Sore, but Determined

I woke up in the wee hours of this morning quite sore. I finished the Mud Run yesterday and I have found muscles I never knew I had. Still, I didn't want to miss today's hike to Point Reyes National Seashore, so I made my preparations last night and took an Alleve so I wouldn't feel too bad. I haven't been to Point Reyes in about four years and I've never been hiking there. So our entire family was up at 5:00 am to make the carpool rendezvous at El Paseo de Saratoga at 6:00 am for the approximately two hour drive.

We left the house a bit late but, as it happened, our friend Deb left her hiking boots at home and had to retrieve them. Thankfully, we didn't miss our carpool. Le Boulanger wasn't open yet, so I walked to Peets and got a coffee for me and some pastries for Duane and the kiddo. It was so early, I didn't have time to eat like I usually do before I left.

For this hike, we used our new backpacks. I put my new Thermarest sleeping pad and ultralight two person tent in my backpack, as well as a can of pumpkin, for added weight. I have yet to buy a sleeping bag. After adding all of the usual things in my backpack, it weighed about 25 pounds. I normally carry about 15 pounds in a loaded day pack, so I figured that was about right for today. I have about two months to get up to 40-45 pounds. I also didn't want to push it, given that I am as of yesterday a Mud Run survivor!

We took the Mill Valley exit off of Highway 101, which was the scenic route out to the seashore. I hadn't planned ahead, so I took the route my GPS offered without question even though I remembered that it probably would have been faster to go out through San Anselmo. The drive was beautiful winding roads over the back of Mt. Tamalpais down past Stinson Beach, the scene of many happy childhood and family memories.

Our two carpools met at the Estero Trailhead parking lot. We readied our packs and set off through a grassy meadow. The weather was pleasant and the temperature, mild. About 15 minutes into the hike, we entered a pine forest for a short distance, before beginning to head down sandstone hills towards the water's edge. Spring wildflowers are now out in full bloom, gracing our trail with their beauty, and causing me to fall further and further behind the pack as I stop to take photographs. Of particular note, were the many beautiful wild purple irises, pink fringed checker mallow and ice plant blossoms.

The trail conditions, however, were among the worst I have ever seen. There has evidently been no trail management for years. No diagonal boards have been placed on the trail to control run off and erosion. I had to be very careful where to put my feet in several places, for fear of twisting an ankle. Whether this negligent maintenance of the trail is due to some poorly reasoned pseudo-ecological policy, or whether it's a funding issue, I have no idea, but the sad result is the same.

The Estero Trail is aptly named, as it follows a finger of Drake's Estero or Estuary, called Home Bay. We descended to sea level, crossing Home Bay on a wooden bridge, before climbing once again over another small hill. We reached the junction of the Estero Trail and the Sunset Beach Trail and then had to make a decision: would we go out to Sunset Beach and have lunch there (a total of 8.4 miles), or would we continue to Drake's Head (for a total of 9.4 miles). Most of the hikers had not been to the Point Reyes lighthouse, so they opted for the shorter hike giving themselves time to see the lighthouse. Since we had already been to the Lighthouse, we thought about taking the longer hike out to Drake's Head, however, given my already sore muscles, we opted for the shorter hike.

By this point, the trail was really mostly a cow pasture and all of us were carefully avoiding cow patties. A couple of cows stood by peacefully grazing, occasionally gazing up at with disinterest. We walked on by. Eventually, we arrived at Sunset Beach, which could only have been named because people have watched the sunset from this spot. We sat down on some large driftwood logs and ate our lunch. The kiddo mostly played in the mud at water's edge. The "beach" was mostly covered in ice plant, which was blooming.

The rest of our group sped back to the parking lot so that they could make it to the lighthouse. We dawdled at the beach and soaked up some warm sunshine before heading back to the parking lot. On the way back, we had a beautiful view of snowy egrets on Home Bay and in the tops of the trees in the pine forest we had crossed at the start. Also visible were the meanders cutting their way through the estuary and which we could now see, their locations being revealed by the sun's afternoon position.

What a beautiful day!