Today was another Ridge Trail hike with my trail goddesses. We did the next leg of the Bay Area Ridge Trail from Bolinas Ridge down to Samuel P Taylor State Park. It was a mostly downhill hike which made the 13 miles feel much easier than last weeks hike. The drive to the start of the hike was gorgeous, the sun was shining through the fog in several spots. The hike starts at the top of the Bolinas-Fairfax road which is very windy and narrow, luckily we didn’t pass many other cars on our way up there. We set off in dense redwood forest which was lovely and spongy under our feet and stayed under the cover of the trees for about half the hike. Eventually we came to a clearing with a picnic table which was a perfect resting spot. The next few miles were out in the open on the ridge with amazing views of Tomales Bay and Point Reyes, then we descended down into Samuel P Taylor Park and along the Cross Marin trail where Gabriella got to see her first real live banana slug! Not too many bikers or other hikers on this trail, it’s amazing how few people we see in these beautiful settings. We had to shuttle back to the car we left at the start OSS the hike so it was back to windy Bolinas-Fairfax road and a lot more cars this time. The drive home along the coast from Bolinas to Mill Valley was beautiful-not a cloud in the sky but lots of tourists pulled off to the side of the road taking photos.
