This weekend I got together with some friends and headed down to Big Basin State Park to go camping for the weekend. We headed down on Friday, taking our time by going down Hwy 1 (beautiful coastal drive) and stopping for lunch (Burrito Friday!) in Moss Beach, then going through Pescadero and visiting Harley Farms Goat Dairy (awesome!). From there we wound our way in to Big Basin and secured our 2 camping spots, which turned out to be fantastic. We got a pair of walk-in spots right next to each other, all the way in the back of the available sites (away from the parking lots/noisy people).

Apart from all the awesome food we ate (we really ate like kings!), we went on a most excellent hike on Saturday that wound up (for Rick and I) being around 11.5 miles. Here’s very very roughly what it looked like (I recorded a few waypoints using MotionX-GPS, then pieced this together on Google Maps):

View Big Basin/Berry Creek Falls in a larger map

We all (Rick, Tony, Alli and I) set off from the same parking spot (P) and headed out on the South line (Hihn Hammond Road). We rose through some elevation and had a series of walks out along ridges that put us in the full sun where it felt almost like being in the desert (but with occasional views of the ocean!). Once we got down again and met up with the Skyline to the Sea Trail, we got back to Berry Creek Falls and stopped for some lunch. At that point Tony and Alli headed back along that trail to the park headquarters, while Rick and I continued North, then turned East to come back to the same place via Skyline Trail. We got to see another 2 (smaller) sets of waterfalls, and had a pretty tough hike back which we really powered through.

That night we ate some massive burgers and then had the luxury of a shower. Some warmer water would have been nice, but just getting the grime and sweat of the day off was quite the treat. This morning we got up, broke camp and headed back to the city via Skyline Boulevard.

Here are a few snaps from the weekend: