A forgotten trip to Limantour Spit in Point Reyes National Seashore

When I was looking for something to post on flickr the other morning, I ended up flipping back through the archives to a pre-dawn trip I took to Limantour Spit in Point Reyes National Seashore that I had forgotten about. This was the last trip I took with the D50 as my primary (read: only) camera. Later that week my D90 arrived, and I spent some time trying it out at a few locations, leaving these unsorted in the archives.

All in all, this wasn't a super-productive trip, but it was a gorgeous morning with clear skies for the sunrise. I spent attempted to photograph sanderlings with the first rays coming over the horizon, but I still need to go through those images. Soon thereafter, I headed back towards the other side of the dunes to explore some of the coastal scrub.



I was also treated to a group of turkey vultures sunning themselves in the early light while following the trail. They're a pretty ugly species, but it sort of fits well with their there important ecological role of scavenging.



After wandering along the backside of the dunes during most of the good morning light without finding too much else, I decided to head back to the trailhead and then follow the Muddy Hollow trail back along the side of the salt marsh. The tide was very high that morning, giving a really nice flooded marsh plain -- which was quite stunning in the early light (see the top shot of this post). I also encountered some lovely song-birds in the bushes along the marsh edge, including this savannah sparrow.



It posed quite nicely with those rich colors in the backdrop.

Further up the trail, Cataract Falls

A few more shots from further up the trail along Cataract Falls in Marin County. There is just something magic to me about the water flowing past those lush green covered stones -- especially in the middle of January!



The following two shots were from the falls near the top of the trail before it levels out. Again I couldn't decide between a horizontal or vertical composition, so I went for both.



I think the scene would not have been quite as compelling for me in the vertical if it wasn't for the redwood right beside the trail.

Cascade along Cataract Falls

This weekend I really wanted to find some waterfalls since we've had so much rain in the Bay Area lately, and Cataract Falls on the western slopes of Mount Tamalpais has been on my list for quite some time. We picked an awesome day to see it for the first time, as the water was really flowing, and the overcast skies helped to bring out the awesome green colors of moss and ferns found all over the wet rocks. It almost had a feeling of walking through a tropical rain forest, although with the occasional redwood tree sprinkled in.

Here's a vertical take on the same scene that I liked as well, with the lifting fog in the background.


This was a relatively easy hike, although it is fairly steep as you follow the creek vertically past a number of large waterfalls. It's a hike well worth taking with all of the wet weather we've had, although I suggest getting there early, since there is only limited parking along the roadside, and it fills up quick. This seems to be the place to be though -- as I've seen this set of falls featured on SFGate.com and on one of the local news channels here.

This last shot is of a tiny creek that was flowing into Alpine Lake Reservoir, before we even made it to the real falls.

Elk with a view

There are many places along the California coast where I'm just in awe of the view that the cows seem to get! Driving down CA-1 from San Francisco to Morro Bay, I'm not sure how many awesome pastures we passed right on the coast. The same is true for the tule elk in the Reserve on Tomales Point in Point Reyes National Seashore -- although, I must say that this seems much more fitting! There are of course spectacular views of both the Pacific Ocean and Tomales Bay over the whole trip out to the end of the peninsula, and about 2/3 of the way there we encountered a herd of elk that were taking in some really nice views across Tomales Bay. Well, I'm not sure if they were taking in the views -- but it was nice to try to get some of the dunes and beach behind them.



From the looks along the hike, that looks like a beach I would like to check out sometime -- nice large beach area and beautiful dunes.



The area was becoming developed though, as you can see with a bit of a house in this shot -- it's not nearly as distracting as the pickup trucks and port-a-potties I got in the backdrop of some other shots though!

Scent on the wind

A bull tule elk taking in the smells in the air -- as you may have expected, his nose took him right to a female. From our hike out the Tomales Point Trail in Point Reyes National Seashore. This is the same bull as in a previous post, who was the dominant male in the first group of elk that we found along the trail. While he was certainly a fine specimen, he did not appear to be the biggest or have the largest set of antlers out of all of the bulls we saw that day, but he must have made up for it with his fighting skills. It was interesting to see the dynamics of the herds we saw, as there was always one large male within the main harem and typically a smaller group consisting of what must have been the losing males hanging out on the outskirts. They were usually within eyesight, but never venturing close enough to warrant attention from the big guy (at least at this time of year).

While this shot is similar to the first (minus how I framed the image), what I really liked about it is how you can see how symmetric his rack really is. Definitely not something I would want to tangle with.


After sniffing the air for a while, he followed his nose right to this relaxing cow, who was not all that happy to see him and quickly got up after this shot was taken, and strolled down the hillside.