Leon Turnbull Photography

For the first time ever, our entire family went along on a backpacking trip with me. You heard me right, all four of us. It’s a miracle! How did I do it? It actually only took one word: ocean. If I say that word to my wife, she gets all giddy and excited. It probably took a few more words for my kids to agree.

I planned this trip months in advance. You have to do this because it is very difficult to get reservations at the Wildcat campground in Point Reyes National Seashore. Even a couple months in advance, everything was booked except for one last campsite, and that only for one night (Friday). All the stars need to align as well: the tides, and of course the weather. There are only a couple days a year where the tides come into alignment for what I wanted to do. As for the weather, we needed a lot of rain leading up to the event, and then nice weather on the day of the event. This is winter in California. Good luck with that madman. But that is exactly how it all panned out. We had quite a bit of rain in the two weeks before our trip (not nearly as much as I hoped – but it was enough). Then the weather showed a break for Friday. More rain was expected on Saturday afternoon. It turned out to be absolutely perfect timing. It was not even going to be very cold. I guess I could take credit for planning this out so perfect, but then I’d be struck by lightning. God is so good to us. Thank you Lord! I should also mention that I needed cloudy skies to take photos of this waterfall. That happened also. It was another miracle. Again, thank you God!

I was not able to do everything I wanted on this trip. We got a very late start. That is mostly because the visitor center does not open until 10AM! By the time we got our permits and got to the trailhead, it was 11:30AM before we started hiking. We did not arrive at Alamere Falls until 2PM, which is much later than I wanted. I had hoped to be at camp by this time, and then we’d have time to setup camp and hike up to Horsetail Falls before dark. Horsetail Falls is only accessible at very low tide and that was my primary goal for this trip, but we did not even get to camp until 5PM, and sunset is at 5:30PM, so going to Horsetail was out of the question. There is always next year. And next year, I will make sure I have enough time to get up to Horsetail.

We spent a lot of time at Alamere Falls, eating our lunch, and resting, and enjoying the waterfalls. Since it was Friday, there were not too many other people here (when we came back on Saturday, we passed a ton of people on the trail). It was beautiful and sunny for the hike up to the falls. We had grand views of the ocean. It clouded over in the afternoon by the time we arrived. Perfect. I went down to the beach to take my photos, while the rest of the crew rested up top. They were pretty tired, and so did not want to go down. It is a steep and tricky descent, and you need to be very careful, but I did not think it was too bad (it looks worse than it is). The rangers try (unsuccesfully) to dissuade people from coming down to Alamere Falls this way. They say there is poison oak (there is not), and that the descent is too dangerous (it is not – if you are careful). Don’t be stupid though and do something you are not prepared for and don’t have proper footwear for – such as going barefoot (we saw some hikers doing this – I could not believe it).

After photographing Alamere Falls, I went back up to get my crew. We would all have to descend to the beach with our packs on. With the tide going out, it would be an easy hike up the beach to Wildcat campground. We all made it down safely. Speaking of packs, you may want to know our pack weights: Leon: 43 pounds, Tara: 22.5 pounds, Jadon: 20.5 pounds, Nekoda: 14 pounds! You would think they would want to help the old man out and take on some more weight, but no sir! Actually, I did not mind taking on the extra weight. I wanted them all to be comfortable and to enjoy the trip as much as possible. Even with the light packs, they all had some difficulty.

The hike up the beach to Wildcat was the most enjoyable part of the entire hike. Too bad it was only 1 mile long. Along the way, we had a very close encounter with a huge elephant seal sleeping by the cliffs. We could hear it snoring as we passed by. We kept our distance (as you must), but it was a very cool experience.

We arrived at our campsite at 5PM. We setup camp, made our dinner and ate it in the dark, then we went to bed. There was only one other group in the entire campsite. Even though all the sites were booked (including one of the large group sites), no one was there. I am confused about this: If you book a campsite months in advance for January, what are you thinking? If it is not balmy and warm, you are going to cancel it? You do not get your money back if you cancel it. (and it is $20 – so not particularly cheap).  This is winter, people! Oh I am afraid it is only going to be 51 degrees, we just cannot go if it is that cold. If the weather was really awful then I would have canceled our trip also, but frankly I thought the weather we had was perfect. No rain, and the low temperature was only 51 degrees (which is very warm for January). There were showers forecast for overnight while we were sleeping, and I was expecting to have some, but we did not even get any showers at all. It was a fantastic day one in Point Reyes National Seashore.