We ran into a few problem the first time around and ended up a couple miles short. You can't claim credit for a hike that ends short, so we decided to do it again. This time Gary was available, so the three of us took off early to make one last attempt before the weather turns for the winter.
We got an early start, leaving from Waddell Beach at 6:45am. Given the time of year, we needed headlights for the first 45 minutes of the hike.
Long day short (the hike took just over 10 hours), the weather was perfect, the hike is beautiful, and everyone's body held up. The trail was a fairly quiet. We didn't see anyone until we got close to Big Basin State Park where we briefly stopped for some water at about 10:30. We saw a few people as we left the park and then had the trail almost completely to ourselves. We worked our way through the warmest area and stopped for lunch. Our stops were short and infrequent, with the only challenge being Gary needing to take care of his feed so as not to end up with blisters (just recovered from the Grand Canyon).
As we came close to the end of the hike we walked through an area where a wedding was about to take place. They had lights up in the trees, lights along the trail and the groom getting ready for the big day. They told us that the guests and wedding rest of the wedding party were going to be shuttled up to a close by parking lot and the wedding was going to take place on only a half hour!
From there it was only about an hour the top. We got there less than5 minutes before our ride showed up. We were so happy to have completed the hike that we all ran the last 50 yards up the trail!
BTW, the hike totaled roughly 29 miles and about 6500 feet of elevation gain!
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