New Year 2022, Point Reyes

A cold, isolated trail by the California coast.  New Year’s Eve with a new moon and no clouds glowing over city lights, it’s the darkest I’ve hiked in the dozen years I’ve known Point Reyes’s Coast Trail.  Out of stubbornness and a vague desire to assimilate to the night, I try it without a headlamp.  A shooting star glides south high over the Pacific like a knife slashing open the sky, letting warm light flood down from somewhere beyond.  A glowing point shedding a train of sparkles in its plasma wake, it lasts just a few seconds, but I will remember it above all the fireworks that has ever dazzled my eyes.

At midnight, I stand beside my tent, searching for age-old constellations and feeling a sort of kinship with those who have done the same through the history of human curiosity.  When I lie down wrapped in layers of goose down, the frost already on my flimsy shelter forecasts a cold night .

The next day, my passage through the sea cave at Miller’s Point must wait for the 4 p.m. low tide, so I have time to catch up on sleep.  While the morning sun melts the frost and dries the dew on the tent, I lose myself in the elegant and exotic prose of a really good book , the kind that you read with a dictionary on hand.

Late morning, on the fine sands of Sculptured Beach, a flock of turkey vultures pick at the remains of a seal .  In contrast to the soaring forms that these reapers from the sky often present to terrestrial observers, the waddling diners look surprisingly docile and unimpressive.  At the end of Sculptured Beach, a promontory provides a platform  to view the rarely-accessible stretch further south, and the withdrawing tide invites me to visit it.  I pay my respects to the sea cave  on my way in.  Among the bushes and driftwood beneath the curtain folds of conglomerate cliffs , I pick up some trash brought by wind, waves and careless visitors.  After this inconvenient but satisfying chore, I continue with the filled bag strapped to my pack.

The keyhole gate to yet another beach will remain submerged under shifting water for a couple more hours.  I will miss my window for reaching Miller’s Point if I wait for the tide to open the passage.  So I climb back up to the trail to continue south.

The Coast Trail on the bluffs follows the beach except for detours inland to avoid steep, brush-choked ravines.  I have not been here since the Woodward Fire that started in August 2020 and burned into January 2021, a year ago.  In this section, the trail-side brambles are gone.  Their remains stand like a dead forest in a land where I’m a giant.  December’s rain brought new life in the form of a lush carpet of fragile leaves , juxtaposed beneath the blackened bones of trees and brush .  The eucalyptus trees that I use for a landmark survives , but without their lower foliage.

Down on Kelham Beach, a grown bull elephant seal rests beneath the cliffs , the fourth I have encountered on this remote beach in my ten treks here to celebrate the winter solstices.  The sand is unmarred between him and the water , showing he had come at high tide hours ago.  I wonder why he isn’t with the colony further north.  Is he, like me, just looking for a bit of solitude?  Maybe he’s thinking the same thing I am: What is this creature doing so far from that big colony in Santa Cruz?

The tide is just about to bottom out as I reach Arch Rock , or just “Rock,” since the arch came down in a fatal rock fall seven years ago, the third such structure to crumble in Marin County in the fifteen or so years I’ve been hiking this coastline.  I cross the rubble, wary of unstable rocks, noting that more pieces have fallen since I last checked two years ago.  The rock pile blocked the creek that once flowed under the arch, forcing it through a smaller arch .

Further along, I climb down a promontory covered in sharp mussels and slippery kelp to a narrow ledge that seems to have too little room, even for my compact frame. I step carefully along the ledge toward a sea cave , stooping under the overhang.  With the tide so low, I thought I could get through without getting my feet wet, but the chance of falling into the water, getting scraped, bruised and even wetter, was non-trivial.  I back out, remove my shoes and socks, and re-enter, slightly humbled.

In the cave, I hold my breath a bit to see if my bare feet can feel any tremors.  I always get a bit scared of mother nature when I’m under rocks known for crumbling down and killing people, in a region known for earthquakes.  When I’m in the sea cave, however, I also imagine myself thrown against the walls and sealed inside by a tsunami.  It sounds horrible, but it’s fascinating to watch fear playing tricks on the mind.  Intellectually, I believe that I was at higher risk of death on the drive here or during my childhood years in a war zone.  It’s an irrational fear of bad luck.  I deal with it by learning as much as I can about the situation then trusting my judgement.  I exit the other end of the cave with no more than cold toes and a bump from hitting my head.  I was distracted by the cave’s beauty.

Up a mussel-covered rock (thank you mussels for the good grip), across a slim ledge (with plenty of room to stand straight) and a slippery boulder field , then I’m on a pristine, expansive beach.  I jot down some notes  while waiting for sunset .

Unlike the conglomerate cliffs I passed earlier, the ones here expose colorful contorted Miocene chert .  The rocks form beautiful architectural features  that now bathe in the glow of the Pacific twilight .  It’s full dark and starry when I stroll past the trail to Wildcat Camp.  I continue another mile to Alamere Fall to hear the roar of water onto the beach before turning back to set camp.

On my way out the next morning, I pass a group of tule elks grazing outside the campground , the farthest south I had ever seen them.

The high tide forces me to take the Coast Trail on the bluffs but gives me another look at where I had been.  Water has flooded over  yesterday’s slippery boulder field  and has allowed harbor seals to reach a resting place out of the water and away from backpackers strolling the beach.

Happy New Year, seals, elks, vultures and people.