Alamere Falls - an amazing hike

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!

Cataract Falls - tough but enjoyable

Last week we made it to Cataract Falls. Had posted the waterfall pictures taken with the long exposure option on the iPhone. Never got the time to write the blog post as work just caught up and kept me busy.

Finally get around to it!

This falls is in the Mount Tamalpais park north of San Francisco. You have to go on the windy Bolinas Fairfax road a fair bit to get to this park. It took us an hour and forty minutes to get there. We parked next to the Alpine lake edge and started walking the trail. There were few other people that day on the trail and it was beautiful. The highlight is this MGR Saroja Devi moment captured on camera!

We went along the creek and were treated to at least 5 falls on the way. Once we went up the trail there is a meadow we end up in where there is a restroom. We took a short break there and decided to do the extended loop through High Marsh trail. This is a trail where only one person can walk on the edge. Single file walking is not a strong suit for our hiking group, but we did reasonably well and were treated to amazing views. 

Then we went on the Kent trail and Helen Markt trails to reach the lake. We had the entire lake to ourselves and took pictures and enjoyed the scenery.

Then the reality hit.. we had come back down to lake level and that meant, going back up to the top and coming down to the parking lot on the other side of the lake in what was the most challengiing climb this group had done to date. We huffed and puffed, called out for mommy, thirupathi Balaji, etc. etc. and at one point walked one step at a time and finally made it towards the parking lot. This was totally doable, but the fact that we had already been hiking up and down for the last 2 1/2 hours made this very challenging. 

Eventually we got the food down to the lake and ate a very late lunch there before the long drive back home.

Thachchi mammu never tasted so good! No, I am kidding. It always tastes good!

We went to the lake front on the logic of "we never know when we will visit this park next or we will ever visit it given we are seeing a new place every week! might as well...".. next time somone in the group starts using that logic.. I am going to have a prepared speech ready with all the talking points!

We did have a great time at the lake and the pictures don't do justice to how beautiful the day was! We should have started an hour early and that would have made it easier for us. 

Cataract falls and Alpine lake get two thumbs up!

A very different Yoga challenge

If you know me or read this blog, one fixture every year is the 60 day Yoga challenge that runs between Jan to March. Every year I have been doing the 60 Yoga classes in 60 days at Bikram Yoga San Jose.

This year it was as challenging as it was in the hot room. We had to do it mostly on Zoom and sometimes go for a parking lot class on weekends. Started on Jan 1st but as usual there were some challenges. Had a double bone graft gum surgery which took me out for 5 days. Had to do doubles on five other days to catch up. 

Even when I came back to doing Yoga, it was not easy to rest my cheeks on the floor for a few days. It is all well and healed now. Think this Zoom yoga class is here to stay. With new variants showing up, it might be some time before the studio opens to capacity. 

My daughter took this picture of me with the new T-shirt (which is our trophy of sorts from BYSJ when finishing the challenge). This time there was a cat as part of the design. I see so many of my yoga buddies try to do yoga at home with me and no matter where they try to hide their pets always find them and come disturb them in the most interesting ways while they are trying to do the poses! It is hilarious to watch. 

Yesterday we were hiking in Mount Tamalpais and after having attended the 60 day challenge party on Zoom the previous night, Yoga was still very much on my mind.. so when we went down to the falls, my wife gave me the idea to do yoga poses in front of the falls. 

at first I tried to do this on the log behind the rock and promptly fell in the water. Luckily only one leg was in the water. walked with a wet leg and shoes for a good 5 miles. So learned my lesson.. check the stability of logs for one leg instead of two before trying such poses.

There was no one around when we started taking pictures and we thought we had the place to our group. Just as I start to try and grab my leg with my hand, a dog comes out of nowhere and starts jumping on me and playing with me! Eventually the owners caught up to the dog and were laughing at how the dog was trying to distract me from doing yoga! The pets are getting really good at it, everywhere!

This was my 10th challenge. I am still a beginner. When talking about Yoga, one has to talk in Yoda timescales.. I am still a beginner with only 10 years of Yoga experience. Long ways to go! Learning new things every day. 

No graphs and charts this year.. doing yoga alone at home has been a humbling experience in its own way and I got to examine some of the asanas with a completely different mindset. 

if you have not yet tried hot yoga, try it at least once in your life. It might be the game changer! Thanks to BYSJ for all the push and a great T-shirt!