Hiking Adventure Plan

from website: http://www.oocities.org/rhorii/OutdoorPhotoGallery.html

One of the most amazing things about the Bay Area is how close we are to a variety of beautiful parks that offer trails that lead to amazing vistas.  One of these parks is the Santa Teresa County Park.  I've recently hiked to Coyote Peak via the Coyote Peak Trail (see fancy pic above) while visiting Santa Teresa County Park.  Although I've been to Coyote Peak once before, I was amazed by the view and fell in love with this park all over again.  Also, this second time around, I was impressed by how (kind of) easy the trail was and by how many different activities this park offers (trail biking and picnicking).  This got me thinking:  a)  I have a craving to throw a BBQ and b)  I've got to bring more people to this awesome location!

Point Reyes Backpacking Day 2 & 3

Source:  Point Reyes South District Trail Map

The Route for Day 2(see the green trail)
Wildcat Camp>Ocean Lake Loop>Coast Trail>Alamere Falls Trail>Alamere Falls>Alamere Falls Trail>Coast Trail>Old Out Road Trail>Glen Trail>Glen Camp Loop>Glen Camp

The Route for Day 3 (see the red trail)
Glen Camp>Glen Camp Loop>Glen Trail>Bear Valley Trail>Car

The aftermath of our breakfast

Well, the second day of our epic journey through Point Reyes National Seashore started out painful.  We woke up and became screamingly aware of the abuse we put our bodies through getting to our campsite, not to out anyone's sissy status, of course.  After our really filling and motivating breakfast of Spam and egg fried rice, we headed out on the Coast Trail towards Alamere Falls by 11 am.

Clockwise from top left:  View on Ocean Lake Loop, Wildcat Lake up close, View of Wildcat Lake (puddle looking thing on left towards bottom) from the Ocean Lake Loop, and last but not least, the crew making sure we're taking the right trail so that we don't end up hiking the wrong way for miles.  =P

Encouraged by the sign, we continued onto Alamere Falls Trail.

The sights at Alamere Falls

It turned out that there was an extra 0.7 miles each way (0.4 miles on the dagerous conditioned Alamere Falls Trail) to get to Alamere Falls, but it was totally worth it.  Everyone had a fantastic time relaxing and enjoying the sights.  We also had our spicy tuna sandwiches on scrunched (not a new fad in bread style, but actually scrunched) wheat bread.  All in all, it was a great diversion from our mutual pain.  The fun can't last forever, though, so after an hour of frolicking, we continued on our long trek to our next camp.

Vine-y flower wall along the Coast Trail

Counterclockwise from top left:  The junction between the Coast Trail and Old Out Road Trail (despite the trail promising to be a pitch black tree tunnel, we bit the bullet), the Old Out Road Trail (which lightened up quite a bit to something very lush, thank goodness), more on the Old Out Road Trail

A perfect example of how lush the Point Reyes National Seashore is, on the Glen Trail

Glen Camp

Boy, were we glad to see our campsite!  As you can see from the previous pictures, the fog was yet again rolling in, and the day seemed to be getting dark sooner than we would like.  It was around 6:30 to 7 pm when we reached camp.  We immediately set up camp and boiled some water for our (thankfully) simple dinners of dehydrated, pre-packed foods.  Then, we played Bananagrams before going to sleep.  Our only complaint with Glen Camp were the mosquitos.  We were just a tad nervous as we hung out in the open air.  Luckily, no one got severely bit.

Bananagrams on a table with slits is pretty tricky

The next morning, in great spirits and loaded up on ibuprofen, we headed out on the Glen Camp Trail to hook up with the Bear Valley Trail to get to our car.

Even on the Glen Camp Loop, the scenery is really lush

Don't remember where this was, but it's still absolutely beautiful

I will end this post with pics of random critters and mushrooms on the way back to our car.

Banana Slug

Furry caterpillar on one of the boys' shoe

Oh look!  A furry spider.  Not scary at all.

Cool close up of a random mushroom.  No.  I don't know if it's edible.

Yay!  Back at the trailhead!

Backpacking at Pt. Reyes, Day 1

The Bear Valley Trail head, where our journey began.

The Route (see the blue trail):

Car>Bear Valley Trail>Left onto Coast Trail>Right onto Stewart Trail>Wildcat Camp

Source:  Point Reyes South District Trail Map

We started our hike at the Bear Valley Visitor Center, taking the Bear Valley Trail to Arch Rock (4.2 mi.).

