North Bay

Hiking the California Coast: Tomales Point ~ Point Reyes National Seashore

Point Reyes National Seashore is a National Park jewel in the San Francisco Bay Area.  Point Reyes will always have a special place in my heart, because it was where we had our first family backpacking adventure.  Not only is Point Reyes a great place for family backpacking, it also has many fantastic location for numerous day hikes.

Ever since my husband and I "discovered" Point Reyes we have always wanted to hike out to Tomales Point, but we just haven't found the opportunity to make it there.  Even though Point Reyes is in the San Francisco Bay Area, it's still 2.5 hour drive to reach the trail head from the East Bay!  It was definitely worth the drive, since we had an out-of-town guest coming to California for the first time.  We wanted to show the beauty of the California coast, so off we went to Tomales Point.

Hiking the California Coast

When you think about hiking on the California coast, everyone thinks about warm sunshine, beautiful views of the Pacific ocean and cliffs.  I would say that on all our coastal hiking outings: Año Nuevo SP, Rancho Corral de Tierra, Baker Beach, Pirates Cove and Backpacking Point Reyes have been for the most part, completely the opposite of sunny/warm and Tomales Point was no different!

Weather Conditions ~ The majority of the hike was foggy, it wasn't until 4 p.m. that the sun FINALLY broke through the fog.  It was cold, misty, foggy and windy during most of the hike and then winds became stronger after the sun broke through the fog!  I was almost knocked down a couple times near "Windy Gap" by the gusts!  I normally bring multiple layers for myself and especially for the kids since they get cold sitting in the carriers.

Foggy trail near same location below

Fog-less Tomales Point  

I usually do not like "Out and Back" trails because I want to see new scenery the entire hike but since it was foggy one way and sunny on the way out, it was like two completely different hikes!  Everything looked different from the foggy morning hike.  We were also able to see the tide roll into Tomales Bay, which none of us have ever seen before!

Bird Rock in the Pacific Ocean

Trail Conditions ~ Tomales Point Trail is an out and back trail, 4.75 miles (one way) for a total 9.5 miles.  We were aiming to hike to the bluffs but we were not committed since 9.5 miles is a really long hike with toddlers.  We did not complete the entire trail, we opted out to not hike the last 0.5 miles to the bluffs (see trail report below).  Everything I read about this hike said it was an easy "10 mile" hike but everything takes twice as long with kids.  With that said, my toddlers LOVED this hike and the adults did too!

The trail itself was mostly single track with some wider trail sections.  It was a combination of hiking on beach sand and compact dirt.  A huge motivator to get my kids hiking and out of the carriers is SAND. There was a trail section where we were hiking uphill (with toddlers on our backs), in sand, "bushwhacking" our way through the tall wildflowers...I don't know about you but that was HARD.  I made it about 20 ft and then my daughter yelled "Ooh sand!! I want to get out!!" and I happily let her out.  My kids love to bring their shovels in case they find sand on hikes. 

Getting There ~ Tomales Point Trail Head is at the end of Pierce Point Road a 40 minute drive from the Bear Valley Visitor Center, which I highly recommend visiting.   Directions to Tomales Point Trailhead.

Abundant Wildlife

One of the main attractions of Tomales Point is the wildlife, in particular the Tule Elk.  I was hoping to see a few Tule Elk but I was surprised that we hiked all day with the Tule Elk.  Of course we always kept our distance since wildlife should never be disturb, but we took many moments to just stop and stare at these beautiful creatures.  

National Park Service states that "In 2009, over 440 were counted at Tomales Point" and we definitely saw at least 50 elk during our hike.

Can you find the Elk scratching it's ear like a dog?

Seeing wildlife with kids is really amazing, so many teachable moments that I will need to write another post about it soon.  My kids haven't really grasped the concept of specific type of animals, so when we told them those animals were "Tule Elk" they just gave us blank stares.  When I told them they were kind of like deer they were a little confused because they didn't look like deer.  It wasn't until we saw the bucks with antlers, that my toddlers were satisfied with telling me that we were hiking with "Reindeer". 

Why did the turkey cross the road?

We also found some wild turkeys crossing the trail.  As we let them cross our path, I joked with our children that we were going to eat them and my son turned around and said "Mommy, we don't eat turkeys!".  Sorry buddy, we do and they are delicious!  Wild turkeys are not native to Point Reyes National Seashore, so maybe we could have eaten them...

