Calavera Nature Preserve — Attraction in Carlsbad

Trail Series, Part 14 The Calavera Nature Preserve is located in Carlsbad, California, and offers numerous access points for your convenience. We appreciated the small parking lot we discovered at our entrance point at the corner of College Boulevard and Peninsula Drive.

The first thing you should know is that they take the “preserve” concept pretty seriously. While your potential paths are numerous, your access is limited to the marked trails.

Having said that there is much to offer. A lake, a marshland section featuring an elevated wooden path to assist with preservation efforts, a peak to ascend, and some wildlife to observe. It surprisingly even offers a restroom and a water fountain.

The terrain is mostly moderate from a difficulty standpoint, but offers some easy and some quite challenging sections.

Our adventure was 5 miles, but you’re able to enjoy a much shorter, or slightly longer, journey according to your interests.

If you’re looking to spice things up a bit we’d recommend that you ascend to the peak. During our ascent my GPS accused me of moving so slowly that it announced that I had “paused” my workout. In actuality my 🐢 like progress was not the result of a lack of forward movement, but rather me resorting to 4 wheel drive (a near crawl on hands and knees). After my GPS had tired of mocking me it stated that our total elevation gain was more than 1,000 feet. Who’s laughing now Mr. GPS? Step off, bro!

Dogs are welcomed, strollers are absolutely ill advised, and the buddy system is highly recommended.

We found the cool breeze coming off the nearby Pacific Ocean to be completely refreshing.

And that’s…Henry’s...

Love hiking here so many choices you can make your hike easy or hard long or short I enjoy all the fellow hiker and mountain biker I meet here. I enjoy the wildlife on the early morning hikes as well as the sunrise from the top of the mountain. It is also great to watch sunset from mountain top in the evening and the view of the lake is a awesome from up there. The trails are for walker's, runners, hikers and mountains bikers it also dog friendly. My Grandkids love it here as well they like the walk around the lake or the long boardwalks/bridges. Sure do miss the SDG&E smokestack looking west I remember it being put up. Anyway this is a must hike at least once so give it a try you will...

I went for a early morning, muddy hike with my friend at the Calavera Nature Preserve. It was a beautiful space, where you can see what the countryside was before the city of Carlsbad decided to fill in or top off every other Hill. There are lots of nice hiking trails, although I wish there was still mountain biking available here. In all of my years of mountain biking, I had never been to Calaveras, and now that is closed off to mountain biking, I am sad I never...