We’re back! After a little hiatus to welcome in the next generation of Parks & Lex, I decided I needed to celebrate the National Park Service Centennial in 2016 by visiting at least one NPS site each month this year. Of course, making this resolution the last week in January with a three-month-old at home (and with “Super Bowl City” potentially disrupting traffic in/through San Francisco) didn’t leave me too many options. But, it turns out that the southernmost portion of Golden Gate National Recreation Area is practically in my backyard in San Mateo County at Phleger Estate.
The estate, which was turned into a park in 1995, is a second-growth redwood forest with creeks running through it. There are a limited number of trails: two leading in from either edge connecting to a loop in the far corner. The directions to access the park suggest entering via Huddart Park, which connects to the Miramontes Trail. We opted to enter from Skyline Blvd., parking at the Purisima Creek parking area and walking to the Estate via the Skyline trail, which 
parallels the road. It’s about a half mile to Phleger Estate and another half mile to Kings Mountain. From there, we turned down the Lonely Trail. Once we turned away from the road, the trail was quite quiet –lonely, if you will — other than the occasional airplane overhead. The Lonely Trail then heads down the hillside, eventually meeting up with the other trails.
Since this was my first time hiking with the baby (on the outside), we went another half mile to the creek and turned around, trying to pace ourselves for the walk back up the hill. I think it was about a 500-ft elevation change, but it felt like more to me! We also learned a lesson in dressing a baby for a fairly cold day in the redwood forest: While he was generally warm snuggled up against me, his legs and feet got pretty cold hanging out of the carrier. We went home and promptly ordered him some merino wool baby tights for the future, so we’ll see how those perform.
While we just barely qualified for my goal of 12 parks in 12 months, my favorite part of the hike was introducing the park to the little one. When I’ve taken him on walks around the neighborhood in the stroller, I’ve noticed him eying the trees as we passed by, so I couldn’t wait to show him the big (even the “young” ones) redwoods. I might be projecting my own enthusiasm, but I’d say he was impressed – and even spent some time cooing at the trees. Here’s hoping it’s the start of many future adventures!