Girl Power

Look at those smiles on our faces. We were three girls about to head out into the mountains by ourselves and do our first backpacking trip without boys (and for some of us first time backpacking…ever). We were pretty stoked. This all started when Rebecca and I started hiking together. We were having so much fun going on hikes every weekend that I said, why not try backpacking. Of course Rebecca was on board. So we started planning. We thought since this was a first time trip for some and a….its been awhile for others (me) that we should take it easy, short hike, close location and not to desolate. 

Point Reyes was the perfect location for us. After doing some research and being able to book the last spot available it was meant to be. We decided that we would leave Santa Rosa at about 7:00 in the morning, grab some breakfast and get to the visitors center hopefully around 8:30-9:00ish. We figured with about 25lb packs that it would take us a few hours to hike into our site and anyone who was there before us had till noon to be gone.

We arrived at the visitor center….well probably a little later then we had hoped but still, we were there. Our dear friend Stephanie was out late the night before so we let her sleep in the car while Rebecca and I headed in to get our permit. The man who gave us all of our information was an interesting fellow. He was very informative though.  While we were there they mentioned that Arch Rock was closed due to a rock slide. I didn't really think a thing of it until we returned from our trip and found out that people had died from that rock slide. So sad.

We got back to the car, put our packs on and off we went! We had already mapped out which trails we were going to take to get to our campsite. It would be a total of 6 miles. The forecast was calling for possible rain. As we hiked we were thankful for the cool weather because we heated up quickly lugging those big packs around.

The scenery was gorgeous! As we weaved through the trees it almost felt like we were in the jungle. Everything was so green. It reminded us of Jurassic Park. At one point it felt like it might be raining but because we were under the large trees they were only large rain drops that were very sporadic. About halfway into the hike…maybe a little more we finally came out onto the bluffs and could see the ocean. It was so beautiful. It seemed as though we had also found the sun and blue skies as well! 

After hiking up hill it was now back down to the beach to find our campsite. When we finally arrived we were a little surprised. For getting the last camp available we were the ONLY people there. I thought it was a little strange but maybe people were a little worried about the rain in the forecast. We found our site, #12 and it was time to set up our tents. We had a minor issue because Rebecca had a new tent that she had never set up and I was completely forgetting how to set mine up. We worked through it though. Once we figured things out it was time to cook some lunch and on the menu was our freeze dried chicken fajita mix and tortillas! They actually turned out to be quite good.  

When lunch was done we thought we would go explore. We started hiking and then realized that it would probably start to get dark by the time we wanted to head back to camp so we turned around. Our new plan was to take our wine down to the beach and watch the sunset.  Well there wasn't much of a sunset with the fog coming in but we were still able to enjoy our wine and watch the whales! Before we knew it, it was already time to start dinner. We were all hungry so we decided to cook our chicken teriyaki with rice and mac and cheese….cause why not? So we ate, and ate and ate.  Now it was dark and with no camp fires allowed it was time to head to bed.  It was a good thing we did because not long after we got into our tents the rain came!  Throughout the night I would wake up by the sound of rain. It was really coming down. 

The next morning we woke up to no more rain.  We also woke up to the trash from the raccoons breaking into the raccoon bin and stealing everything! All our granola bars, nuts and oatmeal, gone.  Well nothing sounded better then to pack up camp, hike out and get ourselves some FOOD. And thats exactly what we did. 

We pretty much booked it out of there.  It probably only took us about 2 and half hours to hike back out.  And by the end of our hike we were really starting to feel everything, the sorness, the blisters and the tiredness. We made it back to the car for one final after picture and then it was off to get FOOD!

I felt so accomplished and proud that we were able to do this. There is no better feeling. Thanks ladies for making this trip with me! I will never forget all the memories we made. Until next time.