The first-time visitor to Point Reyes National Seashore will likely begin in Bear Valley. The main visitor center is located there, below and to the right of the Morgan Horse Ranch. The five horses that reside at the ranch can sometimes be seen in the meadow. Inside the visitor center, friendly rangers stand behind a wooden counter, ready to help those unfamiliar with this vast and iconic park gain some sense of the place and where they might want to start.
There’s a tiny gift shop that sells a good trail guide, plant and bird books, and expensive sweatshirts. Just past the front door, on the right-hand wall, hangs a white dry-board. The board provides pertinent information about the current day’s weather. That’s important, since the sun can be shining in Bear Valley and the breeze calm, while out at Chimney Rock, Tomales Point, or the lighthouse, the wind might be howling and much of the landscape hidden behind a dense fog.
Several hiking trails begin a short distance beyond the visitor center. The Bear Valley Trail quickly leads into a forest of towering Douglas fir. Winters when there’s normal rain, a sparkling stream, Bear Valley Creek, runs along both sides. By February, wild Douglas Iris will appear above the creek. The trail eventually reaches a wide, open space, Divide Meadow, a perfect spot to sit on a log and enjoy the view.
Unlike most national parks, Point Reyes National Seashore, an hour and a half drive north of San Francisco, coexists with historic dairy farms. Farm fields and modest, once-white, wood-sided houses sit here and there, all along the narrow winding roads. Occasionally, a black and white cow will saunter away from home and wander out onto the road.
As I write these words, I keep running head-on into several thoughts. The first is that Point Reyes National Seashore is a wondrous place, sprawling and varied, with trails that give hikers views that make their hearts swell — alongside creeks, lagoons, bays, the Pacific Ocean, and an estero, and through grassy meadows, up and down hills, and past towering trees. In the decades since my first visit, I have walked parts, or all, of nearly every trail. Favorites I have followed so many times, I couldn’t begin to count. To put it simply, Point Reyes National Seashore is the place I love most in the world.
A last point needs to be made before I go on. I can trace the nearly thirty years I spent with my husband Richard by the trails we followed again and again, and in so many stunning spots within and around the national seashore.
Before I met Richard, I had been to the park a handful of times. I lived in San Francisco, a short drive from Point Reyes, much of it on a winding two-lane road. Because I’d never learned to drive, I didn’t own a car. The only way I could get to Point Reyes was with a friend who could drive. Though my visits were few and brief, I couldn’t help falling in love with the park.
I don’t remember the first time I visited Point Reyes with the man who would become my spouse. But I can recall that in the early days of our relationship, we rarely left Richard’s house or mine before the day was nearly done. During the long days of summer, this habit was fine. We made sure to be set up in a good spot to watch the sunset. The best trail we found for that was Tomales Point.
The Tomales Point Trail begins after a small parking lot, then passes the historic Pierce Point Ranch, a former dairy farm, with several one-story, white-painted buildings on the right. In moments, the path runs atop a cliff overlooking the ocean. If Richard and I arrived especially late, we wouldn’t get far. Instead of continuing to walk, we’d opt to find a large rock or two off the trail, where we’d sit and wait for the sun to drop.
If we had more daylight, we would follow the trail as it veered east, and be rewarded with lovely, long views of Tomales Bay. At that point, we usually spotted Tule Elk, scattered here and there, in the fields above the bay.
I’m recalling the views, the wildlife and those glorious sunsets one year after my beloved husband Richard’s death. I can’t help but mention that we managed to return to Point Reyes, even after Richard was diagnosed and started treatment for stage four cancer.
The last time we hiked the Bear Valley Trail, I didn’t think Richard would make it to the meadow. We moved ever so slowly, stopping for Richard to rest and catch his breath. A landscape photographer, Richard had taken numerous photographs in the park. Along the Bear Valley Trail, his subject was often the creek.
I don’t think he was photographing that day. My one recollection is that he wanted to keep going, even though the effort seemed hard.
As we got closer to the meadow, I became aware of what had never been apparent until that moment. The trail I usually considered flat climbed steadily in the final stretch before the meadow. I made sure to keep my left arm locked through Richard’s right, in case he started to fall. We’d take a few more steps and then halt. My attention was riveted on every inch over which Richard plodded. At the same time, I asked him more than once, “Are you sure you want to keep going?”
Long before cancer entered our lives, we sometimes rode bikes out the Bear Valley Trail, to the Glen Trail Junction. From there, we would continue on foot, because we had entered the Phillip Burton Wilderness, and bikes were not allowed. More than once, we followed the Bear Valley Trail to its end at Arch Rock, a high cliff overlooking the ocean. Eight years ago, a portion of the Arch Rock overlook collapsed. A hiker was killed and another injured. After that terrible tragedy, the area leading up to Arch Rock was permanently closed.
If we weren’t planning to follow the trail to its end, where we would spend time savoring the view up and down the coast, Richard and I usually stopped at Divide Meadow, searched for a comfortable looking log and sat down. The tuna sandwiches or bread and cheese we’d brought for lunch tasted infinitely better than if we’d eaten the same fare at home. On special days, we might spot an albino deer across the field, pure white from where we sat. It was easy to imagine that this magical creature had appeared just for us.
Richard and I were in the early days of love and Point Reyes played a key role in our relationship. On days fog obscured views from trails closer to the water, Bear Valley became our preferred hike. But when the weather was fine throughout the park, we had a long list of favorite trails from which to pick.
One of those, the Estero Trail, was reached up a rutted, nearly one-lane road. Black and white cows grazed on both sides of the road and along the trail. We had learned from a friend to clap our hands and say, “Go girl,” to get a large cow blocking our path to lumber back to the field where she belonged.