Wildlife Proximity ~ We've had a few close wildlife encounters in the past, so we are very careful when wildlife is nearby.  As we were hiking along the ridge, a herd of Tule Elk (bucks) ran across the trail 30 feet ahead of us.  The low bushes hid the elk, so we could not see them until they were running across the trail (picture above).  Thankfully we had our "herd" of children near by and my daughter (two years old) was up high in the carrier. My daughter was able to see the herd running and said, "Daddy, that is beautiful!".

Wildflowers Galore

I have never hiked where I was completely surrounded by wildflowers.  My hiking ground is the San Francisco East Bay hills that dry up the second the rainy season stops, so all the hills surrounding me are currently golden brown with a few sparse wildflowers.  The California coast stays a little more damp due to the fog, so even our precious California Golden Poppies were out in droves!

The one flower that stopped us in our tracks was the Cobwebby Thistle - Cirsium Occidentale (spiky pink "flower").  We found it near the last mile of the Tomales Point Trail, the closer we got to the end the more abundant they became.  I could only identify the California Golden Poppy, and some type of purple lily but we were always surrounded by wildflowers.  If you have allergies to pollen, I would suggest waiting until wildflower season is finished because we were covered in pollen!

My daughter was in HEAVEN...she absolutely loves flowers, one of her favorite things about the outdoors.  It took us forever to walk through the field of flowers (about 4 ft high) because she had to stop and smell all the flowers.  I had to "part the waters" with my hiking sticks so she could walk through and not get hit in the face.

Trail Report Details

Who: Four Adults, Two Toddlers

Family Friendly: Difficult

Mileage: 8.5 miles Round trip

Elevation Change: 1256 ft

Trails: Tomales Point Trail (Out and Back) 

Approximate Time: 4 hours (Moving time) ~ 7 hours 15 mins (Breaks Included)

Method: Toddlers Partially Hiking/Carriers

I would not suggest this hike in its entirety for families new to hiking, hence the difficulty rating but if your are used to hiking with your kids this hike would be a great all day hike.  A more family friendly hike at Tomales Point Trail would be hiking to Windy Gap (approx 1 mile - 2 miles roundtrip) and exploring the barns near the trail head.  I absolutely loved this hike, from the wildflowers, wildlife to hiking the beautiful California coast, Tomales Point is a hike definitely worth the drive, effort and time.  

Have you been to Point Reyes National Seashore before?  If so what parts?

Join in on the conversation by leaving a comment here! You can also join in on the conversations on Chasqui Mom's Facebook, Instagram and Twitter that is updated daily with outdoor activities and other wonderful posts and links from #OutdoorFamilies!

Related Posts and Links:

  1. Point Reyes National Seashore - National Park Service Site
  2. Backpacking at Point Reyes: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3

Pirates Cove Adventures with Amigos~ Guest Post on Latino Outdoors

Queremos aventura, algo diferente! My friend, Lorena has caught the "Outdoor Adventure Bug" as I call it.  I had to find a hike that lived up to our previous adventures like

Rancho Corral de Tierra at Golden Gate National Recreation Area

.  We tossed around ideas like Mt. Tamalapais, Pinnacles National Park, and the Santa Cruz Mountains, but nothing sat well with me.  I literally spent days looking for an adventurous place to hike, especially since Lorena and her husband Eliu had just returned from an Anniversary trip to the sierras trip and then I found Pirates Cove....

If you want to go there....

The 5.9 mile loop hike starts at Tennessee Valley Road in Mill Valley, which has a dirt parking lot, bathrooms and picnic tables. Start hiking on Tennessee Valley Road and take a quick right onto Fox Trail which is an uphill 1.0 mile hike to Coyote Ridge.  Fox Trail turns continues to Coast Fire Rd for 0.9 miles, which has FANTASTIC views of Muir Beach.  Turn left onto Coastal Trail for 1.0 mile to Pirates Cove spur.   

NOTE: Pirates Cove spur is very rugged and steep, please take caution.

Return back up the spur and continue straight up the stairs and head to the right for 1.1 miles on an uphill hike on Coastal Trail.  Continue on Tennessee Valley Trail on a 1.1 downhill hike back to the parking lot.

