along the coast
We got up at 5AM this morning to take Denise & David to SFO. They're spending the next 2 weeks out there visiting relatives.
Doug and I hiked the Coast Trail from Palomarin Trailhead to Alamere Falls in Point Reyes National Seashore today. The weather was nothing short of perfect today. Sun, no fog, high in the 70F's. The hike was roughly 8 miles round trip, although it felt like most of the hike out was downhill.
The first and last quarter of the of the hike was along coastal cliffs, with sheer, several hundred foot dropoffs. The 2nd quarter was hilly, and mostly was contained of switchbacks up along the hills from the coast, moving inland. The 3rd quarter was mostly inland in wooded terrain with a few lakes.
The highlight of the hike was Alamere Falls, which are actually a series of waterfalls that run down the cliffs into the ocean. The first fall is about 10 feet tall. After that there were a series of smaller falls less than a foot tall. The grand finale was the falls going over the 50ft cliff down to the beach below.
Getting down to that beach was very tricky. Much of the cliff was either very brittle packed dirt with small rocks, or brittle crumbly layers of rock which broke away when weight was placed upon it. We ended up doing a crab crawl down a notch in the cliff to make it to the bottom.
After doing the 4 mile walk out, the walk back was rough, as it was mostly all up hill, and the sun was much higher in the sky than when we walked out. The drive back was long, but uneventful. I'm pretty achy right now, but overall, I had a pretty good day.