Spring Walk

Laguna–Bayview–Sky–Woodward Valley—Coast Trails

Point Reyes National Seashore 

Length of hike: 10 to 11 mile loop (4 or 5 hours)

Difficulty: Moderate

Best time: An unexpectedly fine day in March

Highlights: Wildflowers, views

To get there: From Shoreline Highway (California Highway 1), just south of the town of Point Reyes Station, take Sir Francis Drake Boulevard toward Inverness. At the first big curve, turn sharply left onto Bear Valley Road. Take the third right, Limantour Road, and follow it six miles into Point Reyes National Seashore . At the bottom of a long, steep downhill, turn left at the sign for Point Reyes Hostel. Park along the road below the hostel, near the white gate to Coast Trail.

The trail: I like to hike this loop in early spring, even though the best wildflower display is still a month away. On a warm, sunny March day, the hills clothed in green and bursting with new life, I experience a sense of renewal and the joy of beginnings. If the rains have been plentiful, Douglas iris will be my constant companion—great clumps of deep purple or solitary pale lavender. In the forest, ferns—wood, sword, and bracken—look their best, and flowering currant bushes bloom pink all too briefly.

Because it juts out into the Pacific Ocean, the park often has weather quite different from inland areas just a few miles away. Summer often brings fog and wind. I have dubbed November through February “Point Reyes summer” because of the many spectacular sunny days. To be prepared, I stash a variety of clothing in my car and dress in layers.

From the hostel, I walk about a tenth of a mile toward the environmental center to the parking lot, skirt the rangers’ houses, and go left up the signed Laguna Trail. Soon a side trail leads to the Clem Miller Environmental Center. Schoolchildren come here for outdoor education and the place sometimes buzzes with kids. Unfortunately, one of the curses of these interesting times is that unknown adults, even gray-haired grandmothers, are considered suspect and chased off, so I enjoy the architecture of the center from a distance.

Laguna Trail, steeply up for over a mile, combines of sun and shade inhabited by busy juncos, bushtits, and song sparrows. In places, dense armies of young Bishop pines finger my elbows. New hedge nettles and cow parsnips abound. The leaves of bay trees across the canyon shine among the dark foliage of the more numerous Douglas firs. Underfoot, I might encounter white wild strawberry flowers and fat, slimy banana slugs.

Twenty-foot-tall ceanothus bushes show clusters of flower buds. Next month this path will lie under a canopy of fragrant blue blossoms. The other common shrub is coyote bush, in the fall white with silky seed tufts and now a bright and glossy green. Glistening red and evil looking, young shoots of poison oak lurk along this part of the trail, as in many other parts of the park; I usually wear long pants in defense.

As I climb, the hills open up to expansive views of Limantour Spit, Drake’s Bay, Chimney Rock, and the headland where the lighthouse perches (unseen from this trail). The rock foundation of Point Reyes National Seashore differs from the sedimentary deposits of the “mainland” east of Tomales Bay and Highway 1. This triangular piece of land I stand on is a peripatetic island of Sierra Nevada granite that started its journey off southern California, worked its way north during the past million years, and is headed out to sea toward Alaska, advancing about one inch a year. I can hardly feel the movement.

Electric-blue forget-me-nots—also in bloom in my garden—appear as I near the top of Inverness Ridge, and long tendrils of wild cucumber bearing pale greenish flowers creep over the grass and blackberry bushes. In 1995 the Vision Fire, which began as an illegal campfire on Mount Vision and consumed more than 12,000 acres, took out many old-growth Douglas firs, but some giants remain. The landscape is a hodgepodge of the young forest springing up and scorched remnants of the old one. The dry, mature Bishop pines were wiped out by the flames, but their cones needed the heat to open and release the seeds of the next generation. The new growth is thick and vigorous.

Bayview Trail comes in from the left and I follow it close to Limantour Road for less than a mile to the Sky Trail parking area. Coarse triangular fronds of bracken ferns occupy sunny, dry spots. These ferns turn brown and curl up in winter.

Winter is probably not the most accurate word to use because in this part of California the traditional seasons of generic picture calendars do not apply. Here there are two seasons, wet and dry. Rains and cool weather start in October or November and last, we hope, through April. Then the dry, warm season sets in; many California native plants go dormant, or rest, during this period and I see fewer wildflowers. Even so, every month along these Point Reyes paths something is in bloom.

On Sky Trail I begin to see the bright, yellow-green new leaves of red elderberry bushes. Some already carry plumes of tiny white flowers. Under the firs, rampant vegetation smells earthy and spicy and harbors many birds that I identify mostly by their sounds—chickadee, junco, Swainson’s thrush, quail. Occasionally, I hear woodpeckers drumming on a snag. The pileated woodpecker, large and handsome with a red crest, sometimes shows himself.