Mileage: 5.9 Miles

Elevation: Approx. 1,800 ft

Elapsed Time: 6 hours 28 minutes (Including Lunch Break)

Group: 7 Adults & 2 Toddlers

Family Friendly (Difficulty Level 1-10): Level 6

Related Posts and Links:

  1. Latino Outdoors: Pirates Cove Adventure with Amigos
  2. The Hidden National Park - Rancho Corral de Tierra

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The Longest Five Miles at Point Reyes

Saturday, May 11, 2013

Our last day of backpacking at Point Reyes National Seashore was definitely a fun but tiring one, especially for me.  As you can see below, that's my daughter who slept in MY sleeping bag on MY sleeping pad.  She's a very outdoorsy toddler but she can be a little "princess" when she wants to be.  I also had to document this in the middle of the night.

My daughter has issues with sleeping (too many to list) but she has to sleep with me, not next to me but pretty much on top of me all night, it's rather tiring.  Long story short she was not comfortable because she did not have a sleeping pad so at some point in the middle of the night I gave up and let her sleep on my pad in my bag and I "slept" on the hard ground halfway out of her kid's sleeping bag.  I did not sleep well, I was cold and couldn't stay asleep, which set the tone for the rest of the day.  Thankfully I 'm a petite woman so I could almost fit into her sleeping bag.  Ah, what mothers do to make their kids sleep.

Stay hydrated when on the trail!!

The kids and Jesse woke up very refreshed but I did not.  My hips hurt from laying on the ground and I was cranky until I had coffee.  By the way, Starbucks Via Instant Coffee is wonderful, I don't think I could ever go backpacking without coffee or chocolate covered espresso beans.  Once I had my morning coffee and breakfast, I felt 100 times better and had energy to clean and pack up to start our five miles trek to the parking lot.  Five miles really did not seem like a long trek, but it sure felt like it.

We took the same trails that we took on 

our first day backpacking,

 but in reverse order: Glen Camp Loop Trail, Glen Trail, Bear Valley, Bear Valley.  It was a gentle down slope which really helped our kids hike a lot.  I am proud to say that my son hike the entire 5 miles to the parking lot! Partially because my husband and I were too tired to carry him but David has hiked 3-4 miles all by himself, we've seen him do it many times.  We had a constant steady flow of trail mix, dried fruit and most importantly chocolate for all of us, especially for the kids.  Jesse and I switched our "hiking buddies" quite often, but I hiked with my son most of the day.

I was really tired from not sleeping, which totally affected my hiking.  I was really slow and sluggish but I just masked it by hiking at my son's pace.  It allowed me to enjoy the beauty of Point Reyes once again.  We took lots and lots of breaks which also made us even slower and made my pack feel heavier and heavier.  As we hiked, all I could think about was what could I do to make my pack lighter but four people's worth of stuff in two people's backpack was just a lot, period.

One of our many breaks was the bridge that connects Glen Trail to Bear Valley Trail.  I held Sophia because she really wanted to go overboard into the river.  The parking lot was 3 miles from the intersection of Glen/Bear Valley Trail, so there were a lot of hikers (day and backpackers) and bikers.  One runner in particular stopped and congratulated us for backpacking with our kids.  She continued to tell us she knew how difficult it was because they had gone on a backpacking trip with their

FOUR

young children.  Goodness!! All I could think about was how heavy their packs must of been!  Some other hiker thanked me for bringing my kids outdoors.  It was very encouraging to hear nice comments from other people, since I needed to mentally push through my sluggishness and coaxed my son to continue hiking.

Jesse picked up Sophia and hiked as fast as he could to Divide Meadow.  David was tired and I was too tired to carry him so the both of us hiked extremely slow.  Jesse found our beautiful break spot at Divide Meadow, left his pack and came to "rescue" David and I.  The second David saw his daddy, he yelled "Daddy, I'm tired!!" and literally laid down on the trail and fell asleep for a minute!  Poor buddy was really exhausted.  We all made it back to our tree log bench and had our feast of Trader Joe's Salami, dried cranberries and Clif Bars to get some energy back in us.

Best thing about hiking is eating and taking breaks to enjoy the view!!

Western Fence Lizard

My love and Chasqui Mom, photo taken by my three year old!

Artistic photo by my three year old son!

My daughter in Divide Meadow.

