Archie Hikes Garrapata

I realized I’ve been doing our weekly Adventures With Archie posts for Monterey Bay Parent Magazine for 15 months now. 😃 Of course, our father-son adventures together started long before that. They began as an absolute necessity to get Archie out of the house so his night shift working mama could sleep peacefully during the day when he was a young toddler. He can now let his mother sleep in peace even when we’re home, but our outdoor adventures still continue. We’ve explored so much of the peninsula together and there’s always more to discover!

A cold hit our house recently, so we’ve been staying home a lot and away from people this week. Archie has spent a lot of time resting and watching cartoons while he recovers, but we also went for a hike to balance out the screen time and get some fresh air.

The Soberanes Canyon Trail at Garrapata State Park in Carmel-by-the-Sea is one of our favorite hikes. There’s so much landscape and vegetation variety along the trail and it is gently sloped making it easy for kids. We like to hike up to a little “fort” in the redwoods and have a snack before heading back.

Archie insisted on making a map before we left in case we got lost, so we drew one up together. He also packed his compass and whistle because he’s a very serious outdoorsman. 😆 We like to count the wildlife we see along the way and on this hike we sighted 22 lizards, 11 butterflies, 2 dragonflies, and one grasshopper. What are some of your favorite kid-friendly hikes?