Leon Turnbull Photography

The rain is gone. The sun is out. It is time to go backpacking. Point Reyes National Seashore was not my first choice. I had big plans to backpack in Ventana Wilderness (at least a couple times this winter) but then they closed the forest for two months. What the heck? There is no more flooding. There is no more rain. Why would you need to close the entire forest now? And for two months? This really really annoyed me. It has also ruined my hiking and backpacking plans this winter. Well, time to turn elsewhere I guess. The Wildcat permit is incredibly difficult to obtain. You need to plan this trip months in advance. Of course I did not do that since I had no plans to go here. However, at the last minute I discovered there was one permit left for the weekend. It must be a miracle. I snatched it up as fast as I could. Point Reyes here I come.

Since the Palomarin road was still closed I had to start my hike from Bear Valley visitor center. This was not a big deal. It is only about one mile longer. I started my hike at about 8:30am and arrived at camp an easy 3 hours later at 11:30am. I set up camp, ate my lunch, and then settled in for the long wait. There was one other couple in the campground (others arrived later). My neighbor couple said they saw a bobcat in the campground just before I got there. I hoped to see it as well. Later at night I did see a strange animal in the dark but I don’t know if was the bobcat or not. Some sort of “wildcat” perhaps, though it seemed more like a weasel size (but who knows – it was dark).

Horsetail Falls … so … hummm … I have had this on my radar for a long time. I have only seen it from the bluffs at a very long distance (six years ago). You cannot get up close to the waterfall except at a minus tide. There was a minus tide on this day at about sunset. The timing would be perfect. I just had to wait 5 hours until the end of day.

I started hiking up the beach at about 3:30pm. I had loads of time to spare. I saw one other couple had gone up this way in the afternoon. When they passed me going the other way I saw they had their big backpacks on. Why would they carry their heavy packs up here? The only possible reason is if they were trying to find an (illegal) camping spot. Apparently they did not find one because they were going back. It certainly would not have been very smart to camp up here. At high tide the waves are literally crashing against the cliffs, but with a minus tide I easily made it up to Horsetail Falls. If you think Wildcat Beach at Pt Reyes is the most beautiful beach on Earth, I would not argue with you. However, the beach at Horsetail Falls I just might rank a tad higher. Perhaps because it is more remote and a lot harder to reach but it is absolutely out of this world breathtaking. I still had an hour to spare so I continued on past all the shore birds to the end of the beach where there is a spectacular arch at Millers Point. That was as far as I could continue at a minus tide. I retreated back to the waterfall.

Even though it had only been only five days since the last of the storms, the flow in Horsetail Falls and Phantom Falls was much reduced, probably half the flow or less since I was at Pt Reyes five days previously. It was a bit disappointing (especially Phantom Falls). You would think these streams could hold their flow for a lot longer after so much rain. I’m ready for more rain now, please.

Sunset was at 5:20pm and I had to wait until 5:20pm before I could take any photos. There was still a bit of light on the waterfall but it was gorgeous.

Now I had to literally run back to Phantom Falls in order to take photos of that waterfall. It was a half mile and I ran on the beach as fast as I could. I barely had enough light left to take photos of Phantom Falls. Now I could relax again and walked back to my campsite in the dark. Along the way I saw some deer walking slowly along the beach, so slowly that I caught up with them. At first I was not sure if they saw me or not because it was dark, but then I realized they did notice me, they just did not care that I was there. They scrambled up the cliffs (I went the easy way) and I saw them again back at my campsite. Again, they did not care that I was standing right beside them in my campsite. They just went about their business, scrounging for food. I saw them sleeping in the bushes later. I did not see them in the morning. I did see little birds, however. They were worse than the deer. They were all around and came up within a foot of me and they did not care at all that I was there. Obviously they were very used to seeing people!

It was a very cold night in the tent even though it should not have been (it was above 40 degrees). I think the wind made it feel a lot colder than normal. I woke up, made my breakfast, and watched the waves crashing against the cliffs (it was not even high tide yet) while I drank my coffee to warm me up. I would have gone to Alamere Falls but the high tide did not allow me. I arrived back at my car at 11:30am. It was a glorious weekend at Point Reyes National Seashore.