Visiting Northern California, I decided to make a day trip to Point Lobos. It’s a California state park. It costs $10 per car ($9 for seniors). You can go day hiking but no camping, no dogs, and no bikes. The roads are very well paved with nice, modern bathrooms at the major parking lots and trailheads. All the trails are very well maintained with ropes as guides. The park is open from 8am to 7pm with the last entry at 6:30pm. Honestly, it’s all super easy, little to no elevation, made for the average, older tourist hikes. Gorgeous though. For more information, visit http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=571.
If you enter the reserve and keep driving straight down, the first parking lot you’ll hit as a nice little volunteer park ranger stand set-up with souvenirs and information. The map below shows the park entrance on the right and the “YOU ARE HERE” at a parking lot. If that parking lot is full, just keep driving to the next lot.
I did the Sand Hill Trail, South Shore Trail, Cypress Grove Trail (around the Allan Memorial Grove), Old Veteran trail, North Shore Trail, Whalers Knoll Trail, Pine Ridge Trail, Mound Meadow Trail, and the Bird Island Trail. All those trails was only 6.35mi total so a bunch of little short trails.
The most beautiful of them all is the Cypress Grove Trail and it’s great how the North Shore Trail is quite different from the South Shore Trail. Obviously the inland Pine Ridge Trail, Whalers Knoll, Mound Meadow Trail are all forest and grassland with no water so those aren’t as beautiful.
 North Shore |
 Cypress |
