Winter In Summer (Tomales Point Hike on September 9)

After figuratively living in the Mojave Desert for the last couple of weeks and "cooking" in 90-100 degree temperatures, Mother Nature brought back typical winter-like San Francisco summer weather for our Tomales Point hike --- cold, drippy fog soaking our jackets at times, low clouds that never cleared, and wool hats, fleece and gloves worn all around. (You can't change the weather, but you can sure complain about it --- whine, whine, whine!).

We began at the Pierce Point Ranch, once a premier purveyor of fine butter, now simply a reminder of the importance of dairy ranching to the economy of Marin County and the stomachs of residents of the region's big cities. The ranch buildings remain, some dating from the mid-19th century, but the last ranching family left in the late 1970's after this section of the park was declared a wilderness area and Tule Elk, once native to Tomales Point, but hunted to near extinction throughout California (one male and one female were ultimately found at the southern end of San Joaquin Valley and became the "Adam and Eve" of today's herds), were reintroduced to the seashore park.

As soon as we arrived at the ranch, we began spotting elk. Elk kept popping up on the ridgeline during our hike. An estimated 400-500 roam this part of the park, with another 40-50 "hanging out" down near Limantour. As with Elephant Seals, one big guy gets all of the girls, leaving a lot of "hormone crazed" but unlucky "teenage" male elk to congregate in large groups to ponder something that about half of them will never experience. (Maybe the National Park Service should build an "elk monastery" for these lovelorn guys, a place where they can walk around and do Gregorian elk bugling).

It's nearly five miles from the trailhead to the end of Tomales Point, and almost 10 miles round trip. The trail (mostly following an old ranch road) is fairly level for long stretches, and the complete hike could probably be done in a day if one didn't dilly-dally too much, or just "meander" along as we do.

Around mid-day and after making it to about the halfway point, just uphill from the location of another one-time ranch (marked by a Cypress grove planted as a windbreak), we paused for our lunch break watching a large group of elk munching away on their "vegan" diet a short distance from us. After our repast, we headed back in the direction we can from, slowly moseying our way two and half miles back to our cars under foggy skies, but with what little wind there was at our backs.

The hillsides along the trail are covered with lupine and iris, but alas, there were only a few plants blooming. Here's Wendy's list of critters, birds, and foliage we encountered:

MAMMALS tule elk, black-tailed deer

BIRDS Great blue heron, brown pelicans, double-crested cormorant, mallards, savannah sparrow, white-crowned sparrows (the non-migratory Nutalli, but watch for migratory subspecies returning to your backyard around 9/23), red-tailed hawk

FLOWERS

yellow bush lupine, wild radish (not native, 4 petals as is typical mustard family, yellow, white or lavender flowers, seedpods and flowers good in salad), gum-plant (yellow flower, sticky buds, Native Americans used for cough syrup), California poppies

OTHER PLANTS

spiny sand mat (don’t sit on it!), male and female coyote bushes, English plantain (use for stinging nettle or ant stings)

LICHEN

Niebla

(Click here if you want to view and print a copy of this list. If you have Adobe Acrobat Reader on your computer you can print the document. Once you see the document on the "Scribd" Web site, click on the "Download" icon and then on the "PDF" icon to open the document on your computer).

Photos from this hike (including several taken by Theresa Fisher) can be viewed in the "mini-slideshow" window on the blog or by clicking here to access the on-line Picasa Web Album.