After we recharged, we started on our last 1.5 miles or so to the parking lot.  It seemed like an eternity because the kids were completely done, Sophia wanted to "hike" a.k.a play in the dirt and David wanted to be carried and neither of us wanted to carry him.  Jesse was gracious enough to lighten my pack and carry some of my weight.  We started throwing every bribe we could to motivate David...McDonald's, candy, ice cream as long as he made it to the car.  We had about 0.25 miles left and David was really struggling so I ran to the car and dropped of my pack, and ran back to meet them on the trail.  David happily climbed on my back and we all made it back to the car together!

HIKING INFORMATION

Distance hiked was 6 miles but the extra mile was probably due to the walking around on the trails chasing the kids.  It is a 5 mile hike from Glen Camp to Bear Valley Trail parking lot.

Elevation change was very gradual, high point about 600 ft, low point 150 feet.

Glen Camp Loop Trail - Glen Camp Trail - Bear Valley Trail

Overall, it was a rough day but as always we make the best of it.  A few days later the kids were asking to go "sleep in the tent" again.  I love my family and I love being outdoors with them.  Point Reyes was the best place to have our first "Pilot" family backpacking trip.  Three days and 17.5 miles of hiking with my family was wonderful!

Related Posts

The Ever Changing Point Reyes National Seashore

Friday, May 10, 2013:

We all woke up very hungry from our first day of backpacking and we quickly started making coffee and breakfast.  I brought Nido powdered milk for my toddlers but my super picky eater son wouldn't drink it and of course my daughter ate everything in sight.  I couldn't figure out what to have for breakfast so we had instant oatmeal and added some powdered milk to make it "fattier".  We also brought Mini-Wheat's Cereal for the kids in case they didn't want the oatmeal, but I eventually convinced my son to eat oatmeal.  Sometimes I think my son survives on air, but I knew if he didn't eat something he would have a miserable day.  Thankfully after a while, he had some food and became a happier little boy.

Foggy Morning at Glen Camp

It was a very foggy morning and none of the other campers had arrived yet so it was a very quiet morning other than my toddlers squealing. We "quickly" cleaned up and got our packs ready for our day's hike to Alamere Falls.  It was a 3 mile hike (Glen Camp Loop-Stewart Trail) to Wildcat Campground and then a 1.1 mile hike to Alamere Falls. That was our plan, an 8.2 mile round trip for the whole day with our much lighter packs so we could also hike faster.

David hiking on Glen Camp Trail

Glen Camp Loop Trail was fairly flat with a very low grade uphill climb to Glen Trail.  Glen Trail was also a fire road like Bear Valley Trail but it was very beautiful.  Park Rangers were out for their morning routes in their trucks and we saw one horse rider and then we did not see anyone until we reached Wildcat Camp.  We nicknamed a section of this trail, "Nana's Fairyland" because it seemed like a very magical place.

Can you find the spider?

We walked along a portion of the trail where there were hundreds and hundreds of plants (pictured above) that were covered with dew. My daughter walked up to the plants and happily poked the plants so the water trickled down to the ground.  We looked at my daughter and she had a grin from ear to ear and my husband said he could imagine her imagining fairies popping out from the plants.  It really looked like something out of a fairyland story book!  The landscape looked like it should belong in a magical land where fairies, elves and other creatures would be roaming around.  I could see my children's imagination in their faces and I loved it!

Foggy Stewart Trail

The landscape was always changing, one of my favorite things about Point Reyes! The first portion of Glen Trail was very covered woodsy trail which included "Nana's Fairyland".  Stewart Trail opened up to over looking a small wooded valley and then opened up to the view of Wildcat Campground and the Pacific Ocean.  It was very refreshing to see the ocean.  I love the ocean because it's so big, open and knowing that it is the end of the land until Asia.  I love the ocean.

We debated about camping here, but it would have been a longer hike into camp and I read that it could be extremely windy and wet.  Normally I wouldn't care if it was windy and wet but I wanted our first family backpacking experience to be an enjoyable one, so we picked the protected Glen Camp.  My daughter fell asleep at this point in my carrier and I was terribly hot because the fog cleared, it was an opened non-shaded trail and I couldn't take off my sweater.  I hiked as quickly as I could down to Wildcat Campground.

