Marin Segment 6 -- Part II: More Misadventures

My loyal followers -- both of you -- may recall my previous attempt to hike Marin Segment 6 from Palomarin to Bolinas.  That ended in frustration.  Too far to go and not enough time.  But hope springs eternal and a 9:44 AM low tide offered the possibility for a rematch.  So on Wednesday, September 11 I dropped off Damien at Benicia High, gassed up on Columbus Parkway and headed West.  The traffic crawled over the Napa River Bridge in Vallejo, five minutes to do the downhill half.  But once the lane loss bottleneck was past it gradually regained momentum and we were going at the speed limit by the time the road opened out to multilane again.  Onward to Marin.  As Highway 37 joined Highway 101 a quick glance South demonstrated that the rush hour traffic was still at a crawl.  So off on Novato Boulevard to do it without freeways.  Novato Boulevard connects to the Point Reyes -- Petaluma Road.  South to Olema where I joined Highway One to the Bolinas turnoff.  The Bolinas -- Olema Road was under construction, so there was a pause there.  Once I was allowed through, I was able to take Mesa Road out to the Palomarin parking lot, the Southern edge of the Point Reyes National Seashore.  As noted in my previous post on this segment of the California Coastal Trail, Mesa Road is narrow and twisty, a cross between a rollercoaster and the driveway to a two car garage.  But at least our driveway is paved which is more than you can say for the last mile or so of Mesa Road.  The washboard surface make speed control easy: go faster than 10 MPH and your car shakes itself apart.  By 10:00 AM I was parked and ready to embark on my dread adventure.

It's about .6 mile from the parking lot to the beach, mostly downhill.  The view from the trail looked promising.  With binoculars I could see beach all the way to Bolinas Point.  Onward to Bolinas.  (But appearances are notoriously deceptive . . .)  If necessary, I could always leave the beach after Bolinas Point.  Give it the old college try.

"This looks promising," he said naively.
 

Along the trail to the beach I passed and photographed the usual assortment of picturesque flowers, ferns and Spanish Moss.  The last few yards of the trail are semi-vertical and through the brush.  On the beach at last and everything was looking favorable for a pleasant stroll to Bolinas Point.

  

 

 

So calm, so peaceful.  Piece of cake, eh?

The so-called beach was fist sized rocks and slow going.  Follow along at one level until that ran into the cliffs or the ocean.  Then change levels and continue.  It would have been nice to linger by the tide pools and explore but the tide was already turning.  Onward. 

Time and tide wait for no man -- just ask Canute -- so the periwinkles and
limpets will just have to go unobserved.

As I walked, the piled up seaweed and other marine debris were a constant reminder of the need to keep going.  Where I was walking would be underwater again by 3:30.  About a half hour in I noted a stream descending to the beach with a mini-waterfall.  Close by was a Hippie beach structure made of driftwood.  Complete with a newspaper box.  Wonder how often they get deliveries?

Fresh water nearby for your coffee and the morning paper to read,
all the civilized comforts one could ask for.

Not far beyond the outpost of the Summer of Love the beach changes to sand and easy walking.  A shallow cave and the remains of a hearth suggest that Neanderthals have lived in these parts until quite recently.  But we need not fear Crichton's "Eaters of the Dead": apart from a few scavenging ravens, I am the only current inhabitant of this beach.

Beowulf and Antonio Banderas fear not!  There
are no Neanderthals left in these parts.

This is a lot easier going than
fist sized rocks!

Another driftwood structure farther on sports a lounge chair for more laid back living but, alas, no newspaper delivery box.  But if you're tuned in, turned on and dropped out, who cares about the news?  A bit farther on and three more driftwood lean-tos suggest that we've done the time warp again and have returned to the dear old Sixties.  One is bespangled with fishing floats.  Let's hope that the bespangling was done by the builders.  An hour and five minutes in I come to the edge of Duxbury Reef.  The inner and outer reefs are composed of strata that's tipped up, oh say, 30 degrees.  Easy travelling is past again as I follow the ridges till they peter out and then side step to another ridge.

Duxbury Reef headed South.

And the same facing North -- from whence I had come.

