Vicente Flats Trail

. Most of the elevation gain is in the first 3 miles. When you hit the first campground (Espinoza) around mile 3, things begin to level out.  Here's Espinoza camp:

...not very big, 2 large campsites that could fit mabye 3 tents each. It had a fire ring though and a nice stream for water about 0.25 miles up trail. 

 

     Then you head into forests of giant Redwood trees. Equally as gorgeous.

There were even snow capped mountains in the distance! 

On our way to Big Sur...

Aldo and I both had 5 days off and it was my turn to plan our trip. So here was my planned itinerary:

- leave late Thursday night and car camp at Carpenteria State Beach in Santa Barbara (supposedly one of the best places to car camp in California!
- Friday head up the coast to our campground below Big Sur (Kirk Creek Campground) and on the way explore Santa Barbara and all the other cute little coastal cities.
- Saturday head up Vicente Flats trail and stay 2 night at Vicente Flats camp
- Monday hike out and head home

Well....the forecast called for rain but I was too stubborn to call of the trip, so off we went. We left around 10 pm Thursday night and got to Santa Barbara around midnight. Apparently non- beach view campsites are $30 and beach front campsites $50. Seriously?! I could get a hotel room for that! So I tried to....and apparently no, you can't get a hotel for that. Oops. But, we discovered they have hike/bike in campsites for only $10 a person. We parked right outside the campground and "hiked" in to the campsite all of 0.1 miles (after a trip to the ATM because we forgot cash and to McDonalds for food and change). Right as we were getting our stuff together it started pouring, yuck. It was our first time using our new Big Agnes Fly Creek UL 2, and it held up like a champ in the rain all night, without a leak in sight.

The beach at the campground

     The next morning we woke up to sunshine and warm weather. We explored Santa Barbara, had brunch at a great little place called Crush Cafe (super yummy!) and then wandered over to the Santa Barabara historic courthouse where you can go to the top and get a great view of the city. Gorgeous place! Plus I got to see a wedding party getting pictures taken....always love that for some reason. 

Santa Barbara Courthouse

     Then to El Presidio which is an old military fort. Neat to walk around since I have never been to one, but according to Aldo it's where you go on field trips in elementary school when you grow up in California haha.

    Then up to Solvang (after a quick Goodwill run) ....which we thought was kind of overrated and spent a total of about 30 minutes there. 

    Then to Pismo Beach for a quick spin on the sand....

   Next we made a quick stop in San Luis Obispo trying to find a map for our hike...no such luck. But San Luis Obispo was cute.  Then saw the elephant seals...

  

     Then up highway 1 some more on our way to the campground. Here's where I failed miserably as a planner....I had no idea how rural Hwy 1 is. I assumed we could get to the campground, the run to the grocery to grab something to grab for dinner. Hahahahha....nope! There is nada around that area. So we found a little resort where we grabbed over priced snacks, $5.50 /gallon gas, and overpriced dinner complete with moldy bread ( in their defense they gave up a free appetizer, and the dinner was yummy). Then on up to Kirk Creek Campground. 

    The whole way up we kept seeing signs about a landslide up ahead....and boy did we luck out. The road was closed literally right in front of our campground. Any further and we would have been left looking for a new place to sleep. 

    We set up camp, went to sleep, and woke up to rain (cue depressing music).

     We decided to nix our plans to start our hike because by the time we were finished with breakfast (pancakes on the grill from the back of the Subie!) I was cold and tired of being wet. And it was a torrential downpour, so we were concerned about trail conditions and possible additional landslides. So we spent most of the day being bored, and frustrated from not being able to hike. We drove all the way back to San Luis Obispo and had lunch, studied a bit at a coffee shop (which Aldo looooved [that's sarcasm]).  We tried to make the best of it, but it was just a crummy weather day. By early evening though the weather cleared, and we drove back up Hwy 1 to the campground just in time for a beautiful sunset. 

   This saved the day for us and totally made up for the crappy rain and change of plans. We enjoyed a dinner of BBQ from the trusty Coleman stove, and headed to bed full and happy. We actually decided Kirk Creek Campground is by far our favorite car camping spot...I mean...look at it!  

Next up...we finally get to backpack!!

Welcome!

     Welcome to our first blog!! First off, why the name? Well we saw some banana slugs while hiking up around Big Sur and thought they were a little disgusting, but crazy cool at the same time. But Banana Slugs.blogspot.com was taken (apparently they're the mascot for UC Santa Cruz.....who picked that mascot?!?!). So, on to bananas. I only eat bananas when they're green, and Aldo only eats them when they're old and spotted (eww), so.....we got greenspottedbananaslugs.blogspot.com!!!

       Now, why are we blogging? While we were hiking, we were talking about how it would be neat to have a place to expand on all of our adventures a little bit more. We hike/backpack often, and after a while, they can tend to all blend together. So we thought a blog might be a good place to chronicle each hike in more detail.  Plus it will allow family and friends to get a better description of our hikes and will be great to look back on after a few years and have a journal of all things outdoors. I had previously just been uploading pictures to facebook, but always felt like it left out a lot....people would see the pictures, but it was hard to convey all the other factors that made each trip memorable. Plus, I was starting to have entirely too many facebook photo albums. 
     So we will start with our most recent trip up Hwy 1 to Big Sur. Then slowly start going back to past trips and maybe throw in a few gear reviews here and there. Enjoy!