On the edge of the world

This is the story of a blue cap, that was lost and found on the edge of the world..my blue cap.

Sunday morning started off in an unusual manner..i was up by 7.00AM. Over the next 3 hours, I spent packing a lunch and cleaning up before heading off to the edge of the world. Destination - the Pt Reyes National Park, about 40 minutes north of San Francisco. Actually, we had a particular destination in mind - Alamere Falls where the Alamere Creek transforms into a waterfall and flows directly onto the beach.

Alamere Falls is one of the 2 falls in California that flows into the ocean directly. By all acccounts Alamere Falls promised to be spectacular. And by God, it was.

By the time we hit the Palomarin trailhead for our 8.4 round-trip hike, it was well past 2.30 in the afternoon.
We had food, cameras(yes, 2 of them) and plenty of water. I was packing my whole photography gear - in retropsect, not the smartest of decisions, but well worth it.

Earlier, we had stopped at the Bear Valley Visitor center to grab a map. And the friendly ranger manning the info booth tried to dissuade me from venturing onto Alamere falls. The reason was that the park maintained trail did not extend upto the falls. The final section of the trail was not an official one maintained by the park and he promised that there was plenty of poison ivy on the trail. But I knew that from my findings on the Internet and I still wanted to go.

As per the map, we would pass 2 lakes before we hit the turnoff for the falls. The first one, Bass lake was your average lake. We stopped there for a bite to eat. The next one, about 3.5 miles into the hike, was the Peilcan lake. We got an aerial view of the lake from the trail. As far as I could tell, there was no access to the lake. But it was a beautifule lake, dotted with a few Peilicans.

About half a mile from Pelican lake was the sign for Alamere falls. The next 45 minutes was spent scrambling through dense foliage and slippery terrain. And then all of a sudden we had a view of the Pacific ocean in all its glory. Awesome!!

I had remebered to pack a cap as protection from the sun. I often forget to do this. And I decided to take my blue cap, a gift from my sister. I normally don't buy caps and such..I just get free ones. So, this was a special cap in my wardrobe.
The blue cap did its job very well on my way to Alamere falls. While I was admiring the view of the Ocean on the edge of the world, a strong gust of wind blew my cap away. For a brief moment, the cap rested on a cliff edge before it flew away on its journey. I was upset, but the awesome views distracted me. We scrambled down a few more rocks and finally got to the edge of the cliff and there was no more trail to head down..just a sheer 50 ft drop to the beach below.

The next half hour or so, we took in the beauty of the place, plenty of photos. By this time it was about 5.30 and time to head back.

Another scramble to reach the trail. And to my surprise, there was my cap nestled among the bushes. I was overjoyed. (A good samaritan had found my cap and pinned it to the bushes)

The trek back involved just putting one step in front of the other. And we made it just back in time before sunset, around 8.15PM.

While we got to see the falls from the cliffs, we did not have time to scramble down to the beach. I have promised myself that I will do that the next time round. This is one hike totally doing over and over.

My Blue Cap


Pelican Lake


Alamere Falls


Flowing into the Pacific