| My daughter Esther and I made this trip on the date given as a nice quiet hike to open the new year. Also, we had to do a loop trip rather than our usual shuttle, since my wife was not available that day to pick us up. The total length of the hike is around two and a half miles, with a total climb of under 300 feet (and a descent of the same amount). | Mia filino Esther kaj mi faris cxi tiun promenadon je la menciita dato kiel belan kaj trankvilan promenon por festeni la novjarigxon. Cetere, ni devis cxirkauxvojagxi, ne navedi, cxar mia edzino ne povis tiun tagon renkonti nin. La tuta longeco de la promeno estas pli-malpli kvar kilometroj, kun tuta supreniro malpli ol centmetra (kaj samdistanca malsupreniro). |
How to Get There |
Kiel Atingi Gxin |
| From San Francisco and points south, follow Highway 101 north across the Golden Gate Bridge and proceed about four miles north to the state highway 1 exit to Stinson Beach. From the East Bay, follow I-580 west across the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, turn south at the first exit past San Quentin, and at Larkspur Landing turn left onto 101, following it some five miles south to the same exit. From the north, come down Highway 101 until you reach that same exit. Follow state highway 1 west past Mill Valley, then uphill three or four miles until you reach the Panoramic Highway, which splits off to the right. Follow the Panoramic Highway for about five and a half miles to Pan Toll (go straight at the four-way intersection a mile along the Panoramic Highway). At five miles you will pass Bootjack picnic area, and will be getting near to Pan Toll. At Pan Toll, turn right uphill toward the summit. Wind along the hillside for about a mile to where the West Ridge road turns off to the left. The gravel parking area at Rock Spring is right here, and obvious. | De Sanfrancisko kaj sudaj punktoj, sekvu Sxoseon 101 norden trans la Orpordegan Ponton kaj pluiru eble ses kilometrojn norden al la elirejo cxe sxtata sxoseo 1 al Stinson Beach. El la Orienta Golfo, sekvu la auxtosxoseon I-580 okcidenten trans la Pontegon Richmond-San Rafael, turnu vin suden cxe la unua elirejo post San Quentin, kaj cxe Larkspur Landing turnu vin maldekstren al 101 kaj sekvu gxin pli-malpli ok kilometrojn suden al tiu sama elirejo. El la nordo, venu suden laux Sxoseo 101 gxis vi atingos tiun saman elirejon. Sekvu sxtatsxoseon 1 okcidenten tra Mill Valley, poste supren kvin-ses kilometrojn gxis vi atingos la Panoraman Sxoseon, kiu brancxas dekstren. Sekvu la Panoraman Sxoseon pli- malpli naux kilometrojn al Pan Toll (cxe la kvarvoja krucigxo iom pli ol kilometron laux la Panorama Sxoseo, iru rekten). Post ok kilometroj vi preteriros la piknikejon Bootjack, proksime al Pan Toll. Cxe Pan Toll, turnu vin dekstren al la supro. Serpentumu unu-du kilometrojn laux la deklivo al loko, kie la Okcidentkresta Vojo deiras maldekstren. Gxuste tie evidentas la gruza parkadejo cxe Rock Spring. |
The Cataract Trail connects the northwest shore of Alpine Lake, just north of the dam, to the parking lot at Rock Spring a little more than 1900 feet above sea level where the summit ridge of Mt. Tamalpais meets the beautiful west ridge. While we have usually hiked this route in the northbound (uphill) direction, this time we decided to start at the other end and use only part of it to do a loop. Incidentally, Spitz also describes the trail in a downhill rather than uphill direction.
We arrived at Rock Spring at a little after 10 a.m. and, given the fact that the day was lovely (sunny with some scattered clouds), we were a bit surprised to find so much parking space left in the gravelled parking area.
The trail, like all northbound Rock Spring trails, passes from the parking area between two shady knolls, on the rightmost of which are a couple of picnic tables; there are rest rooms on the one to the left. The trail itself swings left and proceeds along the verge of the first of two or three meadows along the route. In recent years the trail has been rerouted around these meadows to prevent erosion, and is so signed (the signs are more obvious in the uphill direction, or so I think).
There is nothing particularly outstanding about this northern end of the Cataract Trail; it has no steep ups or downs. It stays mainly in forest, mostly paralleling Cataract Creek, which ripples along quite nicely in the winter and spring, thank you. The most obvious tree in this forest is the Douglas fir, a conifer which can grow quite tall and massive, and which is the dominant coniferous species of the Pacific Northwest. You can tell the Douglas fir by its small (usually no more than two-three inches long), tight cones, its short, narrow, splayed needles, and its bark, which is hollowed and deeply furrowed in a most irregular manner, unlike the coast redwood, whose bark is nicely fibrous and striated. Don't investigate the bark too closely; Douglas fir pitch sticketh closer than a brother.