I also decided to use my front day pack (the top portion of my Gregory Deva 70) so I could comfortable carry one of my kids on my back, which worked out pretty well.  It was a somewhat steep trail down to Wildcat Campground but it was doable without my hiking poles.  When we made it to Wildcat Campground we took a little break and my daughter woke up.  My son, David had seen the ocean from the trail so he was already excited to go to the beach but it was still another 1.1 miles to Alamere Falls, up another hill.  We decided to take a longer break at the Wildcat Beach and then hike to Alamere Falls.  When my daughter saw the beach, her reaction was priceless! She literally screamed "THE BEACH!!!!!", put her hands on her face, screamed with joy and did a little dance.  That is the truth.

There was a little creek that flowed into the ocean which of course the kids were immediately drawn too. After about 15 minutes of being there and I realized we weren't going to make it to Alamere Falls.  The kids were never going to want to leave this place, they were having so much fun splashing in the water, rolling in the sand and throwing rocks.  We could actually see Alamere Falls from the beach and it looked like we could walk to it but we read that the tide can come in all the way to the cliffs and we didn't want to risk getting stranded out there.

Alamere Falls in the distance, so close yet so far away....

We had our Chicken Pita Lunch on the beach and tried to relax on the beach while the kids played on the beach.  The difference between hiking/backpacking before kids and after having kids is that you can never truly have a break! We tried to rest but one of the kids always needed us to clean sand out of their mouth or we had to observe that they didn't go too deep into the creek, etc.

My husband was really amazed that our kids were not cold because we were freezing, especially myself! I don't know what's been going on with my body lately but anytime I finish exercising I immediately get really cold and stay cold for a long time.  My kids on the other hand were dressed in what they were born in, splashing in the water!  My kids eventually got cold and we dressed them in dry clothes and they had a screaming tearful, almost tantrum goodbye from the beach.  There was no way we were going to make it to Alamere Falls....next time.

We rearranged our packs again and my son (who threw the borderline tantrum) was very tired and needed to take a nap.  I told him he could ride in my carrier and he happily went on my back.  Of course he took a nap on the hardest part of the uphill trail and my husband slowly walked with our daughter because she was determined to walk herself.  We were not in a rush so we took our time, not like I could run up the mountain with my three year old toddler on my back.  We took Stewart Trail (0.9 miles) to Coast Trail which I highly recommend.  It was a very beautiful trail with views of Wildcat Campground, the Pacific Ocean and Wildcat Lake which we had not seen.

Wildcat Lake from Coast Trail

Coast Trail was more "coast-like" trail, short stubby plants and drier than the earlier day's hike, it was windier as well.  Sophia was falling asleep on Jesse's shoulders and I was pretty exhausted from carrying David up Stewart Trail so we stopped in the only shaded portion of the trail for a break.  We tried laying the kids down on our jackets but they didn't survive the transfer and woke up, so Jesse and I laid down while the kids rolled around and had snacks.  Coast Trail had abundant amounts Poison Oak so we made sure that our break area was clear of it.  All I remember from our break was looking up at the sky and seeing the fog roll in and out, it truly reminded me of hiking in the cloud forests of Peru.

Coast Trail eventually became a single track trail and we only passed two hikers who admired us for backpacking with our kids.  One guy said "I saw you guys down at Wildcat and I thought wow!"  I really don't know why people think it's unimaginable to hike with kids, its certainly hard but we love spending outdoor time with our kids. They have taught us to see the smallest things on the trail that I would never stop to see like....

Ladybugs, Flowers, and Wild Strawberries!

Thank you to my children to allow me to enjoy the little things in life!

Sophia, our Mountain Baby....

David, our Cowboy...

The kids were starting to reach their limit again and we had about a mile of so left picked the pace as well as the kids so we could make it back to camp before sunset and not have to cook in the dark again.  I was terribly paranoid that my son was going to jump in poison oak so I was glad he was riding on "daddy's shoulders".  A few pictures from Coast Trail.....

My friend called this, "Into the Wild".

Beautiful flowers were all along the trail

All in all we made it back to camp with lots of day light to spare so we could actually "relax" as much as parents can with two toddlers.  I was hoping to see some wildlife but we only got to see cute quails roaming around the trails.  We did see beautiful changing landscapes which is always nice to see.  We also had more campers when we returned to Glen Camp, a troop of Boy Scouts and their leaders.  My daughter and I were the only women there for a long time then I saw a few more women hikers arrive later in the evening to set up camp in the campsites behind us.

