trail. In my opinion the trails are pretty confusing and the map is pretty cramped.

My big news is that I relocated to San Francisco from Austin, Texas as of Monday! This really threw a wrench in my whole plan to “appreciate Texas more” but stars aligned and here I am! Kind of terrible timing, really, with Coronavirus, to be moving to the Bay Area. Anyways, since 20 parks in 2020 isn’t happening for Texas state parks, I’m shifting gears to a 20 park in California 2020 goal.

I was in the Bay Area from Thursday to Monday but I had the FLU so I’m just going to write one blog post because I was pretty much dead for the entire time. Thursday morning was when the flu hit me like a ton of bricks. I thought my head was exploding, I was sweaty and weak and had no appetite. For some hilarious reason I thought I had food poisoning, so I just popped an advil and got on the airplane and hoped for the best.