Like many of the best trails in the park, the Estero had loads of beautiful sights worth seeing. A low bridge crossed the estero, a marshy inlet running up to the land from the ocean. Because the water rose and fell depending on the tides, the inlet never looked the same. During low tide, we were bound to see Great White Egrets pecking in the mud, along with a variety of shorebirds. After crossing the bridge and climbing the hill on the other side, we could peer down at the estero and see wavy patterns of mud and water catching the sunlight, a bit of nature’s sculpture that never failed to delight us.
Further up the hill, a downed Eucalyptus trunk served as our usual seat for lunch. Like the bridge, it offered a breathtaking view, but of the ocean, up and down the coast. Sitting there, Richard and I talked about what I no longer remember but know I enjoyed. The water views, the clear air, the plants, wildflowers and trees, and the birds flying overhead and occasionally touching down, not to mention our frequent visits, made us feel closer to that special place and one another. That spot became our place, as surely as if we’d purchased the log and the hill it rested on and settled there for a time.
Another of our places was just outside the park, in the adorable, tiny town of Point Reyes Station (population under one thousand). Before everything was available on the Internet, I found a charming English-style vacation rental, Jasmine Cottage, in a guidebook and called. The owner explained that the guidebook’s author had personally visited, which was unusual, she claimed, as most travel guide writers listed places to stay without ever seeing them. Our first, but far from last, weekend stay was my treat and a surprise, to celebrate Richard’s birthday.
It rained the entire weekend, which normally would have ruined the time for me. But I was happy to be indoors. The two-room cottage was cozy and charming, with a fire going in the small wood stove. We sipped dark French Roast coffee next to the lace-covered window and ate fresh-baked scones left in a basket by the owner. I looked at Richard, sitting across from me at the small, glass-covered table, and suddenly knew I felt something for him I’d never felt for any man before. That something, I realized, was love.
The last time Richard and I hiked the Estero Trail, we only went as far as the bridge. The tide was high, and it was possible to see water streaming in from the ocean. We leaned over the railing, as we’d done countless times, searching for small crabs that scurried sideways across rocks below.
On the way back, the trail began to climb. I feared Richard wouldn’t make it to the car. As we’d done on the Bear Valley Trail, we stepped slowly and stopped. I held tightly onto my dear husband for the rest of the walk.
We were able to follow the trail at Abbott’s Lagoon longest. The flat path was one we’d hiked many times. It was lovely, but especially in the spring, because that’s when the fields alongside the path were bursting with wildflowers.
In the early days of our relationship, I was working at a job I disliked. Richard and I often spent long weekends in a cottage or cabin near the park. The last afternoon of our stay, we would hike the Abbott’s Lagoon Trail, past the lagoon to the wide sandy beach above the ocean. On the return hike to the parking lot, my mood inevitably darkened, knowing I would soon have to return to my mind-numbing job, after being in that place where my spirit came alive.
Like the other trails we loved at Point Reyes, the Abbott’s Lagoon Trail had more than enough beauty along the way to keep us captivated. The lagoon to the right shimmered, intensely blue, under a cloudless sky. On the opposite shore, smooth tan sand dunes rose up. In certain spots, their reflections draped across the water. As we made our way out, Richard would scour the shore, hoping to spot a Great White Egret poised there alone.
He almost always had a camera hanging from a strap around his neck. We would stop at the egret sighting and whisper about the elegant white bird. Then Richard would cautiously tiptoe down the bank, trying not to startle his slender subject, even though he wouldn’t have minded the bird taking off with its glorious wings spread, as long as he managed to get the shot.
I’m guessing that our last Point Reyes hike was at Abbott’s Lagoon. Thankfully, I have enough memories of our hikes, the places we stopped to talk, and wildlife we spotted, including the enormous elephant seals on the beach below Chimney Rock, to last the rest of my life.
In my husband’s final months, he could no longer walk far. Instead of walks, we met every afternoon in the backyard and talked about our life. Richard was sleeping a good deal of the time but got up for those talks. Having spent so much time reveling in the splendor of the natural world, we had a lot to recall.
On a beautiful fall morning, I lost my hiking companion, the love of my life. Since his death, I haven’t returned to any of our favorite spots in Point Reyes National Seashore, that most beloved park. I tell myself I should go, that being there might let me imagine Richard is still with me, at least for a time. I tell myself I might feel my spirit awaken, as so often happened before.
But there’s another voice I hear, whenever I consider going to hike on the Bear Valley or Estero Trails, or at Abbott’s Lagoon alone. The voice tells me that Richard was an essential part of my love for Point Reyes. If I went there now, I would only feel the pain of his loss.
One day, I will return, I know, perhaps after the gaping wound of grief has healed some. In the meantime, I bring up memories of sitting atop the hill just below the Tomales Point Trail, after the sun has slid down below the horizon, setting the sky and sea on fire. And Richard and I are applauding to show our gratitude, for the love we will always have for one another and this special place we were so fortunate to have found.
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Patty Somlo’s most recent book, Hairway to Heaven Stories (Cherry Castle Publishing) was a Finalist in the American Fiction Awards and Best Book Awards. Previous books, The First to Disappear (Spuyten Duyvil) and Even When Trapped Behind Clouds: A Memoir of Quiet Grace (WiDo Publishing), were Finalists in several contests. Her work has appeared in Guernica, Delmarva Review, Under the Sun, the Los Angeles Review, and over 40 anthologies. She received Honorable Mention for Fiction in the Women’s National Book Association Contest, was a Finalist in the J.F. Powers Short Fiction Contest, had an essay selected as Notable for Best American Essays, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net multiple times. www.pattysomlo.com; @PattySomlo.
© 2024, Patty Somlo
Halfway Down the Stairs 