TL;DR
Do you love it when the fog rolls though the forest? When a variety of colorful mushrooms dot the trail? Do you love sunsets over the Pacific? If so you, should check out Point Reyes if you haven’t already. There’s plenty to see and do with such varying types of terrain and ecosystems. A great place for short backpacking trips or some long day hikes. Sky Camp is a group of 12 or so campsites up on a ridge of Limantour Road. A few of the group sites have views of the ocean while the others are more nestled in the trees.
Where we hiked: Sky Trail to Woodward Valley Where we camped: Sky Camp When we went: December 2014
Thoughts
Just a few short weeks after Pinnacles, we were packing up our gear for another weekend out. We had plans for a group camping trip with some of my friends from grad school. Despite being in such a hugely urban area, the Bay Area has a lot to offer for outdoor destinations. About an hour north of San Francisco, across the Golden Gate Bridge is Point Reyes National Seashore. Point Reyes is a very popular destination for day hikers, oyster enthusiast, as well as campers and backpackers. During the summers, campsites are typically booked weeks in advance. Due the mild winters California’s been having, the campsites were solidly booked all the way through November. So we settled on a December camping trip to Point Reyes Sky Camp.
Point Reyes has several campsites. All are either backpack
in or boat in. The backpacking ones aren’t too grueling and very doable for someone with no experience. The longest hike ins are about 5-6 miles whiles the closer ones, like Sky Camp, are 1.5 miles. The trail-head for Sky Camp is just off Limantour Road. There’s a small parking lot that can fit about 7 cars. In the days leading up to our trip, we had an large amount of rain. So while it just a bit overcast, everything was sopping wet and humid. The bright side was that there were tons of mushrooms everywhere. And not just your typical plain white mushroom. Mushrooms of all different colors and shapes and sizes. Felt like Alice in Wonderland.
Each campsite has a small stove, a food locker, and a picnic table. No wood burning here. Only coal. Our campsite was at the end of the row of sites and had quite a few trees and a nice bed of pine needles. We all set up camp then went for a hike along Sky Trail. Sky Trail seems sort of like an access road more than a trail at some parts. But the scenery was breathtaking with the fog lingering around in the trees.
About a mile down we came to a fork where Sky keeps going south and Woodward Valley Trail cuts west. We wanted to see the ocean so we headed down Woodward Valley checking out mushrooms along the way. About 1.5 miles later we were greeted with a wonderful setting sun and a break in the clouds.
The rest of the night was full of relaxing, eating, and watching the moonrise. Point Reyes turned out to be a great place for winter camping. Being by the ocean keeps off the winter chill that the rest of California gets. And we were blessed with a day of no rain to enjoy everything.
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