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Bass Lake and Alamere Fall in Point Reyes NP, 5/30/2004

With the move to the city and Mi's relocating to SF, Jean's weekends have been largely spent on furniture shopping, grocery shopping, and sometimes, street fares. Gui and Matthew have gone on a few beautiful hikes in Marin earlier this year, and this Memorial's Day Weekend, Jean tagged along for an ambitious 8.4 miles hike in Point Reyes National Park. It was a beautiful hike and strenous for someone like Jean who hasn't exercised for quite a while. But it was worth it.

The view was spectacular from the very start as we hiked along the coastal cliffs of the Pacific Ocean.
Later we entered the shady forest. Very much relieved from the scortching sun and sweeping wind. Picking black berries along the way, we arrived at the secluded Bass Lake. Finished lunch in the forest right above the lake, Matthew went down to the shore for some skinny dipping. The lake was very clear, Gui and Jean had a excellent few of the "merman" immersed in nature. Cutting through the bushes as we left the lake, Jean had a little surprise encounter with some kind of poisonous ivy (poison oak?), a small pattern of bumps immedietally materialized, and she complained of numb and tinkling sensation to her finger tips. But all symptons subsided within an hour. Whew!
In the late afternoon, we arrived at the much anticipated Alamere fall, similar to McWay Falls in Big Sur State Park, this one also plugnes down to the beach directly. It was quite an usual site to see the lush greenery outlined the waterfall right adjecent to the brown rocky shore cliffs. The return trip was less dry and hot than the morning, to our amazement we still encountered hikers walking in. "So we weren't that late, afterall!" Gui marvelled. "Hmm... i guess we were just middle birds, rather than late birds." Jean remarked. Soon we realized that with the setting sun, the trail was much cooler now than when we started in the early afternoon. "Looks like Middle-birds got all the sun burns!" We laughed. A scared little deer suddenly materialized out of the bush on our left and dived into the forest on our left. It all happened so quickly, We were frozen in our path. Jean, being the last in the group, had a clear view of the poor little thing got bounced back by the branches like a bowling ball into mid-air and it immedietaly jumped back into the trees and scattered away. "Maybe it was chased by a mountain lion." Matthew speculated.
The last two miles of the hike was pure torture for Jean, and it was such relief to finally reached the parking lot. Both GUi and Jean forgot about the last segment inside the Eucalyptus forest. For some reason when we started, all we remembered was the gorgeous Pacific sparkling beneath our feet, and the windy cliffs sporting lush wild flowers...