The Hunt for Driftwood

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Geo: 38.055, -122.88

I honestly didn't think I was going to make this trip. I had gotten a few rounds of tonsillitis this year that took heavy duty antibiotics to kill. I had to have surgery at the end of September, and initially the surgeon figured I'd be healed in a couple weeks. My tonsils ended up having major abscesses and so the healing process was more excruciating and extended than the surgeon had initially estimated. It took months to get this reservation at Wildcat Camp, though, so you can imagine my disappointment. It was near the end of backpacking season in California so I didn't think I'd get another chance this year. A few days before I was still hurting and had developed a cold virus to boot so I had the reservation name changed to Billy's, thinking I more than likely would be bailing, but at least Chris and Billy could still go. I had called the doctor's office to get advice on whether or not they thought I could handle backpacking. The nurse on the phone, "Wouldn't you be hiking... like carrying a heavy load long distance?!" I felt a little dumb as I said, "Yeah..." She laughed, "No, we can't recommend that. You need to start slow."

Nurses make the worst patients.

The day before I decided "hell with it". So what if I hadn't exercised in five weeks (we had just moved to a new house before the surgery so that took all my free time) and so what if I'd just had surgery a few weeks ago and so what if I had a cold.... I threw my backpack on, loaded up, and hiked up and down the three stories of stairs in my house a few times. That didn't kill me. The Palomarin was supposed to be a fairly level 5.5mile trek to Wildcat Camp. Pft. What did the surgeon and nurse know about my fitness level... and let's face it... utter stubbornness and stupidity? =D

It turned out all three of us had colds so at least I wasn't alone. Our plan was to all go slow. Billy kept offering to carry my gear if need be. Instead of weighing myself down with the unnecessary (but still used!) weight of Cards Against Humanity game, I replaced it with a small box of wine from Trader Joes. The wine is in a bladder in the box so it's less heavy than a bottle would be. My ultimate plan for hiking in New Zealand is to haul wine with me. Classy backpacking, I know.

We drove the hour and a half to Point Reyes National Seashore and picked up our permit from the Bear Valley Visitor's Center. I was impressed at how beautiful the area just at the Visitor's Center was! I'd done hiking at Mt. Tamalpais so I expected the area would look similar. We asked the ranger about driftwood fires. We knew in advance that this was a rare but allowable thing in our part of California at this particular beach. She laughed and said we wouldn't find much driftwood this late in the backpacking season but still had us sign a waiver and review all the rules.

We stopped for lunch at a deli and then drove the rest of the way to the Palomarin Trailhead. I'd read stories of car break-ins while people were out hiking but we didn't experience any of that thankfully. After loading up, we headed out on the trail.

It really was quite level, and followed the coast pretty much the entire way. I won't lie- there were times I was out of breath and coughing up my lungs. That being said, I did really well. Occasionally there were gentle slopes up and down, and only a couple times that I recall was there an actual steep climb up. Mostly we walked along the coast and past a few ponds and lakes.

We got to the campground midday. There's 8 campsites, I believe, and they were all booked. There's one coveted site that's off to the side and has an actual view of the ocean. That was already reserved so I had chosen what seemed to be the second best option. All the other sites are further back from the cliff but our site was still removed from the rest of the group by tall grasses. It also had a trail behind it that led right to the cliff. Basically it was like my own private backcountry ocean balcony where I would spend a lot of time just watching the waves and enjoying my food and/or coffee.

We unloaded the food from our packs and stuck it all in the food locker. The locker was dirty and full of other people's junk. I find that really annoying because there's an actual trash can at this camp so why leave your crap in the food locker? Lazy bastards. We didn't want critters chewing holes through our packs either, though. So into the locker. After that, we ate some snacks, rehydrated and then headed down to Wildcat Beach. Alamere Falls was down the long empty beach, and we hoped driftwood as well.

The beach didn't seem that long and we could see the Falls for the majority of our walk. Our problem was we had to beat the incoming tide, or we could be trapped under the cliffs, which aren't really climbable most of the way. We weren't very fast either because we were hunting that driftwood. Surprisingly, we found quite a bit! We left them in hidden piles along the beach as we walked so we could pick them up on the way back. There were no big solid chunks at first. We found a large piece of lumber but it had nails in it. We were told not to burn that (for obvious reasons). Finally, half way to the falls, I came up on a long piece of lumber. It was long. So I stared at it for a few minutes. The boys came up and also stared at it. "Think we could break it?" We stuck a rock on either end and the boys took turns jumping on the wood until we broke it into three decent sized pieces. Perfect for a fire!

We got very close to the Falls but we didn't actually make it. The water near that end of the beach was getting very close to the cliffs and we still had to walk ALL the way back to Wildcat Beach, and collect our driftwood along the way. That's okay. Just walking along my own deserted beach was awesome enough. And Alamere Falls was practically empty this time of year anyway.

After we got back to camp, we set up our tents and relaxed for awhile. Billy somehow managed to string his hammock between the grill and the picnic table- it was quite impressive. At some point Billy wandered over to the cliffs and we followed. We were absolutely stunned by the natural light show. There were some angry looking clouds coming in with a long stretch of sunbursts. We sat on the balcony for a very long time taking pictures of the show and of each other. Eventually it turned into a sunset and that was gorgeous as well.

We cooked dinner, filtered more water and cleaned up. By then it was dark enough to head down to the beach and attempt our driftwood fire. So we packed up our wood, wine, dishes and snacks, and headed back down to Wildcat Beach. We had to be a certain distance away from the cliffs so we did our best to measure it out. Billy did all the grunt work setting up the wood and tinder, stoking the fire to get it going. He coaxed one hell of a fire out of our pile of wood. I did the all important task of pouring the wine. Just like sitting on the cliffs, it was also very peaceful just sitting on the beach. We were surrounded by pitch black except for our bright fire. I had expected Wildcat to be windy and cold considering it was a beach in October but it wasn't at all. I think that had to do with the location of Point Reyes itself.. it just dips inward. So everything is very still, very quiet except for the crashing waves.

Sometime close to 10pm, we put out what little was left of our fire and headed back to camp to sleep.

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Comments

[D MJ Binkley]

Nurses make the worst patients
I just discovered your blogs today and I'm enjoying your adventures. Being a nurse I know that is a true statement and my husband is a nurse also. I'm glad you took the hike. Sounds like a beautiful trip.

[tinyisgreat]

lol, how awesome! My husband and I are both nurses as well! I'm in neurology and he does urgent care!