This was my first time taking both of my kids (6, and almost-4) together on a backpacking trip (I've taken each of them separately).
The main parking lot for Second Beach is closed, so we parked down the road (you can see where we parked on my Garmin link below - not sure if it's "allowed" but there were no signs stating otherwise and the lot was relatively empty). We also heard the market closer to the trailhead will let you park for $10.
The parking situation didn't add too much mileage to our hike - my 3-year-old was able to walk the whole thing on her own, carrying her 4.5-lb backpack. The sidewalk that follows the road is nice and wide and felt safe/not too close to the cars. Once you enter the trees the trail had some muddy spots, our boots got a bit muddy but nothing too deep.
Once at the beach, there is a small creek on the other side of the giant rock. It's flow is pretty small but we had no issue collecting from it. It is tannin-stained, typical of our coastal beaches. The taste was fine. We've heard that this spot is difficult to pass in high tide, so we were sure to time our exit before the tide was too high.
The high tide reaches the top of the beach so from what we could see, all of the campsites are in the trees. We passed 4 or 5 of them before choosing the larger site we stayed at (we had 2 families so wanted plenty of room).
All of the velella from March are dried up and/or gone - no more stink but the dried ones can be found at the high tide line.
This is a great beginner hike/backpack location, but the thing I did not enjoy about it was the amount of driftwood logs in front of the campsite we chose, and the sites not being directly on the beach. We chose a site that was large enough for (at least) two tents since we were two families, but the site we chose was really difficult for the kids to play freely on the beach within view because of the location of the site and all the logs. My 3 year old had a really difficult time climbing over the logs to go play with the bigger kids too, which resulted in her needing a lot of help and not much time for me to take care of camp chores uninterrupted. We enjoyed Shi Shi and Rialto much more for ability to camp on-sand and the ease for the kids to play nearby.
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