4th of July Hike

We took a wonderful hike on the 4th of July in Point Reyes National Seashore. It was an adventure getting back to the trail head for our specific hike as it is at one of the southern most points in the park. There are few roads in the park as is, and this was a particularly windy way around to the trail head. It was a pretty drive through cattle pastures and part of the Golden Gate National Recreation area and a state park filled with really large trees. The trails we took were one of the favorite hikes on Bay Area Hiker. We hiked the coastal trail to Alamere Falls. The fog was in, and I was appreciative for that. I think if they fog lifted, we would not have made it through the 10 mile trip. The first part of the trail was filled with wonderful views of the Pacific ocean.





We then went a bit more inland and passed by several lakes. They were a beautiful shade of blue. It was neat to see some of them extend to almost the ocean to only be cut off by a slender piece of rock. At one of the lakes, there were people using a rope to jump off into the crystal water. If it had been a sunny day, I would have joined them.







Once our mail section of the Coastal Trail meet up with the Alamere Falls trail, I could not take pictures. This is obviously a very popular hike, and the trails had gotten very worn apparently. When this happens, the NPS usually puts the trail on "unmaintained status." That is what this approximately 2 mile section was marked as, and it surely was unmaintained. There was thick brush and brambles. We had to duck under areas where large fir trees had reclaimed sections of the trail as well as hiking with your hands above your head to keep them out of the shorter brambles. The rough trail was worth it to see the waterfall at the end of the cliff. It had three major descents down the cliff face. To see the largest one, you had to scramble down the rather steep cliff face. It was somewhat challenging, but well worth it.









There was a seal on the beach with us. People of course felt the need to get up close to it, which is not advisable, but I just zoomed in with my camera to snap a quick picture.



We then walked around a mile down the beach in search of a less steep way up onto the trail again. This lead us to Wildcat Camp and a very easy way onto the trail again. While doing this turned our initial hike into a 10 mile one from the original 7.5 mile trek, it was fine by me. The extra miles made me feel like I really accomplished something on that hike. While I am still sore today, I am glad we went



In other news, I will be leaving on a few trips at the end of this week. All orders received before Thursday, July 9th will be mailed out before I leave. Anything ordered after I leave on Thursday will not be sent out until July 20th. I have a fun 5th wedding anniversary weekend planned with potential roller coasters and of course California Extreme is this weekend as well. I also have to sew up some clothes for me to wear while I am at Chaos Wars. So I am off to do some extremely fast sewing, so I can be ready for all that is to come. Perhaps more tomorrow... depends on progress today.