On the way to Sky Camp I pass through deeply shaded alleys lined with sword and wood fern. Along here I once spotted a mountain lion cub on the trail ahead of me. I didn’t see mama, but I’ll bet I wasn’t out of her sight. Sometimes I see warnings about these big cats posted at the trailheads. The thing to remember if you happen to meet one is to keep facing the animal and back away slowly. If you turn and run, she’ll think you’re prey and her instinct is to chase and pounce. If she keeps coming toward you, throw rocks, tree branches, your pack. A hiking stick might come in handy at a time like this. Mountain lions are secretive and don’t show themselves often, but I, more than once, have encountered evidence of a recent meal, such as a partially eaten deer carcass.

Sky Camp is a walk-in camp with drinking water and two clean-smelling, state-of-the-solar-technology-art toilets. Beyond the camp, Sky Trail passes the junction of Meadow Trail and meanders through a cathedral of Douglas firs that rise above me in hushed splendor, with a congregation of elderberry, huckleberry, grasses, and ferns. Light is dappled, mysterious, yet beckoning. The piping of birds occasionally breaks the silence.

The clumps of grasslike, translucent green leaves belong to non-native bulbs—probably Watsonia—that will later bloom orange on nodding spikes. These garden plants remind me of the ranchers’ wives who brought their favorite plants with them to this wild peninsula. I also find in this stretch a native plant, the rambly salmonberry, with deep pink flowers and dark green, serrated leaves.

Woodward Valley Trail arrives on the right about 3.5 miles from Limantour Road. Even at midday dew covers the grass along this densely shaded, narrow path. The Vision Fire raged through here, but I wouldn’t know it—so full is it of ferns, grass, moss, bird song, and the rich scent of conifers and earth. I listen for a Bewick’s wren and the nasal honking of the white-breasted nuthatch.

Soon I walk through a graveyard of blackened tree trunks and then catch a glimpse of misty ocean joined seamlessly to a hazy sky. A breeze springs up, carrying that elusive spicy odor that emanates from somewhere in the tangled, overgrown vegetation.

I like to wait until I’m well past the forest and out on the open hillside to sit down for lunch, looking south toward Arch Rock and Double Point. If it has rained recently, Alamere Falls shows frothy against the distant dark rocks. The passage into San Francisco Bay is hidden, but Point Montara in San Mateo County rides smoky blue on the shimmery sea.

I come across startling vignettes, like a flamboyant red-orange paintbrush growing in the middle of a patch of purple iris. Ground-hugging footsteps-of-spring appear at the trailside, mixed here and there with taller four-petalled suncups, and, rising above them, the shiny petals of buttercups—variations on a yellow theme. The trail turns west and looks down on the long, dreamy stretch of Limantour Beach. The sunburnt orange of California poppies appears on the hills. How elegant they look above their feathery blue-green foliage and I greet them almost patriotically—these flags of our hills of home.

In a broad, flat place, I step off the trail and search among the grass for tiny flowers such as red maids. A flock of meadowlarks might rise suddenly upon my approach. Later in the season, goldfields and pussy ears—a lavender hairy calochortus—will cover these rocky slopes. The wind is constant, but also refreshing at this point in my long hike.

Nearly at the bottom of Woodward Valley Trail, I can look to the right and perhaps be rewarded with a whole hillside full of fuchsia-colored shooting stars with yellow buttercups strewn among them. Now the trail becomes even more rocky and eroded—another good reason to use a hiking stick. At the juncture of Coast Trail, I turn right and continue along a broad track. Small purple violets grow deep in the grass, accompanied by buttercups and irises. The path heads down to a noisy creek, crossed by a sturdy wooden bridge. Coming out of the creek depression, I find dozens of short-stalked earth brodiaeas, with six pointed, rich pink petals surrounding a yellow eye, growing right in the middle of the sandy path.

At Coast Camp, another walk-in camp, I hear only the wind—not even the ocean just on the other side of the low brushy ridge. Toilets and water make this a good rest stop and I could choose to walk under the majestic eucalyptus tree out to the beach.

Beyond the campground and past the creek, a sign advises that I can go up Fire Lane Trail for 2 miles to the hostel or continue on Coast Trail for 2.8 miles to the hostel. The latter is flat all the way and Fire Lane is steep. I vote for the coast route because it gives me almost an extra mile of walking on this lovely day. I can’t breathe in enough of the wind blowing off the ocean—it smells so pure, with an occasional hint of salt or grass. In the distance, sun sparkles on windshields in the Limantour parking lot. Several places of easy access to the beach lie along the route and it’s worth a few minutes to sit on the warm sand and watch light bounce off the restless water.

A sweeping S-curve takes the trail around a marsh and a dark blue pond. Marsh wrens chatter in the cattails. This is northern harrier territory and this is the time of year to see mating couples flying gracefully around each other. The female is brown and the male gray; both have a bold white band on their rump. The track follows a long stretch of alders and willows where frogs croak amid tangles of blackberry. Soon I see the white gate on the road below the hostel.

I have dawdled on this loop for as many as six hours, come away feeling renewed and refreshed, and wished my walk had been even longer.