Pt. Reyes, California
I have a 31 year history with Point Reyes National Seashore. By Christmas time, 1991, I had been living in a San Francisco, Tenderloin hotel room for four months and I was ready to get out of town. I’d met my friend Rhett just a few months earlier. I don’t think we had yet established our routine of Monday night dinners together but we were bonded enough for me to ask him to look after my cat, Lily, who I’d brought with me from Ithaca, New York.
Rhett was a cat person anyway. Among the many artifacts in his single room occupancy (just a half block from mine) was a framed picture of Noodle, his Blue Point Siamese who had passed away a few years earlier. Her collar tag was push pinned to the wooden frame.
A series of Golden Gate Transit buses took me from downtown SF to the tiny unincorporated town of Olema which is a half mile walk to the Visitor’s Center for the national park. I hoped to get a camping permit or find out the general lay of the land. The hour and half car ride was a three or four hour bus trip then. This was before cell phones with maps and before the internet—at least for me. I can’t say how I knew about the Visitor’s Center—likely word of mouth and the White Pages. Surely a government agency wouldn’t advertise in the Yellow Pages? Anyway, there was no way to let my fingers do the walking from the drop off to where I was heading.
It was getting late, around 3 p.m., when the bus pulled away on the eve of Christmas eve. I had a school backpack with my sleeping bag, water, and some snacks. I carried my tent separately. The visitor center was closed up tight. I went to a trailhead that pointed downhill into the deep, dark woods and thought if I’m going to a place called Sky Camp I probably want to go up. That logic, or the fact that I already didn’t know where I was, had me turn around and go back to the road. I walked about a mile and was stopped by a police officer—or maybe it was a park ranger. Anyway, I remember he had a gun. He wanted to see my ID and took it back to his car.
“Did you know your license has been suspended for an unpaid traffic violation?” he asked returning.
No I didn’t and I had to think for a bit before remembering that I had gotten a ticket in New York City before driving across country. I was in my newly purchased, but short-lived, 1968 VW van sitting in a clearly marked no parking zone waiting for a friend to come out of somewhere. I was shocked that the meter maid gave me a ticket instead of just asking me to move along. Later, I couldn’t fathom a good reason to pay the ticket since I was moving to California.
Anyway, the Pt. Reyes officer confiscated my license. I was astonished that California cared about a fine I hadn’t paid in New York, but I was beginning to understand that long arm of the law metaphor. I might have learned something from an earlier incident.
An unpaid ticket for illegal bathing in a gorge outside of Ithaca had resulted in a bench warrant for my arrest a year or two before. In this case, the ranger had warned me and three of my friends that he would track us down if the tickets went unpaid. I was the only one who didn’t comply. Sure enough that same ranger showed up one night at my door and I had to post bail right then and there for him not to take me to jail. A few weeks later I paid the fine in front of a judge and got whatever verbal reprimand he had to give.
I never did pay the New York City ticket and it was ten or fifteen years before I stopped being nervous that the infraction would catch up with me in the form of hundreds of dollars in interest and penalties.
The Point Reyes officer let me go after asking me questions about where I was going and what I was doing and if I had any weapons. I showed him a pocket knife.
It wasn’t the greatest interaction, but at least he set me straight about where I needed to go. I doubled back to the trail head and then saw a board that showed where Sky Camp was along with all the other camps on the trail that would eventually lead me to my final destination for the next day — the Point Reyes Youth Hostel. I took a paper map that was in a pocket on the board. I’m not sure how I’d missed all of it before.
It was dark when I got to Sky Camp—close to a three mile hike. Fortunately the night was clear and the moon was full. But the camp really was in the sky and there was a fierce, cold wind blowing and the campsites were on hard ground surrounded by smooth boulders. I decided to try the next camp which, if I had known how to read a map better, wouldn’t have been Glen Camp. It was five miles away, mostly downhill.
Glen Camp was protected by woods but dark and damp. I reasoned that being attacked by a mountain lion or bear, though unlikely, would more likely be here if it was going to happen. Moonlight hardly made it through the trees.
I set up tent and slept for a few hours but woke up freezing. I knew I’d be miserable trying to make it through the night, so I broke camp and started hiking again to stay warm.
Eventually I came to a clearing and there before me was the Pacific Ocean glowing blue in the moonlight. The trail skirted a massive boulder and I climbed onto its side and laid down. The air had warmed. A soft breeze was coming off the ocean. I fell asleep but woke when it started to get cold again and started walking to what I hoped was next—Coast Camp.
It was more than six miles along the open cliffs above the seashore. The trail followed twenty feet from the edge and then snaked around intermittent ravines. It was dark around the ravines which became tunnels of trees, but I could still make out the glow of the trail. I was concerned that my headlamp batteries would die and tried to use it as little as possible.
Morning light gradually grew and it was full on daylight by the time I hit Coast camp. I was overwhelmed with fatigue having just hiked about 18 miles. I thought about pitching my tent there, but decided to push the two more miles to the Youth Hostel. I figured that would be my reward and I’d be out of the elements. Even though it was clear and warm I was ready to have a roof above me.
Not having had much experience with hostels I didn’t know they generally close in the morning after chores are done and don’t open until late afternoon. I’d have to wait until 4 p.m. to get in. I spent the next six hours lounging around the outside of a closed education center not far from the hostel. I’d brought a book to read. I don’t remember what. Maybe it was one of Carlos Castaneda’s or Zora Neale Hurston’s or it could have been Lila by Robert Pirsig. I think I’d already finished everything Ann Tyler had written by the time I moved to California. Anyway, I didn’t want to do much exploring in the area. My swollen feet made that decision.
At four o’clock, one last problem revealed itself. The desk clerk wanted to see identification to check me in for a bunk. I told her my story and she asked if there was a reference she could call. Rhett was the only person I knew in San Francisco and she dialed the 415 number and I heard his deep, somnambulant voice vouch for me as an upstanding citizen. There was only one other person in the hostel besides the clerk. He was about my age and had a car which was a good thing, because the next day was Christmas and the hostel would be closed. After a relaxing evening before a fire, surrounded by books and warmth, the next morning he gave me a ride to Stinson Beach where I got another Golden Gate Transit bus and arrived back home to the Balboa Hotel, with its smell of Barbersol and sautéed onions, as the sun was beginning to set on the city.
For the past three decades I’ve returned to Point Reyes many times, alone and with friends, for day trips and overnights. We even managed to get Rhett out to the youth hostel—not an easy task given his perennial car sickness and the winding roads to get there.
I hope you are having a wonderful Martin Luther King, Jr. day. Not that I’ve illustrated it in this blog post, but breaking the law is sometimes a good thing.
Spotty West Goes East 