Pfeiffer Falls, Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park, March 2022 More than 12 years after suffering significant damage in the 2008 Basin Complex Fire, the Pfeiffer Falls Trail in California’s Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park reopened for the first time in June 2021. The new and improved route—with its fresh boardwalks, staircases, and bridges—is an impressive …
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Fern Creek Trail, Muir Woods National Monument, April 2021 Sure the towering California redwoods are lovely, but Muir Woods National Monument on the Marin Peninsula has become almost comically crowded, mobbed by throngs of locals and visitors to the San Francisco Bay Area alike. Visitors must now have advance reservations to park at the main …
Continue reading Fern Creek – Dipsea – Sun Trail Loop (Muir Woods National Monument, CA)
Upper Salmon Creek Falls, Silver Peak Wilderness, February 2021 The Silver Peak Wilderness covers 31,555 acres of the Santa Lucia Range along the central coast of California between Monterey and Cambria. Hikers can explore the heart of the wilderness area by combining the Buckeye, Cruikshank, and Salmon Creek Trails for a 15-mile circuit that covers …
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James Irvine Trail, Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, January 2021 If ever there was a premier, unforgettable hike in northern California’s Redwood National Park, this is it. The Miner’s Ridge – James Irvine Trail Loop combines long stretches of spectacular redwood groves with a brief jaunt along the Pacific Ocean at Gold Bluffs Beach and …
Boy Scout Tree Trail, Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park, January 2021 Together with nearby Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, northern California’s Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park contains arguably the most spectacular groves of coast redwoods in the world. Nearly the entire park, bounded by the Smith River to the north and the town of Crescent …
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Moderate loop hike through redwood-covered Phleger Estate and Huddart County Park on the San Francisco Peninsula.
The Steep Ravine – Matt Davis Trail Loop in California’s Mount Tamalpais State Park is a longer and more popular variant of the Steep Ravine – Dipsea Trail Loop (described in an April 2015 post). Though not as expansive as the views along the upper reaches of Dipsea, the sunny seaside vistas from the Matt …
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The redwood groves of Muir Woods National Monument, while lovely, have a people problem. Within a half-mile radius of the park’s tiny visitor center, there are scores and scores of visitors. Yet the western stretches of the park—or better yet, the areas belonging to Mount Tamalpais State Park that surround Muir Woods—solitude and wildness are …
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The San Francisco Bay Area in northern California is a fantastic launching point for redwood hunters, with accessible groves of these mesmerizing trees within an hour and a half both north and south of the Golden Gate. While the largest groves lie further north, the Santa Cruz Mountains between the Bay Area and Santa Cruz …
Continue reading Purisima Creek Redwoods Loop (Purisima Creek Redwoods Open Space Preserve, CA)
Once one of the area’s best kept secrets, Stout Grove in California’s Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park is now one of California’s most popular redwood groves. Even the crowds cannot ruin the beauty, however, of this cathedral-like forest, a dense cluster of towering sentinels that casts a dark shadow over a lush understory. In late …
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Live and Let Hike 