New Year's Day Hike - Miner's Ridge Loop

Unusually cool temperatures convinced us to delay our planned camping trip to Anza Borrego for the New Year's weekend.  Instead, we spent New Year's Eve tabletop gaming, followed by our "consolation hike", a brisk New Year's afternoon closer to home.  This was our first trip to the nearby Miner's Ridge Trail on the North Face of Black Mountain in Rancho Penasquitos.

As I've written recently, Annika is really starting to come into her own as a hiker.  She's growing an average of a quarter inch per month, and most of it seems to be in her legs.  She's also quickly gaining stamina.  I should have been less surprised, then, when she easily banged out this charming little 2.5mile loop trail while chattering away the entire journey.  We still had to tussle over whether she was drinking enough (any) water, but other than that, this was a very enjoyable little hike. 

Sometimes on long car trips, or other such events when we have some "down" time, the family likes to play what Annika calls the "pass to pass game", which was her toddler-speak name for the writer's game where everyone takes turns creating and telling a single story.  She wanted to play while we hiked, and I obliged by starting the story with some bits from a fiction piece I'm working on.  Annika took the reins quickly, and took one of my characters on a 45 minute fantasy odyssey without stopping.  It was hilarious to listen to her jabber away while the hill climb passed under foot.

This is a milestone hike for us.  There are a lot of wonderful loop trail hikes in the SoCal area that come in around this distance.  Moreover, given her performance, I think that properly fed and watered, she could definitely add some mileage if we dedicated more than a couple of hours.  What a great way to start 2016!