We finally made it to Alamere falls. It has been on our wish list for a long time and we were planning to do this with the full group sometime in spring.. A last minute pre birthday request from wife to give this a shot, made me say yes!
This was the longest hike for me in post Covid times. I am told that I have now graduated to try Black mountain and Falls rest. We will see about that.. have managed to pull the muscle on the left leg and have been limping around since yesterday. Hopefully the hot room will heal this quickly!
Started at 6AM sharp from Cupertino and drove almost 2 hours to the Palomarin trailhead which is past the Point Reyes bird observatory. Got to see the sunrise just as we were crossing SFO into Marin on the golden gate bridge!
Drove past a lot of scenery and started hiking exactly at 8AM...
We hiked 12+ miles over 5+ hours with a 20 min eating break at the falls. There is a shortcut where you can climb down and climb back up to the falls, but it is not recommended by the park service. Lots of accidents in that section as the shale rocks break into little pieces on the cliff sides.
We decided to go through the coastal scenic route, bypass only the last 0.1 miles to avoid the Wildcat campground and walk along the beach the last mile to the falls. As fate would have it the tide was closing in on us even as we made it to the falls.
We hike past two lakes, Bass lake and Pelican lake. They were both really beautiful!
We crossed the creek like three times and the rushing water was good to hear.. last few hikes, we didn't see any water in the creeks!
You can see Point Reyes from the high point on the Coastal trail (if you take the shortcut you will miss this!)
The fog, the water spray from the falls, the overlapping cliff faces.. the approach to the falls on the beach side is simply breathtaking..
But, there is a catch.. We had to time it and run through stretches to avoid the waves as they came all the way to the cliff faces!
Have to try long exposure shots when we are a waterfall !!!
Could not get all three upper falls in one shot with long exposure.. too many people. With photoshop averaging, can try it.. but don't have the time. There is a definite chance we will revisit this while we are still able to climb up.. will give it a shot then!
Given we had wet feet and pants, there was no way to walk back along the beach and we decided to climb up to make it back to the trail. This made the 14 mile hike into a 12 mile hike which was also welcome! It was challenging to climb back up but we were glad. Got to see the three upper falls (which you can only if you do this climbing up business). You can see it in the video below..
Some more photos..
this was my attempt at an artistic shillouette..
Once back in the parking lot, we got to eat a packed lunch, have some hot tea and drove back for 2 1/2 hours as we got caught both in local traffic around Stinson beach and San Francisco city.
We expected to see more people given it was a long weekend. There was not much of a crowd. We practially had the beach to ourselves on the way to the falls and were met by 10 people, all of them had taken the shortcut climb down!
Strongly recommend this place! However, try to read tide timings and go along the beach to the falls and climb up to see the upper falls. It is worth it. That said, wear the right shoes and gloves if possible so you don't cut your hands while climbing up. Also it would be a good idea to switch to sandals for the walk along the beach!
Strongly recommend this for a day trip, on the right day with the right tide!
