Currently based in NYC.

San Francisco

Published: at 03:22 PMSuggest Changes

I spent Summer 2023 interning and living in San Francisco, and spent as much of my time as possible exploring the area, including lots of the nature. 72 miles of hiking in total. Living weekend to weekend!

Each one of these sections was a weekend or day trip.

Point Reyes ⛅️

🥾 Alamere Falls via Coast Trail from Palomarin Trailhead

Yosemite National Park 🏞

One of my absolute favorite National Parks I’ve visited! Incredible facilities and hikes… though it can get crowded over the summer and require some more planning. I took two trips out there Summer 2023, doing Half Dome and Upper Yosemite Falls, both as day hikes.

Yosemite Trip 1:

🥾 Half Dome, 18.9 miles, 5427 ft, 8h 38m

I entered the three day in advance lottery for a Sunday day hike in late June and luckily won first try! This lottery can be entered through recreation.gov, and there’s also an option to enter the lottery months in advance.

Excitedly, I was able to convince four of my intern friends to join me on the sudden trip… We left on the preceding Saturday and checked into the Days Inn in Merced. Wake up call at 3:00am, 1.5 hour drive to get to the trailhead right before sunrise. Definitely recommend getting there as early as possible as the lot fills up and it’s nice having the Mist Trail to yourselves! It was getting light out enough to be able to see the falls clearly, but we unfortunately forwent the ponchos and got soaked.

It took us 8h 38m to complete the logged 18.9 miles. We all brought work gloves with us for the cables, which were certainly terrifying, but so worth it! The hike down was definitely a bit somber, but a lot quicker, and most of the crowds from the day had also dissapated by the time we were down.

Having work the next day, we drove straight back to SF (which was very exhausting would not recommend!). Not sure if I’ll be doing this hike again anytime soon, but I’d love to get back up there someday.

Tips 💡

Yosemite Trip 2:

🥾 Upper Yosemite Falls, 6.5miles, 3248ft, 4h 21m

Did this hike in late July; 2023 had one of the best years (ever) for water flow in the falls, so I’m so glad I got to see it! Had a lovely stay in an Airbnb (w/ a hottub!) and got the park right before sunrise again. We stopped by Tunnel View on our way in, but got impatient and left so missed the peak of the sunrise. This trail is super steep and the switchbacks are frequent. Water was so, so important as the second half of the trail got to be a lot less unshaded. We passed several people who seemed like they were running out of water.

Tenaya Lake

We were hoping to cool off after our Yosemite Falls trail, but after driving to this section of the park, the temperatures cooled down significantly, so the lake was a tad bit too cold. We swam for a bit, but decided to head back after a not long.

Tahoe 🚤

Huge lake for all sorts of recreational activities on the California/Nevada border. I planned a big trip of ~20 people across two Airbnbs in West Lake Tahoe. As with Yosemite, the crowds at Tahoe were also pretty bad over the weekend so knowing things ahead was definitely useful! We left SF on Friday to get there in the evening.

🥾 Shirley Canyon Trail 4.33 mi, 2083ft, 2h 30m

Nice trail passing many terrains, got to see a good bit of snow at the top which was cool! A very beautiful lake at the top. The trail is adjacent to a ski resort, so we decided to not go back and go off trail a bit and try to hike to the cable car to take it down (further than it looks). The cable car costs money to go up, but down is completely free!

Beaches

While we went hiking, another group rented kayaks from the Emerald Bay State Park Vikingsholm Area. We grabbed lunch at the Burger Lounge

Knowing that the famous Sand Harbor Beach’s parking would fill up early, we opted for another option and headed to Nevada Beach. Still difficult to find parking, but possible (with a longer walk).

Renting a boat

The next day, we rented boats to drive on our own on the lake, which I would highly recommend! We booked from Camp Richardson Resort & Marina a 27’ Sea Ray Boat for 4 hours and rented out a tube as well. The best way to see the lake and go swimming!

Big Sur 🏕️

A lovely coastal area in California. I spent a weekend here backpacking!

🥾 Sykes Hot Springs via Pine Ridge Trail, 14.2 mi, 3662 ft, 6h 8m

This trail is a very well-marked trail for backpacking, and we found it perfect for our late start, as we didn’t get there until around 2pm. We were pretty worried about the parking situation from our research, but luckily a spot opened up as we arrived. Mid-July the weather in the area was pretty brutal, so definitely needed lots of water and sunscreen. Lots of fresh water refill spots, so a water filter was a must.

We ended up stopping before reaching the hot springs, since it was getting dark and we were very hot, and a cold bath sounded much nicer than a hot spring! There’s a camp at Barlow flats where there’s a nice swimming hole where we got to get in the water. I personally suffered from many, many, many mosquito bites (though my group did not) even with applying DEET.

Driving the coast Stop by Bixby Bridge and the many pull-offs, the views are spectacular!

Kings Canyon & Sequoia National Park 🌳

Visited these parks over a weekend with my family. We stopped by Napa Valley first and did a wine tasting at the St. Francis Winery. I would definitely recommend booking ahead, but we were able to book this particular winery day of. Though not one of the most popular or economical, this was such a lovely experience, as each wine also came with a food pairing! Sharing the space with only a few other guests also made the experience a bit more enhancing.

We headed straight down to Sequoia National Park to spend the night at the John Muir Lodge. Very convenient accommodations/food here.

🥾 Moro Rock A very popular site for some expansive mountaintop views, cool trail up to the top carved through the rock.

🥾 Congress Trail, 2.1 mi, 308ft, 1h5m

Big paved trail, lots of people here to see the General Sherman Tree. There’s also a loop that goes around more trees, but we skipped it to make it to the next trail.

🥾 Tokopah Falls, 3.9 mi, 600 ft, 2h 3m

This hike was awesome, kind of like a mini Yosemite valley and the trail follows the stream up to a sizeable waterfall!

🥾 General Grant Trail, 1.3 mi, 115ft, 44m

On Day 2, we hit this trail bright and early, small loop trail, there’s a tree you can go inside.

🥾 Big Stump Loop, 1.7mi, 223ft, 57m

This was probably my second favorite hike! Lots of big stumps. Pretty quiet trail near the entrance of the park.

A lot of Kings Canyon was closed during our trip from snow, so we didn’t make it too far up the road.

General Tahoe and Yosemite lived up to the hype and were still worth braving the summer crowds! If staying in the city, Zipcar and Gigcar were very convenient for weekend trips.