Prisoner’s Harbor Hiking at Channel Islands National Park

Part 1: Channel Islands Painted Cave Tour

Part 2: After the Painted Cave tour was complete, the Island Packers Cruise took us to Prisoner’s Island for us to disembark the boat and to hike around the island for around 3 hours.

After exiting the dock, off in the distance are two brick buildings and a trailhead for hiking.

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Pelican Bay Trail

The Pelican Bay trail is a 4.3 mile out and back that is considered moderately challenging. The trail consists mostly of up and down portions on a dirt trail with beautiful views of the channel.

At first, we were hiking with everyone who was apart of the Painted Cave tour, until things started to thin out. Clayton and I left the pack and spent the day hiking on our own, which was obviously, much more enjoyable than hiking in a line 🙂

Note: we visited Channel Islands National Park again in March 2023, after California received unprecedented amounts of rain, I would highly recommend checking out our Channel Islands post so you can see the stark difference a lot of rain has on the island’s appearance.

The views from up on the top of the mountains were beautiful. Seeing the ocean below was stunning.

At the completion of the hike, we spent some time down on the rocky beach. I had fun finding several large seashells while my hubby skipped rocks!

Then we loaded up and headed back on the cruise.

On the cruise ride back to the mainland, we had the most gorgeous sunset and show put on by a pod of entertaining dolphins!

Back at the mainland in Ventura, California. It was a FULL, fun-filled day of adventure!