West Coast New Year's Hike
Beautiful surf scoters could be seen in the ocean, below the trail (image from Wikimedia ). We wanted to celebrate the first day of the new year by walking along the Devil's Slide trail. It's been closed to vehicle traffic since the Tom Lantos Tunnels were completed in March 2015. The wide, paved trail, where Highway 1 used to wind high above the Pacific, is the perfect spot for watching sea birds, gazing out to the western horizon for sunsets and migrating gray whales, and hearing the shush of surf breaking endlessly on the beaches below. A lot of other folks had the same idea to enjoy the coastal trail on New Year's Day, so we had to exercise patience to wait for a parking spot. It's a fairly short trail segment, only 1.3 miles each way, though, so we didn't have to wait too long for people to return to their car. It'd be nice if there were double the spots in each parking lot at each end of the tunnels. Panoramic vistas along the trail (image