A Nice Day Away From the Hospital

Last week I had a day off from my shifts in the emergency room at the General,
and I decided to take advantage of it. I have been doing a lot of hiking around
the Bay area lately, and had been wanting to do the Alamere Falls trail at Point
Reyes for a long time. I like to do my hikes on the coast when it is sunny and with
the marine layer far out to sea, and this was one of my first days off in a long time
where those criteria were met. So, I hopped in the car, and headed to the Palomarin
trailhead.


The first few miles of the trail run on top of some cliffs right along the coast.
This is the view looking south (click on the picture for bigger views.)


The trail then cut back from the ocean and up into the coastal hills. There
were a bunch of small spring-ponds along the way which made for great little
detours.


This pond was big enough to qualify as a lake. I was going to jump in for a quick
dip, but decided to carry on to make sure I made it to the falls.


Poking around the smaller ponds, I got to see salamanders for the first time.


For some reason they really weird me out. I don't mind snakes and lizards at
all, but it seems that if you combine the two, they give me the willies.


I think it because when I was a kid I had a bunch of International Wildlife
Federation Animal Fact Cards, and one of them was about a South American
amphibian called the Axolotl. I still remember being creeped out by the picture
and the tenticle-things around its head. Perhaps it is these memories that cause
salamanders to weird me out.


Anyway, after a few more miles the trail cut back to the coast.


I took a few side paths that lead to the tops of peaks that gave great views.
This is the south half of Double Point. You can't really see them in the picture,
but a bunch of seals had hauled themselves out onto the beach at the far end
of the bay.


Facing north along the coast.


The trail ends at Alamere Falls, which comes down of the cliffs to empty onto
the beach and into the ocean. My hiking book says that this is one of the few
ocean bluff falls in the world.


Here the water cuts through the sand to empty into the ocean.


Purty.


I got there at low tide, so I got to poke around in the tidepools for awhile.


Here's a hermit-crab type thing.


There were lots of starfish.


An anemone.


Here is a view through the tidepools, back to the falls.


When I got home, I freshened up and went to see the Pediatrics Intramural
Basketball team (in whites) play their final game before the playoffs.


They've got a good team this year, despite losing their fearless leader Zamkoff
to a knee injury.


Here Geoff gets into a scrum.


Yao Cheng cuts to the hoop...


...only to dish it outside to Buck for the three. C-Buck was on fire, hitting
something like six of eight three-pointers and numerous pull up jumpers.


As usual, Geoff dominated the low post. Here he wades through a sea of children
for another automatic two.


Team Peds ended up trouncing the opposition, beating them by more than 30
points. They now have a stellar 4-2 record going into the playoffs.