Owl Trail and Mt.Tam

We didn't make it to the Owl Trail on Monday, and I can't live with something not completed (ask Rachel about the Angels Landing hike, for example), and I'm impatientcowmoooo, so on Saturday, February 26, we packed up the van and headed out to what is quickly becoming my favorite part of California--the Marin County coast. By the way, my mom couldn't make it, but we recruited our friends the Opps to come along with us.

We arrived at the Muir Beach Overlook and Meghan quickly made her way out to the observation point to check out the view.

This is the reason it's called the Muir Beach Overlook. On the left (south? side) was Muir Beach. You can see a little bit of it here. You can also see a little bit of the house of one of the most fortunate people in the world. Can you imagine having a house with that kind of a view?

This is one of a few bunkers that served as observation posts for the army during World War II.

There was a trail that led around to some picnic tables and on the way was this cool tree pictured above and this bunker style room with a picnic table inside it. It was like a secret hide out/nuclear holocaust bunker, cool and kind of creepy at the same time.

I'm poking my head out of the secret hide out. I'm guessing this is for ventilation.

  I'm pretty sure Wes was considering joining Lennon and Meghan, but decided not to show them up.

After determining the correct direction, we made our way to the trail and started our hike. After a few minutes, we saw our first sign of Slide Ranch, what they call the geodesic Dome and family camp site area.

As we got closer, we saw the animals at Slide Ranch. Meghan was very disappointed that we couldn't go pet these sheep.

The trail to the beach takes a detour through Slide Ranch property, which was kind of weird, because they had some kind of a family day thing going on and I felt kind of like a freeloader walking through their property, but hey what are you gonna do?

Here are some of the non freeloaders at the Slide Ranch Yurt. Across from the yurt was a stairway to nowhere, and apparently that's where Meghan wanted to go.

 

The view from the yurt (and its surrounding picnic tables) was pretty nice, so we  got back on the trail.

Here are Wes and Jen Opp.

Once we got to the beach, we had a great time exploring and found some cool stuff. Here's what we saw:

pelagic cormorant

The shell in the middle is hiding a hermit crab

See the blue ish claw?

This guy (rock crab) was not living when we found him.

black oystercatcher

After we'd been there long enough, we turned around and headed back.

foreshadowing of a surprise ending

After a hot chocolate break, we got back in the van and made our way to the east peak of Mt Tam, which had some great views.

view from a pull out on the way up. We just had to stop--to take pictures and clean up a hot chocolate spill

My first panorama. The Golden Gate is peeking out right in the middle. Click on it if you don't believe me. Click on it anyway, it's awesome.

I'm not really sure why, but look-outs really excite me. I think it's because of Jack Kerouc's Dharma Bums and Desolation Angels. So when I saw this (pic below), I knew we were going on one last hike. Luckily, we still had a few Hot Tamales and a whole package of Wonka sour gummy something, so I had some negotiating power. (Plus the hike was only .3 miles, not even a hike really.)

A few sections of the trail had a little ice on them

The view from the top. (Actually, just a small part of it.)

We had a great trip and when we got home and I opened up the front door, there in the corner of the entry way were my hiking boots, right where I had left them.

Point Reyes 2-21-2011

 I've been waiting for this day off for a while. I've been reading about whale watching and trying to research good places to see whales (that also included hiking) and found two candidates: the Chimney Rock Trail in Point Reyes and the Owl Trail near Muir Beach. They were both really short hikes, so I thought we'd just do both of them. Chimney Rock was first.

When we got out of the car, we saw the signage below. You could see elephant seals right from the parking lot (although they were a ways out, so I didn't take any pictures), but a wildlife sighting from the parking lot was a good start to the day.

The trail in the back is the Chimney Rock Trail

The two signs below were to the left of the elephant seal lookout and historic life boat station sign above. I thought they were really interesting.

 

Meghan was a little wacky this morning. She was running ahead of us right from the start of the hike. we sent Lennon ahead to keep an eye on her.

Here's Meghan keeping an eye on us

Nanna supplied us with a few pairs of binoculars,

This is a picture looking back at the start of the trailhead. The parking lot  and trailhead are on the other side of the trees.

I was falling behind because I was scanning the horizon for whales. Although I was unsuccessful at spotting whales, the kids spotted something else.

The pointing arm was a sign.

what are they looking at?

good thing we had binoculars

This is what they were looking at. Still not sure? Wait for the zoomed in picture.

Now I get why they call them elephant seals.

A little further down, the trail came to its end where there were a couple benches and a good place to look out over the water. There were a few people with big telephoto lenses and spotting scopes.

Pretty serious drop off. This is the view from the opposite side of the elephant seals. There was a wooden railing. The rock formation apparently is Chimney Rock.

Cool rock formation

Another cool rock formation. There are a bunch of cormorants on the left side, but I don't have a cool telephoto lens.

Rachel and Nanna enjoying the view

another shot of the elephant seals

The Historic Lifeboat station. I was very impressed with the stories I read on the plaques above.

On the other side of these trees is the parking lot and trailhead as well as some buildings.

Chimney Rock is near the Point Reyes Lighthouse, which is also supposed to be a great place to see whales, so because we were close by, and because we hadn't seen any whales yet, we decided to head on over.

cool rock formation

another cool rock formation

when we got to the viewing area before the stairs down to the lighthouse, a volunteer kind of guy told Meghan and I (everyone else was still in the little shop/visitor's center) that a juvenile gray whale had been hanging out around the rock pictured below. Within a couple minutes, I saw it surface and spout, but Meghan didn't. Then when everyone else made it, I told them and we waited to see it again. But we didn't. The kids were short on patience, so I took them down to the lighthouse while Rachel and Nanna kept waiting.

308 steps to the lighthouse.

up 308 steps

another shot of where the whale was. The rock on the top left was where it had been hanging around.

I saw the whale spout again as we were climbing up the steps, but the kids didn't. we went back to the lookout area and waited . . . and waited . . . and waited. Actually, the kids waited more than I did, because I saw it about 3 more times, but they kept missing it. It really didn't show too much of itself or stay up very long. The kids were starting to really get impatient and frustrated, so we said we'd wait 5 more minutes and then go home. With two minutes to go, the whale came up for the longest time and spouted about 3 or 4 times, and the kids saw it, and I got a picture of it . . . kind of. The kids learned a lesson on perseverance.

Thar she blows! Middle left. (enlarge the picture)

We also saw some deer

Meghan decided to attempt enlightenment. She chose a good place.

Abby needed a picture of the ocean for her California Project.

We had been taking our sweet time, enjoying the day, so we decided we wouldn't have time for the Owl Trail. Instead, we made our way to Cordelia and tried Straw Hat pizza.