The girls and I headed south to the east side of Big Sur, through the Salinas Valley to Arroyo Seco (Dry dry riverbed).
I have been wanting to explore the area for a while as it is not too far away (2hrs) but is pretty rugged. As usual with campsites in this area, they are reserved a year in advance on weekends, so we took out chances on a car-camping spot with Plan B being a backpack up the canyon.
As you can see, we were able to get a spot in the primitive camping area with some no-shows.
Sienna and Page were very excited to help me setup the tent.
We then walked down to the day use area of the river for a swim. The day use area is so popular that cars line up from 6am on weekend mornings, and they close the gates by 9am when the area gets full. Most families setup for the day with grills, shades, and tables. The attraction is some nice pools with rocks to jump off. Both the girls swam with me over the pool to a rock and jumped in.
After we walked back to the campsite, we were able to make a fire (for once!) and cooked up a simple pasta dish, followed by toasted marshmallows.
Half the fun of camping is sleeping bags.
On Sunday morning, I decided to try some other places to swim, down the gorge.
It was a 3km walk down a trail, then a technical (ropes) descent down to our own set of rockpools. Page named them Pool 1, Pool 2, Pool 3, and Pool 4. We spent most time in Pool 2.
On the way down, we found some discarded noodles which helped us swim around the deep pools. The girls had fun at the “resort”, playing with their Pet Shops, rolling in the sand, losing Pet Shops, rescuing Pet Shops.
We had the pools to ourselves for a little while and then were joined by some other hikers including our neighbours from the campsite.
Page was very brave, jumping off a high rock into the pool. She even saw a crayfish.
What fun!
The kids roped down too?
Priceless images