We had dinner, cleaned up, took a little tour of the whole campground and tried to find some sun to warm up.  My daughter had a late afternoon nap so she wasn't ready to go to sleep but my son was exhausted.  The problem with my son is that the more exhausted he get the harder it is for him to sleep.  He eventually fell asleep and about after an hour of rearranging our packs and cleaning, the rest of us went to sleep.  It was a good day.

HIKING INFORMATION

Hiked 6.3 miles, in 7 hours but half of the time we were not moving, lunch, breaks, etc.

Elevation: Lowest point - Sea Level 0 Feet, Highest Point 900 Feet

Glen Camp Loop Trail - Glen Trail - Stewart Trail - Coast Trail - Glen Trail - Glen Camp Loop

Related Posts: 

Day 1, Point Reyes and Family Backpacking Gear List

The Very Green Point Reyes National Seashore, Glen Camp

What can I say about Point Reyes National Seashore? Better yet, what can't I say about Point Reyes?!  This was the perfect place to have our first family backpacking trip.  Beautiful landscapes, campgrounds, weather and fairly easy trails.  It was truly a wonderful place to visit with my toddlers.

Somewhere on Bear Valley Trail

We decided to head out before the normal Friday-Sunday weekenders so we planned our trip to be Mother's Day Weekend Thursday-Saturday.  I had been preparing for weeks by organizing meals, calculation of diapers, gear and equipment needed, clothes and anything that would be essential to backpacking with toddlers.  Before I start off with our adventure story I'd like to list some general information:

Hikers: Two Adults and two toddlers
Backpack Weight: My Husband - Jesse 56 lbs, Myself 49 lbs (Total 105 lbs)
Location: Glen Camp, Point Reyes

Day 1 Listed Mileage: 4.6 Miles (Bear Valley trailhead to Glen Camp)

Thursday, May 9, 2013

We started the morning by packing our backpacks to the rim, loaded the kids in the car and headed off good ol' IHOP!  We arrived to the Bear Valley Visitor Center at 2 p.m. and checked in to get our permit.  The visitor center entertained my children quite a bit with their life size animal replicas such as orca whales, elephant seals, sharks and a very interactive animal center.

Bear Valley Visitor Center

We parked our car at the very end of the parking lot and made our final preparations to our backpacks before we headed out on the trail.  As I mentioned in many previous posts that transitioning from the car to actually hiking is always chaotic, a crying toddler, someone having to go pee pee, forgetting something in the vehicle, realizing that we left something at home.  In this case, we realized we had forgotten my newly purchased hiking poles for this very trip!  We laughed it off, we were bound to forget something.

We started at the Bear Valley Trail which began at the end of the parking lot.  The majority of the hike to Glen Camp was on Bear Valley Trail which was primarily a fire road, 3.1 miles to be exact.  There were a multitude of horse riders on this portion of trail which led to both excitement and fear from my children and the fact that we had to dodge horse poop piles.  There were lots of runners as well, which my daughter liked to greet with a cute "Hi!" or "Looking mommy! Running!"

We stopped at every bridge so the kids could throw little pebbles.  We saw a multitude of "centipedes" crossing the trails but after a little bit of research the centipedes which actually almond-scented millipedes. Not as abundant as the millipedes, there were also many banana slugs out on the trail.  Here is one "destroying" a centipede or at least it looks like the banana slug is eating the millipede.  Nature is so fierce...

It was 1.6 miles to Divide Meadow, and it was a  very slight uphill to the Meadow.  My daughter was very energetic so she was hiking but my son hadn't nap on the car ride over, so it was time for him to ride on "daddy's shoulders".

Jesse and David made it to Divide Meadow before we did, but I could see from afar that my little boy was dead asleep on my husband shoulders.  Divide Meadow is a very beautiful meadow, very open with large trees in the background along with the coming and going fog.  There are tree benches, bathrooms, garbage cans and water source at this location.

We decided to have a little break here and rearrange our son or else Jesse's neck would be killing him later on.  My son weighs at least 35 lbs so Jesse put David in the ERGO carrier on his front-side and his 56 lbs backpack on his back, total weight of 91 lbs!!  My husband is a strong guy.

