One of the destinations that has been on our list for a while is the newly-designated Pinnacles National Park (formerly Pinnacles National Monument), located southeast of Salinas and a two-plus-hour (and not very pleasant) drive from Pismo Beach. There are a number of trails that criss-cross the park, but the highlight in just about everyone’s…
We’ve been trying to increase the distances of our hikes, and especially in light of yesterday’s shortened walk up the Adobe Trail, we needed to do something comparatively long. We had first thought of an Oats Peak/Coon Creek loop in Montana de Oro when planning the Valencia Peak Excellent Adventure in 2011, and we had…
About 30 minutes east of Santa Maria on Hwy 166 is the Adobe Trailhead, a sign we had driven past dozens of times on our way to and from Pismo Beach. We had seen hikers on the trail a couple of times, but information about the trail has proved elusive; however, Chris finally found…
Our daughter and two grandsons joined us for the weekend in Pismo, so we decided to just do one hike this trip instead of our usual two. After contemplating doing Bishop Peak again and some other options, we settled on Johnson Ranch, a 200+ acre open space preserve located along Hwy 101 just south…
Back at Pismo Beach for the weekend, we wanted to get two hikes in. Rainy weather on Friday forced up to postpone our plans for that day, so our first excursion of the weekend was hiking up Hazard Peak in Montana de Oro State Park. In times past, a popular trail ran straight up the…
On the way out of the Gaviota Peak parking lot, we thought we should make a short detour to visit nearby Nojoqui Falls, an 80-foot waterfall that looked impressive enough to warrant the short 0.6 mile hike to see it. We found the trailhead easily enough, located a couple of miles east of Hwy 101…
Wow, what a day! Gaviota Peak had been on our to-do list for some time, and we decided it was time to make the one-hour drive down from Pismo to take it on. The peak itself is the westernmost summit of a long ridge towering over Hwy 101 along the coast west of Santa…
Expecting to hike Gaviota Peak near Santa Barbara tomorrow, we were looking for something a little longer than yesterday’s 2.8 miles but not something too strenuous – we settled on the Mariposa Trail in the Irish Hills south of San Luis Obispo, from which we could reach a summit called Morro View that would…
While staying for President’s Day week in Pismo Beach, we decided to finally get some hiking in. Jane got some new boots, so we decided to keep things simple and short the first time out so she could break them in. South of the city of Los Osos is the Morro Dunes Ecological Reserve,…
We had had to postpone our annual Labor Day hike due to our daughter, Chelsea’s, pending labor of her own, but we still managed to get over to Pismo for a few days later that week. We had been contemplating a number of hiking options in the area and, having driven down south to Solvang…