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!

Mission Peak - Twice

Today's hike was at Mission Peak, a 2200 foot elevation change and 14 miles. This was the closest we've come so far to simulating the Half Dome hike.

After dropping our son off at his T-Ball coach's home, we headed over to Ohlone College to meet those of our teammates going on this hike. Unbeknownst to us, several others had already started from the Stanford Avenue entrance at 4:45 am.

We thought we were going to do the hike twice to the Ohlone College side, but as it turned out we were going down the Stanford Avenue entrance and back over. Thus, we didn't have everything in our packs, thinking that we would refill water, electrolyte, energy bars and a fresh pair of socks out of our car after the first trip. We hurriedly threw that stuff in our packs, but in our haste, I forgot my extra granola bars, and fresh socks.

Unfortunately, I didn't realize this until I was 15 minutes into the hike and it was too late to turn back. Not that it really mattered. I had a sandwich and five granola bars, so I wouldn't starve and I'm dieting anyway. I did have all of my G2 and water with me, so I was good to go, even if not perfect.

The first part of this hike, along the the Peak Trail near Ohlone College, is a series of switchbacks that takes you over and behind the ridge and into an oak forest. The forest eventually peters out as you enter a chaparral microclimate. As we headed up the ridge, we entered grasslands. From here on out, we were fully exposed to the sun, which at this time of the morning - about 10:00 am - wasn't at its hottest. At this point, the switchbacks began to get steeper until we reached the plain at the top of hill. At this point, there was a junction at which you could continue on up to the peak, circle around just below, or continue on down to the Stanford Avenue entrance. Of course, we continued on up to the peak.

The final ascent involved a steep grade, followed by an even steeper grade clamboring over rocks the final 100 feet. At last we reached the top - and, oh, what a view! We could see the entire South Bay, the NUMI plant, the salt flats, all the way up to Mt. Tamalpais peeking up through the Marin County fog. Behind us we could see the 680 corridor running through the valley beyond.

We sat down and rested for about half an hour. I ate half of my sandwich, a granola bar, finished my first bottle of G2 and just enjoyed the view. After that we took off again, continuing in the same direction taking the Eagle Trail in a circuit around the peak, before coming to the same junction again, this time taking the Grove Trail, which is the beginning of the way down to the Stanford Avenue entrance. From there we took the Ohlone Wilderness Trail the rest of the way down.

This side of the mountain is quite steep and there is little cover. Just two clumps of trees providing minimal shade to passing hikers. This was, however, a good test of my boots for the kinds of terrain that we will experience on the Half Dome hike. The result: almost perfect, but not quite. I still was experiencing some minor jamming of my toes on the way down. It wasn't too bad and once I retied my boots, I did much better.

We arrived down at the Stanford Avenue entrance around 12:30 pm. We had a half an hour rest. I ate the rest of my sandwich and some trail mix, and finished a second bottle of G2. Joy, one of our mentors, had some ice cold lemonade waiting for us, which was wonderful!

Then we took off again, this time ascending the mountain from Stanford Avenue. In retrospect, this was really a mistake. It put us on the steepest side of the mountain, with no cover, in the heat of the day and the temperature was about 85 degrees. The going was very tough. One of my teammates used up all her water on the way up and she had refilled her hydration pack before we started.

We got back up to the junction with the Peak Trail. We began the final ascent and I just ran out of gas. I just didn't want to take one more step up. I also didn't want to climb the steepest rocky part because I didn't want to come down the same way (too steep) and there was no longer time to do the more gentle circuit back. Duane and one of our teammates walked about 100 feet more before turning back as well.

From there it was back down to Ohlone College, a more gentle decline with plenty of shade. We reached our car at about 4:20 pm, very tired and sore, but we very happy that we did it!