November 29, 2015

This week I got to go on an awesome camping trip on Mt. Tamalpais in Marin County. We stayed at a walk-in campground that's pretty central to the park and went on some fun hikes. The first day we went down to Steep Ravine cabins at the ocean, hiking down on Dipsea and back up on Steep Ravine.

Panoramic shot

Gnarled tree

Steep Ravine cabins

Cliffside by ocean

More cliffs

HA!

Someone left a rose  in the streambed....

The second day we got an earlier start and did a big hike up to the East Peak of Mt. Tam via Northside Trail and back via Fern Creek and Old Railroad Grade Fire Road. Apparently in the 1880s up til 1930 there was a Scenic Railway that would take you in a train up to the peak, and you could ride a gravity car down. I wish I had a chance to do that. From the peak you can see for miles in every direction, the city and all of North Bay and way out to sea.

Arbutus?

From the peak

Also from the peak

What we called "blood trees"... Is this really bark??

Water pump at "Water Pump Trail"

View from the fire road

Sunset

The third day we took it easy, packed up in the morning and went on a hunt for airplane wreckage. In 1945 the Corsairs were practicing squadron formations and two of them crashed midair. Both pilots parachuted to safety, but the planes were smashed and scattered over a wide area on Mt Tam. A lot of the wreckage has been plundered by souvenir hunters, so the wreckage sites are now national property and it's illegal to remove pieces. Fortunately someone decided to make a multi cache out of some of them and gave directions (not coordinates) to the sites on unmarked trails.

Engine

It took us a while to figure out the right numbers and get final coords, but so worth it to snag the cache, which was way off any marked trail (we reached it via game trails and bushwhacking). The final was at the top of a big meadow, so we took a shortcut down through the open territory and joined the main trail at the bottom. Caching will take you so many places you'd never see otherwise.

Not the cache, but close

 It was pretty cold all three nights and we cooked dinner in the dark and went to sleep at 8 or 9 because we were so tired from hiking and because there was really nothing else to do. Ideal life. Back to school now, sigh....

- Antisocial Violinist