Farewell to 2024 from Marin County

Look at this beautiful new sign!

    Sadly, the original beautiful sign that was a birthday gift to Rob in 2021 had delaminated. While in Eureka in April this year I saw the beautiful woodwork of a friend and asked if she could replicate our sign in wood, and this stunning work of art is the result. Complete with tree, mountains, trilliums and two little kitties poking from behind the tree. 

    On December 3, I finally hiked the strenuous 10+ mile loop that starts at our RV and ends at our RV. The loop includes about four miles of the Cross Marin Trail, a steep climb up Shafter Grade  to the east, then between four and five miles descending on the Bolinas Ridge Trail before joining the Jewel Trail to take me back down to the Cross Marin Trail. I have done this complete loop in the past, and have hiked various parts of it several times, including hiking down the very, very steep Shafter Grade to Leo T Cronin Fish Viewing area. Shafter Grade is 1.7 miles and climbs straight up (or down from) Bolinas Ridge. Rob and I once walked down it and we said never again would we walk down it. Yes, it's hard to hike up, but I think harder to hike down! It was perfect weather for hiking the trail on Tuesday, December 3.

Salmon in Lagunitas Creek at Leo T. Cronin on my way.

The sign for Shafter Grade.

It's much steeper than it looks!

A "peek" view of Tomales Bay from up on Bolinas Ridge.
Another reason to hike this loop clockwise is the beautiful vistas as I descend the ridge.

The trail before me.

A view of Tomales Bay just as I turned right on Jewel Trail.

The single track Jewel Trail with Barnabe Peak in the distance.

Back at camp - mushrooms are popping out all over.

    We've had a serious water shortage at Samuel P Taylor State Park with showers being turned off to the public early in November, and then the bathrooms shut completely shortly before Thanksgiving. Chemical toilets were brought in, but not enough to service the busy Thanksgiving weekend. It was quite a challenge, and I won't go into the details, but the campground probably should have been closed until more chemical toilets were finally brought in on the Monday after the Thanksgiving weekend. Early in November it was assumed that the decreasing water supply was due to being the end of the dry season before new sufficient rainfall had occurred. Staff were looking for a leak somewhere in the system, but couldn't find one. Finally a significant leak was discovered and repaired and the storage tank is slowly filling as campers and day use visitors continued to use chemical toilets. We are fortunate to have water still supplied to us as it is to the staff who have residences in the park, but according to park maintenance staff the water storage really should have been recovering more quickly than it was, especially after 9.8" of rainfall November 21-23, and another inch December 12. Later in the month it was determined that there is another significant leak underground somewhere in the campground.

Friday, December 6.
    The main storage tank is about a mile from our campsite so I decided that instead of asking the water person every time I see him that I will check the level myself periodically. There is a float on top of the water in the tank so when the water rises the gauge on the outside moves down, thus the numbers run from top to bottom. On December 6 the gauge shows about 10 feet of water in the tank.When full this tank holds over 160,000 gallons of water.

Wednesday, December 11 - almost 12 feet - it's coming up about 4" a day.

December 18, at about 16 feet.

December 26, at over 20 feet.

    The tank is slowly replenishing even after opening the bathrooms for over the holidays, but will there be enough water to maintain the park come summer if the current leak is not located and repaired? Time will tell.

See the porta potties next to our campsite?
Hopefully the water will recover eventually and these will go away.

    Niece Emily was coming from Portland for a visit to my sister Elizabeth in Potter Valley on the weekend of December 7 & 8 so I headed up there for the day, and left Rob behind to do camp duties. We had a nice visit, including a walk with Emily, belated birthday cupcakes for me, and a birthday lunch for Elizabeth's daughter-in-law Tiffany.

Emily and I holding two very delicious Carrot Cake birthday cupcakes.

Emily between her two aunts.

Those gathered for the birthday lunch for Tiffany.
Emily, me, Elizabeth, Bill, Tiffany, Paul, John, Nathanial and Nathan.
    
    On Sunday Rob and I headed to Santa Cruz to attend the Cabrillo College Symphonic Band Fall Concert where daughter Erin was one of the clarinet players. The concert was wonderful, including the incredible performance by a 13 year old piano soloist. After the concert we headed to the beach to see the end of the sunset, then to dinner and to our motel in Brookdale, not too far from where Erin lives in Big Basin State Park. Monday we spent the day with Erin including playing board games, visiting Natural Bridges State Park to see the monarch butterflies, going to a less than stellar movie, and back to the beach for the sunset and to watch the surfers. We spent another night in Brookdale before heading "home" to Camp Taylor. It was the first time we have left the park overnight together for our weekly days off.

