Living in California is truly amazing. Last Saturday, my friends and I hopped in the car at 6am and drove a few hours down the coast to Big Sur for the weekend.
We dropped in at Bottchers Gap and hiked down a road to Boy Scout camp. The camp area wasn’t being used but we got to see where all the boy scouts stay when they visit Big Sur! Very cool. Then we followed the Little Sur trail to make our way to our campsite.
The surrounding was unreal. So green and lush!
The trail was a little challenging due to fallen trees from a big fire that happened a while ago but it was actually a lot of fun hopping over tree trunks and pushing branches aside.
Sometimes the redwood trunks were so big we had to help each other get over them or even throw our packs to the other side before climbing over ourselves.
We crossed the river at least 20 times to stay on the trail because it kept stopping and starting up again on the opposite side of the bank. Luckily, the water level was pretty low so we could rock hop our way across. We got pretty good at rock hopping by the end of the trip :)
The weather was perfect last weekend! We actually didn’t even use a tent and just slept on tarps!
After about 8 miles of walking, we got to camp (located in a grove of giant redwood trees…amazing, right?). We dropped our packs off and headed up the river to find the circular pools. It took a lot of convincing from the boys but eventually we all jumped in the water and swam to the waterfall!
As hot as we were from hiking all day, the water was still pretty cold!!! We lasted about 10 minutes. But it was totally WORTH IT! Then we tried to get to the next circular pool but the trail was impassable so we turned around and headed back to camp.
Can we talk about dehydrated camping food for a sec here? The kind where you just add hot water, zip up the pouch, and then let it cook in the bag for 10 minutes? Um, it’s delicious!!! We had chicken and rice, and then for dessert we ate a raspberry crumble.
I’m telling you, I’d like to get some of those packets for my pantry so I can eat them at home from time to time. Is that weird????
The next day, we got up, packed up camp, and headed out. We stopped at a dam on the way back and ate lunch. Packets of tuna and crackers…SO tasty and the perfect energy boost for the last leg of the hike!
The last part of the hike was probably the most intense. We walked uphill for over an hour straight in the hot, hot heat. Oh, we felt the burn!
But it was so much fun. Overall, we hiked about 17 miles last weekend. I can’t express how beautiful Big Sur was. We all had such a great time!
And below was our view on the drive back last Sunday. Not too shabby right?
We also made a pit stop in Monterey for dinner and ended up ordering, um, about half the menu…whoops!!! :) So delicious and a perfect end to the weekend.
Happy Friday! I hope you guys have a great weekend!! :)
[Note: All of the awesome group photos were taken by Sheeter!]
