A Hike to the Grotto

Yesterday, Michael and I woke up really early to hike out to a little spot in the Santa Monica Mountains, called the Grotto. It started out as a pretty easy hike down to the small grotto at the end of the trail. There were some beautiful views of the mountains and we were in a pretty secluded area, save for the occasional cliff top mansion (it is the city of Malibu after all).

Since the trail was all down hill from the beginning, we quickly realized the hike back to the car was going to be pretty exhausting. It definitely was! Once we got to the actual grotto area we had to do quite a bit of bouldering to get down to the water. I was a little shaky at first but it ended up being a lot of fun, and not too difficult.

Even though we got pretty winded coming back up (it also started to get very hot), it just made us realize how much we want to get back into shape for even tougher and longer hikes. We've been slowly accumulating the right gear for longer backpacking trips (it's expensive!), and we're pretty excited to go out on some amazing adventures soon.

I love hiking and backpacking to exercise so much more than running (or any other type of exercise, really). I guess swimming would be my next favorite, but I've never really enjoyed running. If we lived in the mountains somewhere, I would want to go hiking just about every morning. It's so much fun that I don't even realize I'm exercising until I get home and I want to fall asleep forever!

The only part of hiking or backpacking that I have a difficult time with is the sleeping in the tent part. Seriously! I never get good sleep when I'm in a tent. Not to mention, the tents that are made specifically for backpacking (they're smaller and really lightweight) are so tiny, it feels like you're sleeping under a homemade fort. I end up spending the whole night listening for bears, mountain lions, coyotes, snakes, spiders, the bogey man, etc!

Luckily, Michael's always there to calm me down and remind me we're safe. :)