Today Emily and I hiked 7.7 miles with Ruby at Purisima Creek Redwoods Open Space Preserve. From Skyline Blvd at an elevation of 2,000ft down to Purisima Creek Rd at an elevation of 430ft, and back. You can see info about the hike on Strava. The “Flyby” viewer is cool—you can press the play button and see a replay.
Purisima Creek Redwoods OSP is in the Santa Cruz Mountains between San Mateo and the Pacific Ocean. There are redwood trees, creeks, ferns, lots of valleys, and a few views of the ocean. The trails we took were mostly shaded. It’s a nice place, though the trails do have quite a bit of elevation change.
This was the third hike we’ve done with Ruby. The other two were shorter, at Water Dog Lake Park in Belmont (hike 1, hike 2). Ruby can’t walk yet (come on, Ruby! get with the program!) so I’ve been carrying her on my chest in a Babybjörn. She weighs around 12 pounds and the Babybjörn adds another pound or two. We look like this:
She seems pretty happy in there. It’s snug and padded and warm next to my chest. She mostly either sleeps or looks at all the green. We cover her head and arms with a blanket when we’re in the sun.
Today we both wore hiking packs and CamelBaks. I carried our three legged camping stools and we stopped twice to feed Ruby and eat. We did one diaper change… we probably should have done two. With our food water, stools, and baby supplies my pack was around 20 pounds and Emily’s was 10 or 15.
Toro didn’t join us today. Although he does enjoy spending time outdoors with us, the length and steepness of this hike would have been hard for him.
We had a good time and got a great workout.