2017-05-12 Point Reyes Backpacking
Summary
- Route: Point Reyes National Seashore , Palomarin Trailhead <-> Wildcat campsite #6
- Length: 5.3 miles one way (Easy)
- Elevation: min ~90 ft, max ~230 ft (Easy)
- Time: ~ 2 hours one way
Preparation
This was my first solo backpack camping trip, so I chose a short and less strenuous trail with a breath-taking view. Point Reyes Wildcat campground sits on a seashore cliff overseeing pacific ocean, next to a small beach and close to Alamere Falls, with food lockers, running water and toilets.
- Permit
- Overnight backpack camping in Point Reyes park requires permit, which you can reserve it here. The campsite I chose is Wildcat #6, which is quite famous because of its spectacular ocean view. (See pictures below)
- Having a reservation != Secured your permit. You need to pick up your permit from Bear Valley Visitor center on your camping day.
- If you leave your car parked at trailhead inside the park, you will need to pick up your parking permit for your car as well.
- Gears
Because this is just 2-day, 1-night short trip, I didn't go super light and over-prepared a bit, especially on clothing. In a hindsight, it was the right choice as they kept me warm/dry in bad weather (heavy wind and rain) that night.
- Outfit for hiking: long sleeve quick-dry shirts, water proof jackets, convertible pants, hiking boots.
- Outfit for sleeping: some warm long sleeve shirts and tights, (Uniqlo Heattech has been my best friend for cold weather since Hokkaido trip...), socks, and a hoodie. Kept them in a dry bag.
- Backpack, Tent, Footprint, Sleeping pad, Sleeping bag
- Food/water: Jetboil (cannot survive any camping trip without it...), water bag, energy bar, oatmeal (breakfast), dry meat, instant noodles.
- Sanitization: hand sanitizer, toothbrush/paste, trash bag, ziploc bags (super useful for organizing), travel towels (super useful for cleaning up).
- Kindle, Phone. I didn't bring backup battery because the trip is short enough.
- Headlamp (a must-have, much more convenient than cellphone flashlight)
In total, it's about 25-30lbs including the backpack. Easily manageable for short trip like this.
- Tips and lessons learned
- Don't bring/leave anything with strong scent. Keep all food in food lockers during the night. This is the first rule I learned since I started car camping 7 or 8 years ago.
- In spring and summer, the plants was so wide-spreading that they basically covers the trail itself in many areas, and they grew as tall as me, if not taller. Long pants and long sleeves were critical to surviving that without scratches...
- Forgot to bring trekking poles and extra water bottles. Big mistakes.
- I left some dry shirts in my car, which turned out to be useful after I returned the next day after 2 hours of hike and soaked in sweat.
- The weather prediction at the time of leaving home does not always catch up with how fast the weather changes. It's always a good idea to bring extra clothes and layers in the car and make a decision at trailhead. In addition to what's listed above, I also brought my ski jacket and ski pants, plus a raincoat with me in the car. After arriving, the weather seems warm enough so I only took a light waterproof jacket with me on the hike, and left everything else in the car.
Trip
After driving up for ~2 hours from Sunnyvale, I arrived at Bear Valley visitor center and picked up map, parking and camping permit. There are multiple trailheads/trails that lead to wildcat campground, including one at Bear Valley visitor center itself. I decided on Palomarin trailhead and Coast Trail instead, mostly because of the ocean side view, plus a few lakes and Alamere waterfall on its way. It's about 35 minutes drive away from Bear Valley visitor center.
Drive to Palomarin Trailhead
Lots of shades, which is nice. Pacific ocean is right ahead.
The beginning part stays on the cliff with ocean view. It stretches for about 1 mile like this.
Starts to head uphill and away from the ocean.
Bass lake.
There are also Pelican lake and Cristal Lake in the second half of the trail, which I didn't have much interest to explore, plus the weather was starting to get cloudy.
The trail finds its way back to the ocean.
One of the last uphill climbs.
Beachfront next to Wildcat campground.
Arrived!!! Clearly the weather started going nasty.
Quickly set up the tent, right before rain storm hit me.
Hiding in the tent for about 2 hours during the first round of rain, I fell asleep for a while.
Misty mountains behind my campground. Brief gap between rains.
The rain came back after sunset. I stayed in tent till 10 reading my Kindle book about <The Daily Show> and Jon Stewart.
Here comes the best part. This is the view I woke up to!!
Campsite #6 is a famous campsite, because of this. Apparently this is the only campsite out of seven in Wildcat campground that has access to the top of the cliff. I wasn't able to find an weekend open slot for the next half year, so I had to take days off and come in a weekday.
Looking south, again, from my campsite!
Silly face selfie, all packed and ready to leave, reluctantly.
I can barely find the trail between 7 ft tall plants.
It gets even worse. I need a machete!
Quails?
I like trails with progress bar.
I forgot which lake this is. They all look the same.
Almost there towards the end. Back to where I started.
Random Thoughts
I generally go on hiking/camping alone when I am a bit frustrated with reality.
OK, let's be honest. No, hiding myself in woods doesn't make such frustration go away. Whatever that was bothering me, will still be there waiting for me after returning.
However, the value of such trips, is to put me into a different perspective and scale, to make such frustration appear much smaller and consistently reminds me to not yield my focus to trivial setbacks. It provides an uninterrupted period of time for me to meditate in my tents under starlights (or heavy rain, sometimes...), to reflect and ponder about the things I really care about, the underlying values I should stick myself to regardless of ups and downs, regardless of circumstances.
The uninterrupted reading time during the long dark night also helped. I stayed up late reading the book about Daily Show and Jon Stewart. It was the best book I've read so far this year. It goes into details from multiple people's point of view, to paint a full picture about the struggle Jon had when taking over The Daily Show, how hard he fought to enforce his vision, values, principles and idealism into it, lifted it up from some mediocre cheap laugh into a culture phenomenon and brought it to a higher level of morality, by having everyone (from EP to writers to tech staffs) to think and write about what they really care about and what was wrong about the society and politics around them. It reminds me a lot about <Newsroom>, reminds me the Don-Quixote-style idealism in journalism, in which Aaron Sorkin was so obsessed about.
In the face of reality, sometimes you win, more times you lose. That doesn't necessarily mean the values you believed in are wrong or worthless. It just means you need to work harder to become stronger to defend the values that you hold closest to your heart.
