Mike and Ang came over at 8:30 in the morning to get on the road.  Mike has now reached legendary status when he decided to pack.. not one... but two Presto Logs for our beach fire.  I had to break the scale out.  And it easily sailed past 40 before resting on a cool 50 lbs. 

 \

At the Bear Valley visitor center we talked with the ranger and got a fire permit.  Mike then decided to ask the ranger about volunteering his time and clearing the Almenar falls trail.  Her response,  "Sir we can not have people just going out with chainsaws, doing what they please out there."  I'm sure the were frightened.  We then left my car at Bear Valley and we then all packed in to drive and then begin the hike at the Palomarin trailhead. 

It was warm and a bit humid when we began the trip.  The trail was surrounded by green after this monster winter.

]The poison oak was thriving along the trail.

We stopped and took a break at a wonderful vista looking from Double Point all the way to Point Reyes.

Looking down at Wildcat camp

"Their is no such thing as bad weather, only weather that you are unprepared for," was the old Boy Scout motto that we would live by on this trip.  But somehow we lucked out and caught a window of good weather when we needed it for our weekend trip.  No rain on our hike in on Saturday or the evening.  It did pour from about 3-6AM on Sunday morning before breaking camp. Lucky for us.

After making camp we started our day hike along the beach to Almenor Falls. 

 The cascades fall directly on the beach.  Neat spot.  That is Mike and I at the top.

  The Presto Logs were ablaze that night and we could not be more content with our 2 bottles of "2 Buck Chuck" to keep us warm.

Day 2

Around the fire we felt a few drops but the rain did not pour till about 3 am that night.  I laid their in the tent that next morning thinking, I don't want to get out in this mess.  The rain died off a and we broke camp very quickly thinking it could hit again any moment.  When all of a sudden a gust of wind hits.  And there it goes out of Angela's hands, the tent flying in the air like a kite.  I chase it down before it joined the Pacific.  The trial switch-backed up a steep slope and then soon headed down into the lush Bear Valley.

 It was a miracle that we did not get rained on except during the night.  We had a good hike out, Mike's pack especially lighter, and had an easy stroll back to the car after cresting the meadow in Bear Valley.  Angela had her first successful backpack trip.

                                                                     Go back to Homepage