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.

This is a very wet place. Trees are coated with icicles of lichen.	The dew exposes the vast expanse of spiderwebs in the pines...
...and in the coyote brush	Mushroom season!
LBMs	Our first bolete
Where's the leprechaun?	Family of boletes on a hill
A pair under a tree	A big brown mushroom
More mushrooms	Still more mushrooms
A proud mama bolete
Contrast the scene with fog and low tide...	...with sun and high tide
Oyster beds exposed at low tide	Now nearly covered
The tree in the fog...	...and in the sun
Lunch spot at Sunset Beach	Note that the fog has lifted and the seagull still waits patiently for handouts Photo by Lori Heyman
Migratory birds in full force	Caught mid-flight
Self-portrait at bridge
And as we cross the last ridge to the parking lot...	...the fog comes back thick as ever
Even in November, there is life, as in this pea...	...and thistle
There is also death	Something here has gone wrong. Seriously wrong.
And the vulture waits...	Atom Heart Mother
Drakes Bay surf from the comfort of the car	Elk
Sam Spade, photographer

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

The trail begins at the Pierce Point Ranch

The trail continues on through the mist

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

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 ...

The steep cliffs of Tomales Bluff	The waves tirelessly pound the shoreline far below
Bill & Lori at the lunch spot at Tomales Bluff
Lori eats	Bill jumps Photo by Lori Heyman
Note that elk on right got whooped	Another bachelor pad
A group of elk on a hill...	...and in a meadow
Note that the male of this harem is tired from his efforts and is lying down	Another shot of tired elk
Close-up of the babes

Copyright © 2007 Bill Wohler Last modified: 2007 About photos

Free DNS