wind, rain & mud
We spent the past 2 days going on our first real camping trip. Up until now, we'd spent 4 nights sleeping in a tent in the back yard, but that was about it. In many ways the trip was a success, although it had its share of problems too.
We reserved two nights at campsite #5 of the Steep Ravine Environmental Campground. As the crow flies, its about 10 miles northwest of San Francisco, and less than 2 miles south of Stinson Beach. The entire area sits on a bluff jutting out into the ocean. Of the 7 campsites, all but two are very spread out (a few hundred yards apart). It also verges on primitive camping. There's a picnic bench & fire pit for each campsite, and one chemical pit toilet and one cold water spigot (for the entire campground), but other than that, there are absolutely no amenities. But this was the allure, as there are no noisy RV's, or dogs (no pets allowed), or really anything other than the roar of the ocean on 3 sides.
When we arrived on Wednesday afternoon the weather was relatively nice (sunny, little wind). We got the tent setup, and explored the area a bit. We could actually see the western portion of San Francisco from the front of our tent (and the view from inside the tent wasn't half bad either). A feet around the hill, and we could see all of Stinson Beach as well. In short, the views were amazing in all directions. Immediately before dinner, we got to see a gorgeous sunset too.
Almost immediately after sunset (5PM), the wind picked up, the temperature dropped and of course, it got really dark. We tried to keep occupied, but between the tent shaking back & forth with the wind, and it getting so chilly, we ended up going to sleep at 7:30PM. David fell asleep fairly quickly, but Denise & I tossed alot for a few hours, mostly praying that the tent wouldn't get blown over, even with the stakes. Right around 8PM, the tent was suddenly bathed in light, and when I poked my head out, I saw an almost full moon had risen over the cliffs directly to the east. So now it was just cold & windy, and no longer dark at all. If it wasn't for the wind, it would have been a beatiful evening. We could see all the lights shimmering at San Francisco, there were alot of stars visible overhead, and the moon was reflecting off the ocean. I did manage to fall to sleep around 10PM, but the wind kept waking me up every so often, so it was far from a good night's sleep.
The past 4 nights of camping in the back yard, David never slept through the night for one reason or another, so I was justifiable concerned that we'd have problems. Thankfully, David slept really well, and the first peep that we heard from him was at 7AM just as the sun was rising.
We got an amazing show, as the sun slowly crawled from behind the sea cliffs to the south. That vertical black line on horizon is the Sutro Tower in San Francisco. Here's the Farallon Islands about 25 miles to the west.
We ate a quick breakfast, and then drove down the hill into Stinson Beach for our 7.3 mile day hike back up into Mount Tamalpais. The hike went really well. The first \~2.5 miles on the Matt Davis trail, are basically a bunch of switchbacks as we climbed from just above sea level to about 1600ft under a canopy of redwoods & spruce. Unfortunately, as the morning progressed, clouds started to move in, and it was really chilly. The remainder of the hike was still really pretty, but it was a constant ordeal to keep warm as the temperatures never made it out of the 40F's, with persistent cloud cover. The 2nd half of the hike was primarily on the steep ravine & dipsea trails. About 0.8 miles into the steep ravine trail, we came to a vertical 10ft ladder beside a rushing water fall. David's ladder skills were really light, and so we ended up having him sort of shimmy down in a sitting position, which thankfully worked well. Once again, David was a real trooper, and did the entire hike without any significant problems. He's really grown into a great hiker.
We got back to the camp just before 2PM, and while it was still cloudy, there wasn't much wind although I suspected that a storm was going to be coming in. We spent some time resting from the hike, had a pretty good warm dinner, and headed into the tent for the evening. Right around 7PM, it started raining. At first, it was light, but by 8PM, it was a steady downpour. Then the wind kicked in. The tent seemed to be holding up ok to the onslaught, and I drifted to sleep. I awoke around 11PM to the tent shaking violently side to side from the winds, with the rain still coming down strong. I noticed that the side pockets of the tent beside my sleeping bag were all damp. Not very wet, but damp enough that I had to pull out all of my stuff (cell phone, wallet, glasses, etc), and shoved them into my shoes (which Denise had thankfully suggested we take inside the tent before the rain had started). At that point, I was concerned about why the side pockets were damp, and started envisioning the tent blowing over, and everything getting completely soaked. I lied there worrying for what felt like forever. At around 1AM Denise was awakened by the windy barrage, and we both noticed that it seemed like the rain had stopped. I figured this was as good a time as any to make a bathroom run, but as I was unzipping the door I noticed that there was huge puddle of water inside the tent, right in front of the door. Its still not clear whether the tent had a leak, or if the water seemed through the zipper (since the door was facing alot of the rain swept wind), but all the same we now had a 1 inch deep puddle of cold water, about a foot in diameter, inside the tent. And it was still ridiculously windy, and somehow getting windier. As icky as it was inside the tent, it was so much worse outside. It was very foggy, misty, cold & windy. Basically classic ocean storm weather. I got very little sleep for the remainder of the night. On a few occasions some strong wind gusts nearly sent the tent walls horizontal, and I pushed back on them in an attempt to fight back the wind. At around 6AM, David woke up. How he managed to sleep through all the wind, I'll never know, but I guess I'm happy that he got a decent night's sleep.
A quick inspection of the tent showed some minimal leakage along the walls beside my bed & Denise's, plus the large puddle in front of the door. We think the leakage along the sides was from rain splashing back up vertically from the ground (there are large screened side vents that run the full length of the sides of the tents, just 6 inches off the ground), but we're still unsure where the huge puddle came from. We managed to get everything packed up in under an hour (even with the muddy wonderland everywhere around us), and made the drive back home in less than 2 hours.
Overall, it was a good trip, even with the nightly weather issues. Our next planned camping trip is going to be in Anza Borrego State Park in far southern California (just north of the Mexican border), in mid-February. We're hoping that the odds of rain are going to be significantly lower down there.