Portola Redwoods State Park

I just spent a fantastic weekend camping at the Portola Redwoods state park. The park is about 45 minutes north-west of San Jose, in the Santa Cruz mountains and has some of the tallest redwoods that are up to 300 feet (100m) tall.


I guess it's a good thing that camping is not backpacking - we were able to park our cars right at the campsite. This, of course, lends itself to bringing all kinds of luxury items. Mostly food (especially cold beers) and for me personally my new air mattress. I never slept better in a tent :)

We left the comfort of our campsite on Saturday (after "sleeping in") to embark on a 13-mile hike to Peters Creek Grove. The trail was perfect, mostly covered by tall trees for shade and very beautiful. Despite excellent directions (you've read them, right?), we managed to get lost a little bit, so I guess we ended up doing 14 miles total.

The long hike had profound effects on some people
Olivia and Erica in a large redwood
Olivia and Geoff battling for the right of passage
The hike took almost seven hours and it was good to get back to camp and have a few chilled beverages. We were also able to wash of all the dirt and dust in the showers and gladly did so before the campsite lost its water supply Saturday night.

Axel and Olivia
Erica stirring up the fire
After packing everything up on Sunday morning, some of us decided to go for another short walk along the creek. Miriam, Florian and Axel stopped to hang out at the shore, while Ysaaca, Kike and I pressed on for a bigger loop.

Miriam
The creek
Kike and Ysaaca