Four of us did a mellow hike at Marin Headlands last Saturday, May 5. The 8 mile 2000 feet of elevation planned hiked was ditched in favor of a 4 mile 700 feet of elevation gain hike since the three women who did show up were not up for doing the longer hike and I did not want to hike 8 miles by myself. We hiked along the Tennesssee Valley trail to the Coast trail and headed up the fire road part of the Coast Trail to the top of the bluff for a magnificent view of the ocean, San Francisco to the south, and Mt. Tam to the north. We had a lovely long rest on top and munched on lunch.
The excitement of this mellow hike was a slight disagreement about whether a particular plant was poison oak or not. Hopefully it wasn't poison oak since one of us touched it (not me :-) ). We saw deer, turkey vultures flying around, and quite a few bicylists and fellow hikers. We finished the hike around 12:30 p.m. and my three cohorts took off. I considered doing some more hiking on my own but decided I had some chores I wanted to get done so I drove home instead. All in all it was a very pleasant short hike.
Cathy