Beginner Backpacking!

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Backpacking along the Point Reyes National Seashore

The Point Reyes National Seashore is a great beginner’s backpack trip for a number of reasons. First and foremost, the campsites have amenities! It’s rare in the backcountry to find running water and a toilet, but all the campsites in the Pt. Reyes National Seashore have them along food lockers at each developed campsite and picnic tables at most of them. You feel like you are far away in the wilderness because you just hiked 6 miles, but you are greeted like a welcomed guest with extra comforts and conveniences!

Hiking with friends is also lots of fun and this is a trip I would go back and do again and again to introduce other people to the amazing location. When you backpack with other people choose good company and you’ll have lots of interesting conversation. In addition, you can share all the great gear you’ve discovered and they haven’t or hear other people’s latest adventures that you missed (there is a little bragging that sometimes goes along the trail!). If the trail gets hard, talking through it can make the distance seem shorter. And people notice different things, so my experience backpacking with others is often really enhanced by seeing or hearing or smelling what they notice.

One other thing about this trip that was so incredibly special to a Southern Californian who basically lives in a desert was water—and it wasn’t just the spigots in the campgrounds! The ocean is ever-present either near the trail or campground and you can hear the rush of the waves. Some trails had lots of coastal scrub which are low craggy bushes and few trees, but there were also other trails where the ferns covered the ground and moss hung from the trees in almost fairyland ways. For such a short trip (total of about 20 miles, including our day hike), there are a number of ecosystems you hike through making it a varied and appealing adventure. It is a trip we all still talk about!

How to get there

My friends drove from Southern California and stayed overnight next to Oakland Airport so they could pick me up when I arrived by air the next morning. My work schedule meant that I couldn’t leave until the day we started hiking and this arrangement worked best. If you’re flying San Francisco International Airport or Oakland Airport both have pretty easy access to the California coast. When you drive to Pt. Reyes,  Then we all drove together that morning to the Pt Reyes Visitor Center to pick up our permit. Many permits are now available online to print out the week before you head out on your adventure—perhaps the only helpful thing about the staff reductions in National Parks.

There are a number of entry points to the Pt. Reyes National Seashore, so depending on your backpacking plans (are you hiking a loop trail or end-to-end?) and where you have site reservations (get your site at recreation.gov), you can plan out multiple options. We entered at Sky Trailhead because it was only 1.3 miles into the Sky Campground from the trailhead. This made entering mid-afternoon possible. But it also made it a really accessible campsite so there were lots of families with kids. Love kids, but it was a little noisier than I had expected. Fortunately, the sites are laid out with plenty of room in between and low-lying shrubs give you some privacy. And the view was amazing!

Itinerary

Alamere Falls, Pt. Reyes National Seashore

We did a loop starting at Sky Campground to Coast Campground (4.4 miles), and the next day to Wildcat Campground via the Coast Trail (4.1 miles), returning to the Sky Trailhead (6.2 miles) before driving back into San Francisco where I caught a rideshare to the airport (my friends were extending another few days). Wildcat has some of the more Instagrammable campsites in the Pt. Reyes area. While we didn’t get reservations for Spot 7 (the famous one!), the view from the whole area is fantastic. We took an extra day at Wildcat so we could explore Alamere Falls—definitely worth a side trip. Check out the trail map put together by the National Park Services to help you plan your route here.

Recap

•a backpacking trip at sea-level so no getting used to altitude here

•short distances between campgrounds and lots to explore

•lots of campsite amenities including tables, toilets, and water

•a little difficult to get to unless you live in the Bay Area of California, but well worth the effort for a having some coastal beach time almost to yourself

•many options for entry/exit, camping, day hikes, etc.