Hiking is one of my favorite ways to clear my head, enjoy nature and practice mindfulness. I always consider it time well spent as I'm trekking up a mountain, feeling the breeze, and taking in the scenery, and every time I reach the peak, I do so with a grateful heart. (source) However, just as with everything in life, sometimes hikes don't go exactly as planned. This was the case last weekend, when I set out to try hiking a new trail: Monserate Mountain in the nearby town of Fallbrook. Sometimes when hikes don't go exactly as planned, it's because I get lost while I'm actually hiking; other times I get lost trying to get to the trail itself. The latter was the case last Saturday. One of the challenges of finding new hikes is figuring out how to actually get there, since I find ... [Read More]
hikes
Hiking at Pinnacles National Park // Paicines, CA
A couple of weekends ago, my hubby and I wanted to go hiking at a new spot. At first we were looking to head towards San Fran, but once we saw what the traffic was looking like that morning, we decided against it. Instead, we went the opposite direction and journeyed south to Pinnacles National Park. The park is named after the sky-pointed spires you can find all over that are the eroded leftovers of an extinct volcano. After driving through windy countryside roads for about an hour and arriving at the park, we paid the entrance fee at the visitor center and planned out our route. We decided to hike the Condor Gulch Trail, about a 5 1/2 mile loop with 1,300+ feet in elevation change. The weather was pretty mild at home, and was definitely warmer in Paicines where the park is ... [Read More]
A Sunday Adventure: Three Sisters Waterfall Hike // Descanso, CA
When I found out a few weeks ago that my hubby and I will be moving out of the San Diego area very soon, I started thinking about the things we haven't done yet here that I want to experience. That's why last weekend we did a whale watching cruise, and today we did the Three Sisters Waterfall Hike. Three Sisters Falls is located in a town called Descanso, around 50 miles from where we live. To get there, we had to drive through very rural areas and back roads where we saw more animals than people. We rode on a very windy, bumpy dirt road for awhile with just a few ranches and hardly any other cars, and we weren't so sure that we were going the right way. I had written down directions before we left, knowing that cell service would be spotty - which is totally was - and man, it made me ... [Read More]