Point Reyes National Seashore: Mt. Wittenberg & Sculptured Beach - Day 1

This is the first weekend away from home in a while. A few months ago, I was all set to hike Point Reyes again, but it did not really work out. Attempt #2...

The first day the plan was to hike Mt. Wittenberg and Sculptured Beach trails. Organized by one of the Meetup groups, the hike was supposed to be relatively strenuous, but not enough to scare anyone away - 39 people showed up! With different levels of fitness, the group spread out a bit, but was consistently maintained as a whole by skilled organizers. The landscape changed from forest...

...to tall grass (with hundreds of ticks, probably!)...

...to open mountainside trails...

Photo credit: HJ

...and, finally, the beach.

With a few breaks along the way, all made it to the destination. The views did not disappoint. Somewhat isolated, the beach was peaceful and yet alive, filled with the sound of birds...

...brief appearances of weird crawling creatures (a shrimp?)...

...and the consistency of beautiful waves.

After a quick lunch and a whole bunch of pictures, we headed back. Most of the trail is shaded and relatively cool. The exposed spots are mostly near the ocean, hence wind coming from it cools you down pretty well. Along the way, I was able to capture amazing sights of mushrooms...

...spiders...

...and plants.

I tried to capture the whole beauty and diversity of the hike in the video.

The hike was finished around 5.30 PM, and after dinner in a small eatery in Fairfax, I checked in my AirBnb and checked out (=fell asleep). That, of course, was after I checked on Kitty...