Sleeping on the trail....

Divide Meadow

Sophia took a little tumble at Divide Meadow, she's a much better hiker/walker than she was two months ago but the trail was slightly down hill and she was imitating the runners by running.  She caught some speed tripped on a rock and scraped her palm of her hand.  After a band-aidhugs and maybe some chocolate the crying had disappeared into my happy hiking mountain baby again.

The landscape all along Bear Valley Trail was very dense, lots of shade except for Divide Meadow.  It was another 1.5 miles to Glen Trail from Divide Meadow which was fairly flat.  Many parts of the trail reminded me on hiking in the high jungles of the Andes Mountains in Peru, cold, mossy with lots of vines and ferns everywhere.

The Letter "R" Tree

Ferns galore!

At some point on Bear Valley Trail, Sophia got tired and had to ride on my shoulders but only for a short while because I was struggling to carry her along with my pack.  I just put her down and walked along at her pace.  The hike to Glen Camp was only five miles but we calculated with all our weight and our kids we would hike 1 mph, so five hours to get to Glen Camp.  It seems unimaginable to hike five miles in five hours but that is how slowly things go with toddlers.

David woke up just a little bit before we reached the beginning of Glen Trail which was only 0.6 miles to Glen Camp Loop Trail but Glen Trail was "steep" uphill.  Anything that wasn't flat felt steep with my 49 lbs backpack and my 25 lb toddler, minimum of 74 lbs on me which is more than 50% of my body weight.  Let's say I was very sweaty! I gave up and had to put Sophia down again but sunset was coming so Jesse picked Sophia for a little while.  Glen Trail was not a fire road but was still wide on portions of the trail and after the good "steep" portion the trail became a very slight uphill trail, so low grade my daughter was able to hike up the hill.

It was around 6:30 p.m. when we finally made it to Glen Loop Camp Trail and we only had 0.9 miles to go but it still seemed like it took a very long time.  Glen Loop Camp Trail was very beautiful, it was a single track trail with lush greenery all around.  We were reaching our children's limit by this point and we ran out of our daily ration of chocolate so we had nothing to bribed them to keep hiking other than dried cranberries!  When my daughter gets cranky she only wants to be held by me, so I left her behind with my husband and hiked as fast as I could to get to camp. There were easy  uphills and downhills but every uphill was very tiring by this point.  We eventually made it to camp with some daylight left.

Troops arriving at Glen Camp!

As you can see Glen Camp has pit toilet, a water source and solar panels which my husband assumed it was used to power the water filtration system.  The Point Reyes NPS website did state to bring our own water filtration in case the water was not drinkable, but thankfully the water was good to go!  We reserved Campsite No. 8 which was just up a slight hill (sigh) to the right.  We quickly set up camp, started making coffee and dinner.  I was going to include our meals into this post but I think I'm going to make a backpacking food post since I put in so much preparation to calculate the right amounts.

View of Campsite No. 8

Campsite No. 8 was probably the smallest campsite and most enclosed of all the campsites.  We barely fit our two two-person tents in our sites.  We were surrounded by bushes and trees which was ideal keep our kids noise in and other campers noises out.  There was only one other campsite being used and the rest of the camp was empty.

View of Glen Camp from Campsite No.8

Dinner was eaten, dishes washed, everyone cleaned up, changed clothes and we all headed to bed around 9:30 p.m.  Sleeping is always a shot in the dark with our kids but thankfully our kids slept better than they "normally" do our first night.  This was my first time using my REI Lite-Core 1.5 Sleeping Pad, which was very comfortable.  Unfortunately I kept on have weird/nightmare-ish dreams the first half of the night so I kept on waking up, but thankfully I eventually fell asleep and got a good stretch of peaceful sleep.

HIKING INFORMATION

Mileage Listed 4.6 Miles, but we actually hiked 5.2 miles.

Starting Elevation 100 ft, End Elevation 550 ft

Bear Valley Trail - Glen Trail - Glen Camp Loop Trail

Day 2 will be coming soon but until then I leave you with two of my favorite pictures!

Somewhere on Glen Trail

Hiking toddler at Glen Camp

Related Posts:

  1. Family Backpacking Gear List
  2. The Ever Changing Point Reyes National Seashore
  3. The Longest Five Miles at Point Reyes

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