Samuel P Taylor Backpacking Trip

 Arturo had a weekend available to go backpacking, and Bowen for a change didn't have events he couldn't skip. We had to decide where to go: Five Lakes was quite mosquitoey, and I didn't feel that sitting in a car for 4 hours was a good deal in exchange for experiencing a lot of mosquitoes. We floated several other ideas, including Barlow Flats in Big Sur (1800' of climbing, which would result in a lot of whining), but finally settled on a hike from the Bolinas Ridge Trailhead to Samuel P Taylor's Hiker Biker site. No permits were needed, no bear canisters were needed, and I don't remember encountering a single mosquito there, ever. My last trip there was in 2003, and I remembered the hiker-biker site there being idyllic. Hiker Biker prices have gone from $1/person/night to $7/person/night, but they had showers $1/token for 4 minutes, which made this a luxury camping trip. The weekend was also forecasted to be hot, so being in the redwoods sounded appealing.

It was already warm when we arrived at the Bolinas Ridge trailhead at 9:30am. The fire road had a surprising number of dandelion flowers, but the sun beat down pretty hard on us. We hiked up the ridge following a bunch of dayhikers. Whenever we turned around, we would feel a light breeze on our face, which told us why we were so hot --- the wind was the same as our walking speed and was at our backs, so we felt like the air was completely still!

Fortunately, the rise wasn't very much and we soon turned downhill towards the trees. We took a quick rest at the first sign of shade. Even though the exertion wasn't much we were sweating because of the humidity. Once into the Redwoods proper the air was much cooler and we were much happier.

Making it into the park, we found the hiker biker site and discovered to our surprise a couple of cyclists already there. Usually cyclists would ride all day and only make it into the park late in the afternoon or evening. They were from San Francisco and had left the city at 6:00am. One of them spoke Spanish and was happy to find that Arturo was from Venezuela, and happy to practice speaking Spanish with her. The hiker biker site had been moved --- I would discover the next day that the old hiker biker site in the middle of a gorgeous redwood grove had been "restored to nature", and the new site was where site #1 was. Site #1 was an undesirable site because not only was it closer to the road, the light from the toilet would disturb your sleep all night.

After pitching our tents, we went down to the entrance to pay for our stay ($21), buy shower tokens, buy a stack of firewood ($10), get a trail map, and then come back to lay it all down. We then went for the recommended hike on the Pioneer Tree Trail.

This was my first proper hike inside the park and I was impressed. The trail was well graded and gorgeous. We did however, walk past the pioneer tree before Arturo spotted it on Pokemon Go and we went back to discover that it had been burned down in 2022!

We finished the loop and decided not to see the fish viewing area which was another 2 miles down the cross-Marin trail. We went back to camp to find it busy with arriving cyclists. We played several rounds of Kingdomino (not having a bear canister meant I could carry some luxuries!), after which we made a campfire, roasted smores, took showers (the showers were very warm) and went to sleep. That toilet light was annoying and I was so sad that the old Hiker Biker site was no longer in use.

The next morning, we got up early, had breakfast, and headed back out. We said goodbye to the Redwoods back at the trail intersection, and climbed up back to the Bolinas Ridge trail while things were relatively cool. We now had the breeze in our face!

In addition to the dandelions we saw yesterday, this time we also spotted camomile!

Returning back to Arturo's Tesla (which had an internal temperature of 104F! Thank goodness for the app which let Arturo vent the car before we got in), we got into it and visited the Salmon viewing area, where the signs told us that Salmon only visited the river from October to February, with a peak in December. Still, it was a pretty area.

Normally we'd return via San Franciso, but the spate of thefts there in recent months meant that we saved ourselves the bridge crossing free and had a hefty lunch at Fentons Creamery in Oakland instead!

I was proud of Bowen. This was the first backpack trip where he carried not only his tent and sleeping bag, but also his own food and utensils. He did it without whining as well!