Hiking the Estero Trail, Point Reyes National Seashore |
From the visitor's center its another 20 to 30 minute drive to the Estero trail head. Here are the directions if you are interested in checking it out:
From the visitor's center head north on Bear Valley Trail for 0.2 mile to Bear Valley Road. Turn left on Bear Valley road and go 1.7 miles to Sir Francis Drake Blvd. Turn left onto Sir Francis Drake Blvd. and go 7.6 miles. Then take a left at the "Estero Trail" sign and drive 1 more mile to the trail head.
Because we set out with a very adjustable plan, I'll break up the trail description into segments as we added to the hike.
Estero Trail Hike, Part 1 - Estero Trail Head to Sunset Beach
Length: 4.45 miles
Start and End Elevations: 153' - 0'
Max Elevation: 190'
Monterey Pine Forest at mile 0.65 |
Bridge at Home Bay at mile 1.2 |
Hiking up Drake's Headland |
The Sunset Beach Trail as it drops to Drake's Estero |
Arturo faces down the cows |
Finding our way through the grass to Sunset Beach |
Hiking along Sunset Beach to the Point
View from the Point
Estero Trail Hike, Part 2 - Sunset Beach to Drakes Head
Length: 4 miles
Start and End Elevations: 0' - 148'
Max Elevation: 243'
Most trail descriptions I've read list Sunset Beach and Drakes Head as separate out and back hikes. We were feeling quite light footed without the baby in tow and decided to link the two. Arturo also read that there is no way to hike directly from Sunset Beach to Drakes Head without returning to the Estero Trail. I think if you timed it right with the tides, this may not be true (however it does look very difficult and we weren't willing to risk being wrong). So, we returned the 2 miles to the Sunset / Estero Trail intersection and turned right to continue along the Estero Trail again.
At this point the trail just seems to take off across the cow fields. In 0.25 miles you reach a cattle tank where you must head left. It's a little confusing here because there are cow trails heading off in many other directions. Most intersections like this were marked with arrows, but this one seemed a bit fuzzy. Following the cattle fence and the arrows for another 0.5 miles will bring you to the Drakes Head Trail. Note here that the sign pointing to Drake's Head was easy to miss as it was obscured by tall grass and facing the other way.
Wild Flowers on the Drake's Head Trail |
View of Limantour Split, Estero de Limantour, and Limantour Beach from atop Drake's Head. |
Snacks, snaps and naps were in order.
Estero Trail, Part 3 - Drake's Head to the Estero Trail Head via White Gate Trail
Length: Approx. 5.5 miles
Start and End Elevation: 148' - 153'
Max Elevation: Unknown
Still feeling pretty good we decided to press on along the Estero Trail to the White Gate Trail and return via the Estero Trail Road. I can't recommend this route as the 2 mile section along the Estero Trail Road passes through one of Point Reyes' historic ranches and is actually off limits to hikers. We didn't know this at the time. The problem was that we were using a map from Map Adventures instead of using the National Park Map. The difference being that on the National Park Map, the Estero Trail Road is shown to end at the trail head parking lot instead of continuing on to the White Gate Trail. All we could say at that point was, "oops."
In any case we hiked back the 1.5 miles along the Drake's Head trail to the Estero Trail then turned right. Another 0.7 mile brought us to the White Gate Trail. At this point we made another mistake, instead of following the White Gate Trail along the west side of the lagoon, we ended up following one of the cattle trails up the hill to the north. We just followed the contours and cow paths north until we hit the Estero Trail Road again (keeping the lagoon and the White Gate Trail to our right).
Trail marker along the Estero Trail, Point Reyes National Seashore |
Hiking Cross Country with the Estero de Limantour behind us |
For a lot more photos follow the link below to the slide show:
Estero Trail Hike, Point Reyes National Seashore |
And here's a link to Arturo's Slide show: https://picasaweb.google.com/acrespo/PointReyesEsteroTrail
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