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!