Four of us made the long drive from the Page Mill park-n-ride lot to Point Reyes for a beautiful 8.2 mile hike to Arch rock and back. As we were gathering to car pool we had fun watching a group of kids being sent off to summer camp from the park-n-ride lot. We finally managed to get going at about 8:55 a.m. The drive to the park went fairly smooth. Our first wild life sighting was from the car driving on Sir Francis Drake boulevard. A group of wild turkeys were spotted by one of us in a one of the fields we passed.
We got to the park at 10:45 a.m. The weather was gorgeous as was the hike. We saw lots of people as this is a very popular hike and despite the crowds managed to spot some wild life too. When we got to Divide Meadow, we spotted some deer and it looked like a couple of the deer were white. We got out the binoculars to check this out and sure enough the deer were white (as opposed to our other theory that it might be goats). Later on in the hike I read in the guide book that white fallow deer from Europe had been introduced to the park. It was exciting to see them. Later we spotted hawks flying on high and a little critter (ground squirrel maybe) poking its nose out of a hole at Arch rock. At the very end of the hike we spotted a California Quail.
We had a nice lunch on top of Arch rock with wonderful views of Drake's Beach on one side and Double Point on the other side. The sun was warm and the sky fairly clear with a cool wind blowing in from the ocean. We could see and hear the waves crashing on the beach. It was a great place for a long leisurely lunch!
On the hike back was when folks started to tire a bit. We were all happy to see Divide Meadow and the porta potties! We took a rest before tackling the last 1.6 miles of the hike. The last 1.6 miles went by pretty quickly and just as we got in sight of the cars we saw the Quail. It made for a nice ending for the hike. We spent some time wandering around the visitor's center before we took off for home.
The drive home was a pain. There was an accident in Fairfax and we were stuck in traffic for at least 30 minutes. We finally got through and got to 101 fairly soon. Then we ran into the typical Sunday afternoon Golden Gate Bridge traffic. We did have fun listening to a show called "Says You" on National Public Radio while we were stuck in traffic. It took a while to get over the bridge and then it took a while to get across San Francisco on 19th. Sigh. As the driver I was so glad to get on 280 and to finally start moving fast again. We finally reached the park-n-ride at around 5:30 or 5:45 p.m. It was a long but fun day. The fun made it worth enduring the drive home!
Cathy