Bearberry trail and Weather beach were impossible to navigate. Incredible swampy with water up to our knees with no way to circumvent. Recommend avoiding unless you have rubber boots that go over your knee or I guess if you enjoy wading through water for an hour.

Great time to go if you were in the area! No bugs and no flooded trails. I was worried about both of these when reading reports from earlier and given the recent rain.

I hiked to the beach from the parking lot and back, 3 miles or so through a cool forest, though it is slightly overgrown at times.

While reading through the few trip reports on this location, I was super concerned that the trails out to the beach would be flooded. Thankfully, they were all dry, but I could tell that it was a recent development. When I was not walking on sand, the tread was tacky and damp. As a result of the wet environment, the mosquitos were downright disrespectful. I had multiple applications of DEET on, and they still got a few tastes. However, they disappeared as soon as I got to the beach and the wind kicked up.

I started in the main parking lot, and made a lollipop route by using the Dune Forest Loop > Beach > Bear Berry > Boundary trails. I went about 2 miles up the beach before turning back around. I would have loved to have gone to the end of the point, but I was on a time crunch and had to be back in town. There were tons of plovers out and nesting, so I was mindful of only walking on the roped path and wet sand as directed by the signage both at the trail head and on the beach.

I was initially doubtful that this hike was cool/unique/iconic enough to be included as a 100 Classic Hikes from Craig Romano, but I was definitely proven wrong. The scrubby pine and salt marshes, the heavy moss growing down from the tree limbs, and the absolutely pristine beach walk was amazing.  I saw only two other people the entire time I was in the park and it only added to the allure. It's rare that I am on the Long Beach peninsula, but I'll be hiking this one as often as I can from now on.

It’s been 14 years since I was last on this trail, so we decided to check out Leadbetter State Park/Leadbetter point. We started at the main parking area at the end of the road. The road has a few potholes areas that need to be taken very slowly. Pit toilet at trailhead. We started on the green trail (bay loop), it starts in the forest and then goes along the beach for about half a mile. Then we went on the yellow trail (bear berry trail). Here is where you make your decision to wade through the water or turn around. The trail is flooded for about a mile. You’ll wade through water for about a 100 feet or so, then come to a dry spot, then wade again for another 100 feet. I’m 5’4 and the highest point went mid thigh. It went knee high in spots on my husband, and almost hip deep on my daughter. We thought the adventure was fun, especially with it already being 70 degrees. Then you come out to the dunes, and you’ll see the closure areas for the snowy plovers, which we saw lots of! We also saw lots of sand dollars on the beach. Take the blue trail (beach trail) for a half a mile before heading back along the weather beach trail which has more wading through water. Then you’ll come to the red trail (dune forest trail.) it was bone dry. And we looped back to the car instead of taking the dune forest loop. Hiked a little over 4 miles. Wild strawberries, scotch broom, evergreen blueberries, and salal is blooming. Looks like false lily of the valley will be blooming any day. We saw sand pipers, snowy plovers, a bald eagle and a deer. Also bear tracks and scat. 

We started on the dune forest loop trail headed west and south. There are several junctions, but all are signed. Our intention was to take the weather beach trail over to the pacific ocean side of the spit. Unfortunately the trail got increasing brushy and mucky until finally ending in a leg swallowing sedge bog. Being that it looked quite deep and our feet were quickly up to the ankles in water, and that it was the middle of winter, we decided to call it.

We did not make it to the dunes or beach, and instead continued around the "dune" loop which is high and dry for the most part and in woods passing some interesting equipment, until hitting the estuary side of the loop. The estuary is quite mucky and not particularly clearly defined, with plenty of blow downs to navigate, but obliviously you can't really get lost, just wet. We did not take the bay loop trail, but it looked better traveled. We will make to come back with wading sandals or trashed sneakers to get to the ocean beach someday.