Winter in Summer (Bull Point, July 7)

Ah yes, hiking out in Point Reyes in the summer. Little chance of getting a tan, and even a fleece bikini wouldn't keep you warm on Ocean Beach on a day like the one we had when we did the Bull Point hike on July 7th. When we were standing around the parking lot in jackets and wool hats before setting out on the hike it was overcast and probably less than 60 degrees. Thankfully, the breeze petered out within an hour and although the sun never broke through the marine layer, it turned out to be a decent enough day for hiking especially since there is hardly a tree along the entire route and on a bright, sunny day we probably would have been grousing about how damn hot it was.

About twenty minutes after we left the trailhead, Wendy turned back to the north away from the trail and led us cross-country looking for a rare lily-like flower which she finally located in a boggy-area not far from the road. Then we backtracked to the old ranch road that leads out to Bull Point and began heading south again.

This area is actively grazed (no wonder it's called the Bull Point trail) and we would have been well-advised to have carried John Pukite's A Field Guide to Cows along with us. (Dick's wife, who works for the Marin Agricultural Land Trust, keeps a copy at home). We saw White Cows with Pink Noses ("Charolais"), White Cows with Black Noses ("British White"), Black or Black-Brownish Cows with White Faces ("Black Baldy", a cross between Angus and Hereford), and other cows with black and white, or black and brown coats that could be a cross between these breeds.

For about half an hour we followed the road steadily upward along the edge of the "mesa" that leads to Bull Point. Creamery Bay lay below us to the east with much of its muddy bottom exposed by the low tide. After reaching the top of the hill we continued toward Bull Point and had a fine view south and west to the mouth of Drake's Estero. We turned left and headed toward Schooner Bay, dodging the grazing and lazing cows along the path. When we reached the bay, we swung back around to the north and looked out across the bay to the oyster beds maintained by local rancher and oysterman, Kevin Lunny.

Just as the clock struck mid-day, we descended the short distance from the headland to the beach and found a comfortable spot for lunch. Wendy spotted a bat ray splashing off-shore (net bags protect the oysters from being eaten by the rays) and we could see all of the way up the far end of the bay where the road runs from Inverness Ridge out to Point Reyes Lighthouse. After a half hour break, we were retracing our steps back to the parking lot and dodging cows and cow pies again. The day had warmed up a bit, so we started shedding some of the layers that we'd piled on at the beginning of the outing. But the sun still never came out while we were hiking.

About an hour later we were nearly back to our cars when we spotted a couple of interesting and probably rare beetles meandering their way down the trail. We covered the 4.0 mile route at a leisurely rate, with a fair amount of lolly gagging along the way. After all, we weren't in a foot race, but just meandering!