About an hour and a half in, as I was rounding Bolinas Point and Duxbury Point was coming into view, came bad news.  The way was blocked by an impassible wall where the cliff came right down to the water's edge.  Could I manage to scramble round?  Well, no.  Where the rock wasn't vertical it was slick and a crack back into the rock was too wide to cross.  A minor slip convinced me that there was no way past that didn't involve broken bones or drowning.  (Old philosophy majors will recognize the inclusive 'or'.)  Nothing to do but to turn round and head back to the only beach access North of Bolinas Point: the Palomarin Beach Trail I'd come down an hour and a half earlier.  Better part of valor and all that: beat a hasty retreat.

O crumb!  It's going to take more than a mere low tide to get past this!

So back I went.  Back over Duxbury Reef.  Two hours in and the tide had definitely turned: the waves that had been breaking against the outer part of Duxbury Reef were now breaking over it.  Every wave was cresting higher than the last or so it seemed in my so far mild but increasing alarm.  Not much danger of being swallowed up by the tide.  There were places to get up the cliff a bit and shelter under a bush.  But what would happen if I got marooned overnight?  I imagined Rosanna distressed at my failure to return home, the Coast Guard searching for me.  My jacket is bright yellow.  That should help them find me.  I recalled my fears when Rosanna got herself locked out of our hotel in London and I wound up calling the Bobbies at two in the morning.  No, this must not come to pass.  Onward, past the reef, past the Summer of Love, past the ravens, past the sand, past the rocks.  And, past the Palomarin Trailhead!  You can't see the trail if you're facing North.  And the landmarks, or more properly seamarks, were now partly obscured by the incoming tide.  I must have gone on another 15 minutes before I realized that I was now in unfamiliar terrain with no way up and another impassible wall ahead.  Is there perhaps another informal trail available?  One possibility looked worth exploration but quickly turned into a game trail.  For small game.  Back down to the beach.
 

Is this a trail?

Maybe if you're a @#% rabbit!

Of course, going South, I could actually see the Palomarin Beach Trail.  Obvious in a subtle sort of way.  Back up to the Palomarin parking lot.  Three and a half hours expended, I'm sore and sweaty, and I still haven't conquered Marin Segment 6.  Some valuable lessons learned.  A. To get round Bolinas Point you need a minus tide, not a mere low tide. 
B. Maybe a daypack with some emergency gear might be in line for walks on deserted beaches.  C. As I learned later, your pocket is not necessarily the best place to stow your cell phone.  It had taken one in the face when I fell and the displays, both the external that took the hit and the internal as well, were now abstractly picturesque.  Still works as a phone -- as long as you can work it by faith and by memory.  Noble phone: gave its all to protect my thigh from bruising.

This is what a trailhead looks like.  Obviously.

It turns out that my inability to reach Bolinas on foot had some positive aspects.  When I drove into town I discovered that the restaurant where I'd intended to eat lunch was closed.  Would not have been amusing to walk into Bolinas and discover there was going to be no lunch.  Not with my car at Palomarin, a 5 mile hike out Mesa Road.  So I left Bolinas and headed North to Point Reyes Station, the bustling metropolis of West Marin.  The Station House Café was closed -- is Wednesday closing some kind of West Marin thing? -- but I was in time for lunch at Stellina.  And a very good lunch it was.  Spicy beef stew (beef, celery, carrots), kale, creamy polenta.  Two kinds of bread.  Boylan's Ginger Ale to drink.  For dessert a little almond torte topped with plum sorbet, whipped cream and golden plum salad by the side.   Outstanding.

All's well that ends well.

Leaving Point Reyes Station, I headed North along Highway One to Tomales, then took the road inland to Petaluma.  Easy navigation: same road all the way from the coast to the Adobe Road turn in Petaluma that leads to Sonoma.  Stopped in Sonoma for a cookie from the Basque Boulangerie.  They were giving away day old bread.  "Would you like a loaf?"  "Sure, why not?"  Home again, jiggedy-jig.  Perhaps a bit more than I had planned but I had a good hike, survived my difficulties with nothing worse than a damaged cell phone, had an excellent lunch and arrived home with a free loaf of bread.  What more could I ask?   Next time for sure!  But that's going to require a minus tide around midday.  (Not this year.)

Sancho: "More misadventures!!!"

Don Quixote: "Adventures, old friend!"  (Cue reprise of theme . . .)