Before the concert I found a trail above the college.

Sunset glow looking more like northern lights.
Santa Cruz, Sunday, December 8, 2024.

Natural Bridges State Park.
These deer were easier to take a picture of than the butterflies.

A Natural Bridge with Pelicans and Cormorants on top.

The three of us with the bridge behind.

Sunset, Santa Cruz, Monday, December 9, 2024

The Brookdale Lodge where we stayed.
Roomer has it that it is haunted - might be true.

California Fuchsia blooming December 10, at Big Basin State Park.
We saw these bright red orange blossoms walking near Erin's home.

Back at Camp Taylor - branching mushrooms!

Here they are with others on a log near our campsite.

    We woke to the sound of rain on Friday, December 13, and another .4 inches in the rain gauge after 1.2" the night before. I was eager to see if the salmon had started coming back to the Redds to spawn after this recent rain, and sure enough they had! On my morning walk before and after hiking the Pioneer Tree Trail in the morning drips I counted 14 all together!

Here are two, female on the left and male on the right.

Here the female is on her side "digging" in the gravel.

Mushroom garden along the Pioneer Tree Trail

Two slugs with some muchrooms.
Are they having breakfast?

Aren't these beautiful?

    Saturday, December 14, we headed to Colfax for three nights. Ruth was having a Gingerbread House making party at her house in Roseville and we had a road association meeting to attend. Rob has been the treasurer of our road association for more than 20 years, so it was important for us to attend the annual meeting. The Colfax house is our "official" residence and what we refer to as our "home base," but as one can tell from reading this blog, we're not there all that much. Ruth is on the property periodically to look after her horse and goats and to check on things, but we're kind of in an in-between time with the management of the house. We and Ruth have lots of things in the house, including still unpacked boxes from our move from Eureka 4 1/2 years ago. Spending the weekend in the house it felt more like a second home than a primary residence, but I enjoyed keeping the wood stove going and having a retreat of sorts.

The only light we found to burn after the power went out not to long after our arrival.

    Saturday, December 14, dawned as an extremely stormy day in northern California. While doing morning camp check at Samuel P Taylor I was hearing what at first I thought was thunder, but came to realize was trees cracking in the high and turbulent winds. We had lost power at the park not long before we left and checking online we learned that there were many many people out of power in Northern California so we were preparing ourselves to have no power at the house when we arrived. Power was on when we got there, but when it went off just before sunset we figured we'd be out for awhile. After a fruitless attempt to locate more light sources than the little oil lamp pictured above we hopped in the car to go to the hardware store in Colfax. As we got in the car and looked back at the house the lights came on. We headed to town anyway, not trusting that the power would stay on, but it did.  

Our new supply of light sources!
Fortunately not needed this time, but now we'll be better prepared.

Can you see them?
Radishes, lettuce and carrots planted November 1.
I was thrilled to see that the little seeds I'd planted and abandoned had germinated in our absence! 

Sunday morning, December 15 - notice the frost on the roof?
It was a chilly early morning walk for me.

A large flock of Canada Geese in a neighbor's yard.

Here they are in their pond.

And here they are in the sky flying away.
    
    When we talked to the neighbors later in the day you could tell they were not overjoyed with the invasion of the geese. If you've ever been around a large number of geese, you'll know why. They leave quite a mess. Their pond is only a year or so old, and is not the largest in the neighborhood, but the geese are apparently enjoying it. I realized on this and other visits to our property that we hear more geese flying over there than anywhere else in our "migratory" world.

Water that feeds the neighbor's pond.

A tangle of branches overhead on another neighbor's property.

The Gingerbread factory.
The young girls had deserted the table by the time I took the picture.

Notice Ruth using tweezers?
We take our Gingerbread construction seriously!

Jody and Rob placing my construction in a box so we can take it back to Camp Taylor.
Just what we need, lots of candy and Gingerbread to eat!
But there's none left to tempt us in 2025.

The Sierra crest to the east as viewed from my Tuesday morning walk, December 17.

And the Sutter Buttes poking out of the valley fog to the west.
Snow is visible on the coast range in the background.

    Back at Samuel P Taylor State Park on Thursday, December 19, I decided to hike over to Devil's Gulch to see if there were Salmon in the creek there since we'd had some more good rainfall. I had a beautiful, sometimes challenging, and rewarding walk.

