Wandering Wednesday - Skyline to the Sea Trail

We started our annual New Year's Day hike on The Skyline to the Sea trail from the parking lot of the scenic vista pullout on highway 9.  This is one of my favorite traditions that we've established as a family. It's always different combinations of family members from year to year, but we always go somewhere and hike the first day of the new year, no matter what.

It was a little cloudy but at least there wasn't any rain. This shot is one of my favorite techniques to lower the cellphone to knee height and take a picture just to see how it looks later.

This is looking out towards Monterey in the distance.

It was fairly quiet on the trail even though we were fairly close to the highway.

There were some clean-picked bones on a rock, someone had a good New Year's Eve feast.

This tree was a good balance beam for the kids to try out. We couldn't convince the gymnastics niece to do her routine (smart decision on her part). This was the other side of the highway, it didn't have big views, but was a very cool trail, very different plants like ferns, etc. and no big grassy meadows. It's all about the light in the redwood forest.

The masked up crew, minus the one niece who doesn't like taking photos. It is not fun hiking with a mask on, but I did it.

The sun came out just as we got to the end of the trail. We'd hiked about 3 miles. It was a fairly easy loop trail, not too steep which is unusual up in the mountains.

We snagged the picnic table and hung out eating snacks and laughing at the ridiculous street racers gathering at the pullout.

Little glimpses of the sea glimmering on the horizon.

The beautiful panorama. No idea what the bright blue glimmer is, maybe something on my camera lens?

We hung around just long enough to catch the beginnings of the sunset.