Matt Davis Trail to Break in My New Sweater

I finished my new lopapeysa that I designed and I decided to celebrate by taking it on a hike. I have been really curious about the 7.5 mile Stinson Beach loop from the Matt Davis Trail to the Steep Ravine Trail to the Dipsea Trail, so we went there. Also, I hadn’t been to Stinson Beach in a long time and I missed it.

To celebrate the completion of my sweater, I took it on a hike today

It was great going to Stinson Beach again, and the trail was a lot of fun. Very pretty with views of the sea and redwood forests and extremely easy. The sweater was perfect activewear for a winter hike like this – lightweight and very warming (due to the Icelandic wool).

And, with all the rains we’ve been getting in Northern California, there were many waterfalls to admire!

Waterfall on the Steep Ravine Trail

Steep Ravine Trail

Dipsea Trail

All in all, I would recommend it if you are interested in a nice, easy 4-hour hike with some pretty scenery through many different biomes. I was also interested in doing the 15-mile variation that also includes the Muir Woods Trail and the Coast View Trail, but alas I slept in this morning and we didn’t get to the trailhead until 1PM. But everything still worked out!

It was also nice to see how the Leaf handled those mountain roads, and I felt free to experiment because Stinson Beach has chargers. On the way up the mountain, it used a lot of charge and I was surprised – but then going down the mountain on the other side it recaptured at least 2 bars due to regenerative breaking. That was super cool, I had never braved a mountain like that before so I had never seen that.

The Stinson Beach chargers were great – I just arrived, parked, plugged in, went for a hike and came back to a fully charged car. It is always so smooth when that happens – which is why more trailheads need chargers. Honestly, those are the perfect places for them! Especially level 1 and level 2 chargers, because you’re going to be on the trail for 8 hours anyway, so it doesn’t need to be quick. It turned out I didn’t need to charge in Stinson Beach to make it back home, but hey, they were free chargers so why not? Also, when mountains are involved, sometimes it takes more charge to go one way than the other, so I didn’t want to take any chances.

West Marin Weekend

This weekend, Doc and I spent almost the full weekend in West Marin.

We went to a dinner event at Heiðrún Meadery featuring the food of Fine & Rare paired with Heiðrún meads. It was pretty magical having such a meal in Heiðrún’s gardens, surrounded by bees floating around and flowers everywhere. At night we even got to roast marshmallows over a fire!

Cutie pie little bee gathering nectar
A little bee gathers nectar from a cornflower in the garden

Flowers!
More lovely flowers on Heiðrún’s grounds

Sipping mead in the top secret tree

Hammock

Beautiful California native wildflower garden

Dinner at Heidrun Meadery

Roasting marshmallows at Heidrun Meadery

Since we were anticipating drinking a lot (since it was a mead event, after all), we had also booked a room at Ligonberry Farms, where they raise sheep and alpaca for their wool and fiber making! This way we didn’t have to drive back in such a state. This was also quite relaxing and magical.

Comics by the fire at Ligonberry Farm

Staying at Ligonberry Farm

Alpacas

Then on Sunday, we did a short ~5 mile hike in Point Reyes National Seashore. And we even got back to The City on time for Doc to give his photography talk!

Mt Wittenberg Trail

The View from Mt Wittenberg

Spiky Thigs

Mount Wittenberg Summit Marker

Alamere Falls via Bear Valley Trail

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Today I hiked to Alamere Falls via Bear Valley Trail with Doc and Jon! It was a very beautiful and spectacular hike, ~15 miles in all. To be honest, our favourite part of the hike was the section of Bear Valley Trail about 4 miles in. There was a lot of steep sections, but the views were spectacular. However, on the way back, we skipped that section because it was so steep and instead took Stewert to Glen trails and it was much mellower, but less scenic.

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