In our effort to get sunshine and exercise for the dog and us we ventured up to Mt. Tamalpais this weekend, for obvious reasons people call it Mt. Tam. I first started with a weather search cross referencing hiking options with the warmest weather (high of 57 was best I could do) and low precipitation, 20%. Mt Tam. appeared to be the warmest of the nearby hiking options. I first reviewed this map looking for something that would be a good destination. I spotted Alpine Lake, top of the page, left of center, and was satisfied. Then I saw the Cataract Falls and was really excited. I also wanted a loop instead of an out and back and this appeared possible if we parked at Rock Spring which included good legal parking, an important part of the trip for Elliott, fair enough. Then I looked at the suggested hikes and found a loop that included the falls. Why do all of this research? Because every time we go for a hike and follow my insistence to do a loop instead of out and back we get lost and are unsure if we will find our way back to our car before the sun goes down. So with map and directions in hand I figured we were destined for an smooth hike. We packed lunch: some deli meat, carrots, nut butter, strawberries, and a pumpkin seed bar. We brought treats for the dog. Water for us and for the dog. Rain jackets, hats, and gloves and we were off. I also brought a real pair of hiking shoes in addition to my five fingers because last weekend my feet were freezing and the terrain was so rocky that my feet didn’t have a great time. I did ultimately wear real hiking shoes and was glad I did. It was about a one hour drive from our house, not bad. The last 20 minutes or so were pretty windy, getting to the trail head and unfortunately the dog eventually lost his breakfast, which even more unfortunately included a whole trout along with some dry dog food. The trout was not necessarily apparent although just knowing was enough. The loosing of the breakfast happened just minutes from the trail head so we just waited it out to deal with the clean up when we arrived at our parking spot. The clean up wasn’t that bad. Neither of us wanted to throw away the blanket that took the brunt of it we shook it off in the grass and left it outside to bring in the car when we got back from our hike, its in the washing machine as I type. The fog was pretty thick although it wasn’t raining so we headed off on our adventure. After awhile we were covered by taller trees so although it was raining or misting we didn’t get too wet. We followed the first 1/3 of our hike really well although after getting on the Mickey O’Brien trail I am not sure what happened but somewhere along the way we meandered off that trail. What were were on appeared to be a trail, we were just traipsing through the water shed although with the gps on my phone I could tell we weren’t on the trail that paralleled Barth’s Creek, although we were generally headed the right direction. Eventually we ran into Cataract trail although much farther south than we originally intended. So we headed up Cataract Trail to the falls and eventually the lake, and then we would return on the same trail to our car limiting, in theory, the chance of getting lost again. The falls were really neat to see, they feed into Alpine Lake and seem like they go for a mile. They weren’t tall but a long series of falls. By the time we saw much of the falls we were pretty wet and the rain was picking up so we gave up on seeing the lake for another time and headed back. Towards the end we saw a family, mom, daughter and son and they asked how far away the falls were, we guessed two miles although noted that it was pretty wet out, noticing that none of them had any rain gear on, the kids were in cotton sweatshirts. They said, “that’s ok, we are out for an adventure!” I was no longer up for an adventure myself. My jeans, my favorite hiking pants, were becoming more and more wet, and the bottom of my jacket was accumulating a water line on my pants where the jacket ends, I was tired and wet and wanted to get back to the car. I mused that we should have asked them how far we were from the car. When we got back to the car it didn’t smell bad at all, which was a pleasant surprise so we sat in our car and ate the lunch we had brought. After awhile the family out for an adventure came running back to their car, I felt bad they hadn’t seen the falls, although that 20% chance of rain really hadn’t helped. All in all it was a nice family trip to see a new site and get some exercise.
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