Clockwise from top left:  Bear Valley Visitor Center, us on Bear Valley Trail, blackberries picked along the trail, and a random banana slug.  (photos taken by my brother)

Bathroom stop in Divide Meadow

Images from Bear Valley Trail.  It was a beautiful hike, easily done in one day.  There is also biking and horse riding allowed on this trail.

Arch Rock

One of our group playing with fate. (Taken by my brother)

We rested at Arch Rock, which was at the end of the Bear Valley Trail and explored before taking the Coast and Stewart Trails to Wildcat Camp (3.6 mi.).

Arch Rock.  This view was only accessible after a really steep climb down.  Obviously, one of the boys took this picture. (taken by my brother)

Also down at the bottom of Arch Rock (taken by my brother)

After Arch Rock, we followed the Coast Trail and Stewart Trail to our campsite.  The Coast Trail actually was torture for the first 2 miles.  Imagine straight uphill.  I was not aware of that, though, so uphill we went.    After an arduous climb, we were greeted by these ominous woods.

Ominous looking woods on the Coast Trail.

We arrived at our campsite at around 6:30 pm.  It was a much welcome sight.  Our spirits were almost broken by then by the enormous climb, the threat of darkness, and the arriving fog...but we made it!

Our beautiful campsite (middle pic).  About time, too, because the fog was definitely settling in as the day progressed.

Once we arrived at the campsite, we immediately got to work setting up camp.  Despite our aching backs, grumbling stomachs, and overall bad mood, we were able to set up an awesome camp as I started preparing the food.  Afterwards, we celebrated my brother's and hubby's birthdays with some cupcakes (yes, cupcakes) and went to bed to rest before another grueling journey.  Stay tuned for my plan for the food!  

Good night!

Backpacking at Point Reyes

The beginning of a wild journey

Hello folks!  Yup, this blog is not dead.  It had simply gone into hibernation, and I've finally woken up this bear of a blog, hopefully for once and for all.  To help me keep up with this blog, I've put less pressure on myself by committing to only one post a month.  It's a drag, but this reminds me of when I was taking piano lessons.  I hated practicing daily on the piano so much when I was required to by my piano teacher.  Ironically, after I quit taking piano lessons, I practiced everyday because I simply enjoyed it.  I'm trying to do the same with this blog.  I'm such a contradiction, aren't I?  =P

Recently, my husband and I went on our first backpacking trip ever.  We've talked about it for years, and my husband and I had actually purchased backpacks for ourselves.  Several other people in our lives have also bought backpacks, but alas, the trip never happened.  I realized though, if I didn't plan the first trip, we will never do it.  So, as a birthday present for his birthday this year, I organized a backpacking trip.

Map of one small section of Point Reyes National Seashore.  As you can see in the upper left corner, there is much more to this natural park than what you see here.  Source:  Park Map

So why did I choose Point Reyes?  During our discussions about our first trip, we did some research and a lot of people are saying that Point Reyes is one of the best beginning backpacking parks in our area.  I loved it because the distances we had to travel between campsites and our car are are shorter and because they had bathrooms and running water for their hike-in campsites.

Being a wimp, and knowing that my husband would like to do a loop, with two nights in different places, I picked the two hike-in campsites as close to each other as possible.  We had a choice of the Sky Meadow Camp, the Glen Camp, and the Wildcat Camp.  Since I figured I didn't like the word "Sky" in anything I will be hiking to, especially with 40-60 lbs. on my back, I quickly eliminated Sky Meadow Camp.  So then, I had two camps and a place to park my car:  Glen Camp, Wildcat Camp, and the Bear Valley Visitor Center.  What routes should we take to get to each campsite, then back to the car?  The easiest.

The blue line represents the trip we made out the first day, the green represents the second day, and the red represents the third day.  Source:  Point Reyes South District Trail Map

As I had planned the routes, I was worried that it'd be all hiking and no views, so I threw in two different destinations to take a break at (it turned out we needed way more frequent breaks than one each day).  The first day, on the way to Wildcat Camp, we went out to Arch Rock.  On the second day, we went out to Allomere Falls (which added an extra 1.4 mi. section I, unfortunately, did not notice).  For the third day, our destination of desire was our car.  =P  I will go into detail about each day and the trails we took later.

I also put a lot of energy on finding sources for our guests to read to help them keep in mind what equipment they would need, what to pack, etc.  In addition to that, I also wanted to research some backpacking recipes, because I really wanted to bake either a cake or cupcakes for my hubby's birthday.  Below are a few great sources I found:

http://www.wildbackpacker.com/backpacking-gear/backpacks/how-to-pack-a-backpack/

http://www.wildbackpacker.com/backpacking-food/recipes/

http://www.onepanwonders.com/breakfasts.htm