October 4, 2014
Sam and I hiked out to Tomales Point on Saturday. This is a hike I'm starting to make an annual event. The trail goes straight through an elk reserve. There are no fences or barriers. the elk are right there, sometimes right on the trail. In the fall, when the elks are in rut, I have a hard time imagining a better place to spend an afternoon.
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| Tomales Point, Point Reyes National Seashore, CA |
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| Tule Elk |
The weather has been extremely warm recently. It was one hundred degrees out on the Point on Friday. Saturday cooled down to a more respectable seventy degrees. Well, at least until the fog rolled in late in the afternoon, then it got downright cold. Perfect weather for a six mile hike out to the pond and back.
I always think of this as a fairly flat, simple hike, but it's actually kind of hilly. It's not too tough, but I was surprised it wasn't as flat as I recall.
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| Tule Elk -- Point Reyes National Seashore, CA |
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| Tule Elk -- Point Reyes National Seashore, CA |
The pond is three miles out from the parking lot. There's usually a bunch of elk hanging out there. As we rounded the bend that looks down on the pond, we were disappointed to see that the fields around the pond were empty. What a disappointment. We'd come very close to some elk along the trail, but this has always been a great spot to watch the elk in their rut behavior. I thought we'd made the hike out there somewhat in vain, then we looked up the hill in the opposite direction from the pond. There were probably twenty bachelors hanging out on the hillside. A few of them were posing on the top of the ridge, others were scattered on the hillside with a few fairly close to the trail.
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| Tule Elk -- Point Reyes National Seashore, CA |
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| Coyote -- Point Reyes National Seashore, CA |
We stopped for a break after climbing the hill from the pond. We chilled out for a while, then we noticed a coyote was keeping an eye on us from the top of the ridge. I guess he decided we weren't anything to worry about and wandered off in the direction of the bachelor elk.
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| Coyote -- Point Reyes National Seashore, CA |
We bumped into another coyote a little farther down the trail. He/she was taking a stroll right along our trail but headed in the opposite direction. This coyote simply ignored us as it passed by. That was the closest Sam had ever been to a coyote. I have had one closer encounter in Death Valley, but it was spectacular seeing this animal so close.
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| Tule Elk -- Point Reyes National Seashore, CA |
Our hike ended in fog. We'd been watching the fog bank rolling in from the Pacific over the course of our hike. Even so, it pounced quite suddenly. I'd been telling Sam earlier how much nicer Pierce Ranch looked in the fog. I'm glad he was able to experience it.
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| Pierce Ranch, Point Reyes National Seashore, CA |
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| Pierce Ranch, Point Reyes National Seashore, CA |
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