Looking across Lagunitas Creek to the site of the "most beautiful waterfall" in the park.
This seasonal creek does not flow heavy for long after a rain storm.

Turkey Vultures on a tree next to the Gravesite Trail.
I do love Turkey Vultures!

A challenge along my way.
There were several downed trees I needed to make my way over, under, and through!

Can you see where I came through this one?
Neither can I.

These were a little easier to go under before I got to the bridge over Devil's Gulch Creek.

And yes, there were Salmon.

The splashing of a female "digging". the gravel.
I counted 7 Salmon all together on this adventure.

    The next day I saw a fishery person from Marin Water who said they saw 100 salmon in this creek the day I was there. The numbers of Salmon in the creek this season may be breaking a record for recent years!

And another tree that I had to make my way around on my out of Devil's Gulch.

Wild Cat Canyon Creek, December 23.
I enjoy watching the ebb and flow of this creek.

And I enjoy the wide array of mushrooms!

    Christmas Day Rob and I spent at our the park's entrance station greeting visitors to the park. Though it was a cold and overcast day there were many who came to walk our trails and even to picnic. After we closed the kiosk we headed to the beach for sunset and then to Arti's Indian restaurant in Lagunitas for dinner.

Merry Christmas from Limantour Beach at sundown.

The beautiful beach under a cloudy sky.
With Sandpipers running with the surf line.


Some Sandpipers on the edge.

Some a little closer.
These little birds make we laugh as they scurry to chase the surf in and out. 

The orange glow to the left of Point Reyes is, I think, the setting sun.

December 26, Wild Cat Canyon Creek was once again low enough to stand in.
Overnight we would get another 1.5" of rain.

Friday morning, December 27.
No standing in the creek this morning!

A "tributary" to Wild Cat Canyon Creek running high and pretty on December 27.

Stair Step Falls looking quite pretty, Saturday, December 28.
    
    I hiked here above Devil's Gulch with a friend and we were rewarded with this view, and Salmon in the creek below.
    
At Hamilton in San Francisco.
Right to left: Avi, Erin, me, Jody.
Ruth was taking the picture of course.

    Ruth's big Christmas splurge was five tickets to "Hamilton" at the Orpheum Theater in San Francisco on Sunday afternoon, December 29, and I got one of them! I had not seen Hamilton before, and I truly enjoyed this performance. I knew most of the history, but to see it performed this way piqued my interest in renewing my understanding of our nation's early history. It was the first live theater production I've been to in a long time, and this also made me want to "get out" more often!

    Monday, December 30, I decided to continue my way around the 500 mile Bay Area Ridge Trail by hiking the next section beyond where I left off in January. I wasn't sure I was going to continue my venture round the bay, but decided to drive to Novato and do the next out and back section of the trail in Indian Tree Open Space Preserve. This section was three miles long, but of course since I had to hike back to the beginning it was 6 miles of beautiful hiking.

The Trailhead.

See the three parts of these switchbacks?
Though it was a 1,200 foot climb, it was hardly noticeable due to the many switchbacks.
I've come to love the easy incline of switchbacks, and the varying views they afford.

Heading into what I think are "third" growth Redwoods.

Looking north across Stafford Lake.

Some interesting rocks on the trail.

See the interesting bend in the Redwood tree.
Be interesting to know the history of this one.

The trail ended at this property line.

    This is one of the many gaps in the Bay Area Ridge Trail. I think I could see in the distance where the previous section I'd hiked ended, and I wonder if they will ever connect. 


Mt. Tamalpais to the South from near the top of my hike.

Mt. Diablo to the East.

Lots of Madrone along the trail in addition to the Oaks and Redwoods.

A California Newt on my trail.


Love this quote that came from Gratefulness.org.


Critters in Roseville:
Elsie up high.


Joy and Jody napping.

Ellie gets in the craziest of positions!

Here she is curled in a ball. 
How can she breath like that?

Looks like Joy is taking contortionist lessons from Ellie.

And From Big Basin:
Onny, Erin's cat, said she wants a place in the blog too!

Happy 2025 to All!





 

Comments

  1. Sooooo fun to read this!! Thanks for doing it and enabling those of us who no longer drive, and for now, can't hike very far, to see our beautiful northern CA.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I so enjoy reading about your adventures.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Moving on from the Redwoods to New adventures

Family, Holidays, and Adventures

Family, Birthday, Bears, Smoke, etc.