Hiking Boat Canyon at Laguna Coast Wilderness Park

Happy Friday!

Any fun plans for the weekend? Speaking of the weekend, today I want to back it up to last weekend and talk about my latest hiking adventure – which took me up to the Laguna Beach area. 

With my hubby working for the Marine Corps all weekend and no plans on my agenda, I declared last Saturday a hiking day! I invited my cousin Michelle to meet me for an outdoor workout together. She lives in Long Beach, and I live in Northern San Diego County, so we decided to try to meet up somewhere in between us. The Laguna Coast Wilderness Park seemed like a perfect halfway point, with it being 45-60 minutes from each of us.

We decided on hiking a trail called Boat Canyon – which is described as a strenuous workout by local hiking websites. I wanted to get a real workout in, and this trail did not disappoint as a heart pounding sweat session! We parked on Dartmoor Street and began at the trailhead at the end of the road.

Immediately I was in awe of the beautiful views! We had the Pacific as our backdrop for most of the hike, and it was a perfect day for hiking weather-wise – in the low 70s and mostly sunny.

I drove up to Laguna Beach along the coast, and when I got into the area, I was struck by its beauty right away. Southern California as a whole is just so gorgeous, and I feel blessed that my life has taken me to this wonderful area.

There were a good amount of people out and about hiking and running the trail, but nothing too crazy. Neither of us brought our pups because they aren’t allowed at the park, but it worked out because the 8+ mile hike probably would have been too much for both of our dogs.

The trail has some junctions where you can turn off onto different trails, but I followed the directions that I found on the SoCal Hiker website here. Once we continued up the Boat Road trail for awhile, we hit a junction where we turned left down Bommer Ridge.

Next we took the first right down the steep Big Bend Trail, which takes you almost all the way down to sea level. It gets pretty steep there, and we passed some bikers heading the opposite way walking their bikes up the trail. I told them that they were brave, as I don’t think that I’m fearless enough to bike on such an elevated, rocky trail!

Once we had descended almost back to street level and saw a road and parking area ahead, we took a right to get on the trail that parallels Laguna Canyon Road. We took it back towards the coast before turning back uphill on the steep Laguna Ridge Trail. We even saw some pretty autumn foliage happening. See, we have seasons here! 🙂

Heading back up the Laguna Ridge Trail is where we ran into a bit of a roadblock: a snake in the middle of the trail!

As much as I hike, I probably should know more about snakes…. but I pretty much am scared of them all and jump around screaming like a nut when I see one. Michelle and I tried to throw rocks near him to get him to move, and I even was brave enough to poke him with a stick – all to no avail. This went on for a good 10 minutes before the snake moving his tongue at me but not budging was enough for me to find an alternate route around the actual trail. You win, buddy! Stay where you’re at, no problem. 

Going up the trail here to reach the peak was the toughest part of the hike. Whew, it was quite a workout! We were huffing and puffing and even ceased our chitchat for a few to catch our breath as we ascended up the trail…

…but we made it! We were so happy to reach the top. The views the entire time were awesome, but there’s something just awesome about knowing that you reached the highest point.

And then it was time to head back! The thing about out-and-back trails is that where you’ve had an easy time descending on the way out, you have to trek up on the way back after you’re fatigued, and it took a bit of motivating to hike our tired butts up some of the hills. We kept joking, saying, “This is the LAST one!” as we trekked upwards yet again.

We came to the junction we had come up on our way out, and headed left on Boat Road to come back down the same way we came in. By online accounts, the hike is 8.2 miles with an almost 2,800 foot elevation gain.

It took us 3 1/2 hours to complete the hike. Boat Canyon was an awesome workout, and we both felt pretty drained after the hike. It’s a great workout to take in the beauty that is Southern California, and it’s a good one for locals that live closer to the coast and don’t feel like driving inland for some mountainous terrain (which you often have to do in SoCal). I would love to hike it again sometime!

Tell me… Do you have any upcoming fun workout plans? Hiking, biking, or running – which do you choose? 

(Hiking all the way baby!)