As you approach Laurel Dell, keep an eye out in the creek to your left; according to Spitz the engine from a mid-air collision in 1945 can be seen there, and indeed it can, lodged among rocks and apparently unmoved by decade after decade of spring flow. I didn't go down and investigate it closely, but it did appear that most of the ferrous fittings had long since disappeared (rusted away?) and what was left, the body of the engine, was made of some other metal (aluminum?). It is surprising, by the way, how many bits and pieces of old aircraft you can find while hiking on the west coast; there is, or was, part of a crashed airplane up the canyon below Horsetail Falls just outside Desolation Valley in the Sierra above Lake Tahoe, and the remains of a bomber are (or were when I made the trip 35 years ago) to be seen along the trail out to the end of Cape Lookout on the Oregon coast. Who says that air travel is safe???
Not far beyond the engine you start to enter Laurel Dell. If you continue along the Cataract Trail, in short order you'll come to a meadow (where it is nice to rest in the sun on the grass after ascending from Lake Alpine) alongside a shaded picnic area with three or four tables beside the creek; from here, the trail starts is long wooded descent alongside the plummeting creek down to the lake. We, however, did not enter Laurel Dell proper but turned right onto the Mickey O' Brien Trail, which leads to Barth's Retreat.
The forest along the upward-trending Mickey O'Brien Trail is again primarily Douglas fir. As the Cataract Trail followed Cataract Creek downward, the Mickey O'Brien Trail follows Barth's Creek (a tributary of Cataract Creek) upward. It was also flowing nicely when we were there, but I suspect it would be somewhat drier in the summertime.
About a quarter of the way to Barth's Retreat you emerge into a place where the trees are less dense (and, to your right, up the side of a hill, they seem to disappear entirely). Spitz advises that the wreckage of one of the planes involved in the above-mentioned collision, a navy Corsair, is to be found perhaps a quarter of a mile off to the right, but I and my daughter did not look for it.
Spitz also describes the world's two largest Sargent cypress trees, which are to be found at this point. One, 85 feet high, is thicker; one, 96 feet high, is taller. We found the thicker tree, but where we expected to find the taller one we only found a tall, jagged stump of a tree apparently snapped in a windstorm. I don't know if this is the tree in question or not, but the bark appeared to be the same as that on the standing tree. I would like to think that we simply wouldn't know a Sargent cypress if we saw one, but I greatly fear that since 1995 the world's tallest has disappeared. (Spitz himself expresses doubts about the future of these two trees, given the apparent fate of other Sargent cypresses in the area.)
You continue from here on uphill (not terribly steeply, however) through the forest. Eventually you will see a rest room off uphill to your right (if you are watching for it; it is not obvious), and almost immediately afterwards you pass the junction with the Simmons Trail, in a nice grove of trees. If you don't want to set off up the Simmons Trail immediately, you can continue on across a wooden bridge and take a rest at a picnic table on the other side. Beyond the picnic table is a nice, wide, open meadow.
The Simmons Trail is probably the most interesting and delightful part of this loop, though I, who grew up with Douglas firs, probably shouldn't say so. You start by climbing moderately through Douglas fir forest, but you will quickly emerge into an open area which, according to Spitz, was once called Buck Meadows. If it isn't called that now, it's because it hardly qualifies as a meadow; if grass was ever dominant here, it has long since yielded sway to knee-high manzanita. Once you get above the tops of the trees behind you, the views to the north are sweeping. Along the way you'll find a rustic wooden bench; Spitz says that you can get a good view of Pt. Reyes from here, and he may be right if the day doesn't happen to be too hazy as ours was.
The summit of the trail is at 2200 feet, more than 200 feet above Rock Springs and less than 400 feet below Tam's summits. Views here, too, are good, both to north and to south; views to the west are somewhat restricted by the east-west trending ridge on which you're standing. Read Spitz for a description of a good nearby viewpoint, which we, however, were unable to find; perhaps it's more obvious when you come up directly from Rock Spring.
Descent on the south side of the ridge is not much fun, down a steep trail that has been eroded by many feet into the largely serpentine hillside. Eventually you return to the forest at the base of the ridge, where the trail becomes less steep. You'll cross a couple of creeks here. One of the crossings is next to a stand of redwoods, isolated and apparently introduced. Down in the creeks you cross, watch for the chain ferns or woodwardias, which seem to be fairly common in creek beds on this side of the Tam summit ridge. You'll also see the more common bracken and sword ferns.
Eventually you emerge onto the upper end of the meadow at Rock Spring, "where many paths and errands meet". First you join with the Benstein Trail, then with the Cataract Trail, then with the parking lot.
Before you leave, if visibility is decent make sure that you climb to one of the numerous nearby knolls for a good view to the west and south over the Pacific and toward San Francisco. There is a particularly nice site just up the Old Mine Trail (see the Jan. 14 hike, and across the road and to your right is another good hill, the one with an automated weather reporting site on its side. Just down the road to Pan Toll, on the left, is yet another beautiful tree-covered knoll with very good views, as well as space for parking.
Don Harlow
|
|
The adjoining map is excerpted from "A Rambler's Guide to the Trails of Mt. Tamalpais and the Marin Headlands", 6th ed., published by The Olmsted &Bros. Map Co., P.O. Box 5351, Berkeley CA 94705, tel. +1-510-658-6534. Cost of the entire map is currently 5.95 $US. |
Don Harlow <donh@netcom.com>