Tomales Bluff

Point Reyes--November, 2007


We were off to Point Reyes for a long weekend of R & R and warm hospitality provided by Brett and Teri at the Ten Inverness Way B&B.

We left Friday before noon to avoid the Thanksgiving holiday traffic and had lunch with Dan and Jill at Comforts in San Anselmo.

On Saturday morning, after a fine breakfast, we took the Estero Trail hike. It was socked in with fog at the beginning of the hike but it gave way to sunshine at lunch. The fog came back in as we neared the parking lot. (Follow along with the the trail map.)

Day 2: Hike along the Tomales Point Trail followed by an awesome dinner at Nick's Cove.


This grove of cypress is all that is left of the Lower Pierce Point Ranch

This grove of cypress is all that is left of the Lower Pierce Point Ranch

I did find an interesting story (but—alas—no pictures) about why there is absolutely no sign of the lower ranch. This is an excerpt of an interview with Clifford Conly in August 26, 1976 by Carla Ehat and Anne Kent (courtesy of the Anne T. Kent California Room).

CC: Well, as we understood, Pierce Point is the—Tomales Point is the designation that's now used for the northerly end of the Point Reyes Peninsula but it was originally called Pierce Point because the Pierce Ranch was situated there and in fact the man from whom I bought the property, Pierce Thompson, was named for this same Pierce family, and—
Lower Pierce Point Ranch shrouded in fog

Lower Pierce Point Ranch shrouded in fog

CE: Is that still a working ranch, Cliff?
CC: Well, it is now owned by the Point Reyes National Seashore. It's been a great brouhaha in this neighborhood. They recently destroyed the lower ranch which was a complex of hundred year old buildings and a beautiful old place and it was just all—A great hole was dug and everything was knocked down and buried in the ground; it was an outrage. There is an upper ranch which is also very beautiful, and the proposal was to destroy that similarly. But an artist in Point Reyes named Barry McDowell did a photographic essay and that's had quite wide exposure and there is now an attempt to save that ranch. It is occupied at the present time by a tenant farmer, a man named McDonald. But in the early days all of these ranches had large herds of hogs and similarly the Pierce Ranch had and they would ferry them over in barges such as we used, kind of a similarity taking our Board and taking hogs across, and ...

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