Purisima Creek Trail to Craig Britton Trail

Welcome to Travel Tuesday! If you’re looking for a nice shaded hike for the summer that isn’t too strenuous, the Purisima Creek Trail to Craig Britton Trail is a great one to check out in the bay area!

Distance: 3.5 miles (out + back)
Elevation: 1095ft elevation gain
Difficulty: Easy to Moderate
Duration: ~2 hours
Trailhead Address: Redwood Trail, Half Moon Bay, CA 94019
Parking: Limited

The trails closer to where we live are mostly exposed and it was pretty hot, so we figured we’d venture out to another part of the bay last summer!

This trail features coastal redwoods (one of the oldest trees in the world!) – they were the dominant trees in the northern hemisphere back when dinosaurs were still around! Now, they’re (sadly) only found on the west coast.

We saw a few mountain bikers along the trail here and it looks like a lot of people use it for trail running as well! It’s a downhill-then-back-uphill type of trail. Most of the trail is pretty wide so there’s plenty of space for both hikers and bikers alike.

Be careful of where you step! You might come across banana slugs while you’re on the trail! Since they’re so bright in color, they’re pretty hard to miss. We learned about em’ back in the days of science camp — they are so named because of their bright color, just in case you were wondering.

If you go here in the spring, there are usually more wildflowers to be seen! Since we came in the summer, we enjoyed mostly the shaded forest and the river. (Non-exposed trails are glorious in the summer heat!)

• Have you ever seen a banana slug?
• What are your favorite summer hikes?