Steve and Terrie's Vacation
Backpacking the Coast Trail - Point Reyes - Page Three
Monday
S: During the night, there is pretty much constant rain on the tent. I suspect it sounds worse than it actually is.
T: In the morning we wake to more fog and drizzle. With a great deal of mental effort, I finally extricate myself from the sleeping bag and tent. We make coffee, and sloppy oatmeal - I'm impatient and worried about the amount of Gaz it's taking to boil water, so it isn't hot enough. I'm starting to get cranky; everything is wet, there's no sun, and I'm trying to figure out what we're going to do for another entire day here. In a way, too, I feel like this trip is indulging me a bit, as I've been the one wanting to try backpacking...so I'm thinking that Steve is finding this even less enjoyable. It's not that I'm hating any of this - I'm much happier than if I were at work! - I'm just wishing the weather was better and I'm hoping that Steve isn't sticking this out just for my sake.
S: No way. I’ve talked about doing this for 20 years - since long before I met you - and it took you to actually make me actually do it…
T: We decide to go see Alamere falls, about a mile down the beach. This beach has thousands of well-worn rocks and stones, some translucent...though backpacking has made us less inclined to be bringing rocks home! We see the falls long before we're there, and later in the trip can usually pick the spot out easily along the coast.
S: Point Reyes is generally an acute triangle. This trek covers about half the length of the base, which curves gently from NNW to WNW. Once we pass Double Point (half a mile south of Alamere), we can see it (across more and more water) when we look back
T: Take pictures, head back; the drizzle has turned to light rain, we're getting soaked.
S: Alamere is one of the obvious highlights of this trip; not easy to get to on a day hike (the hike down the beach is about a mile, so total round-trip would be 13 miles from where we started - the shortest possible distance, I think, to the falls from any vehicle access point), and they’re really pretty spectacular. The falls spill over a cliff about 50 feet up, and they’re about 30 feet wide at the top. Lots of spray coming off of them on this windy day, and yeah, the stones around the area look as though they’ve been through a rock tumbler. I’m not generally one for taking stuff away from where we find it (usually pick it up, show it to Terrie, and if she hands it back, toss it back on the ground). Turns out we each brought one rock home - both from the beach near Alamere.
T: Back at camp, we decide to call it quits on this area and head out for Coast camp - or at least somewhere between here and there. As we're leaving, the large group is also heading out. It's a terrible bit of timing. I do not want to be stuck in the middle of these high-school age kids as they pass us by, prattling on about nothing in particular. I'm not going to be able to outrun them, either. So I make us stop to let them pass. I don't like having this many people on the trail ahead of us; we won't be seeing any critters now. But I at least won't have to walk amid a crowd of human critters and have more to be irritated about.
S: From various sources (and with various amounts of elevation changes), the distance from Wildcat to Coast camp is somewhere between seven and nine miles.
T: After climbing the switchbacks to the top of the ridge facing the camp, they (the teen campers) thankfully head towards Bear Valley via the Glen camp trail. By this time, I'm sweating and stewing in too many layers. After adjusting, I end up spending much of the day thinking about the merits of this fleece stuff...once I get rid of the cotton shirt underneath, this stuff is great. I stay warm without sweating to death.
S: Fleece absolutely rules. Lightweight and low-volume, makes a great pillow, breathes well, dries quickly, but keeps you warm. At the coldest, I wore a T-shirt, flannel shirt, fleece, and a windbreaker-ish jacket with fleece lining, and was plenty warm.
T: By this time, my pants are drying out, though boots are getting wetter. I still feel like my slowness is holding Steve back, but there's not much I can do about it at this point. My mood starts to improve right away. The next part of the trail is a real treat.
S: I have a longer stride than Terrie, and am grateful for periodic opportunities to stop. At certain times in my life, I have hiked long distances entirely unplanned (hitchhiking, unable to get a ride, no sleeping gear, might as well keep walking); e.g., 30+ miles of highway in Baja overnight, dragging a duffel bag; or 25+ overnight in Big Sur. This *planned* long walk is new to me, but long walks are well-known to my feet, and the total lifetime miles are still on the pedometer. My right foot in particular is in pain most of the time - feels like the heel is bruised, and numerous little bones broken (probably feels worse than it actually is, but the wetness doesn’t help - nor does the fact that we’re really not sure how far we will be walking today). I know that we’re not going to gain any more than about 800’ elevation on this trail, but it seems like 1200 by the time it starts to level off. Weep weep weep weep.
But yeah, once the Coast Trail splits off from the Glen trail, we’re definitely in seldom-traveled territory. The trail is soon a single track, where all of the preceding has been wide enough for a pickup truck to traverse. Many many signs of wildlife, from unfamiliar poop on the trail, to large-body-shaped indentations on the grass, to abrupt cutoffs into the thick underbrush. We don’t see much actual wildlife, but they probably have more sense to stay in out of the rain.
T: The trail from Wildcat to Arch Rock goes through both woodland and grassy meadows. Weird feeling in a meadow that we're being watched, but since I didn't see anyone, became convinced it was just the spooky terrain and weather.
S: For awhile, we’re up above the fog ceiling, so it’s like Wuthering Heights or something, ghostlets of fog blowing past, visibility not much more than 100 yards.
As we descend back towards the coast, the day improves. We see patches of blue sky and sun. We see "Tidy-tips" also, a variety of aster which is yellow in the center with white-tipped petals. (Also, somewhere in here we saw Indian Paintbrush - not uncommon, but startlingly flame-orange in otherwise somewhat dreary surroundings.)