We had a wedding to attend to last weekend, so we headed up a day before on August 31, 2012 to
Jack London State Historic Park
. After a quick morning of packing (and the night before), I loaded up the two kids and headed toward San Francisco to pick up my husband from work. We stopped at and IHOP for lunch, because anyone with small children knows that's the place to eat when at any moment you could have two screaming babies and no one will judge you. We finally got to the park about 2:30 p.m. then realizing that the park closed at 5 p.m. We were aiming to hike 10 miles, but that wasn't going to happen due to the short park hours.
At the beginning of the trail there were a few historic buildings, as well as this beautiful vineyard that followed along the Lake Service Road until it curved around to the back where the Redwood trees are.
This trail led up to the
which was built in 1914, there really isn't a lake there; more like a marsh due to damages in the dam. People used to go swimming and fishing here. We took a little break here since the kids were getting a little antsy and the trail up to the lake was uphill. Both my husband and I had our kids in our backpack carriers, 20-40 lbs of extra weight.
We continued up Mountain Trail which led up to this opening, I think this was near the Hidden Orchard. We never found the orchard so it was well hidden.
I'm not to sure what kind of trees these are whether pines, redwoods....but I thought they were pretty. A funny mothering note: I still nurse my daughter, which is great during hiking because I don't have to worry about milk spoiling, bottles, etc. We stopped on Fallen Bridge Trail (where this picture was taken) so I could nurse my daughter. We hadn't seen anyone on the trails for a long time, so I didn't worry about covering up. Of course at that very moment a hiker walks by and sees me nursing my daughter, a little awkward.
A nice clearing on our way down the mountain.
Chasqui Mom
Here is our GPS trail map of our hike of approximately 3.88 miles, as you can see we tried to walk around the lake but there was no actual trail to go around the lake so we walked back. Here is the virtual tour of our trail:
The elevation chart, elevation gain of 469 ft.
In conclusion, this was a fun hike. We had a little hiccups such as not know the park closed earlier than we thought. Also, I made the mistake of not bringing a sweater for my daughter. Children in backpacks get cold quick since they are not walking. We stopped at the lake and warmed her up since the sun was very warm. It seemed like a short hike, but when you are hiking with children in backpack it is definitely a workout! I would definitely come here again once I'm done completing the my list of 60 Hikes in the Bay Area. Happy hiking!
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