2 Days in the Rain - Mt. Tam

It's April. Last year around this time, my skin turned 5 shades darker from the unrelenting sun in an overnight camping/climbing trip. This year, it remained fairly chilly and rainy for first few months... and despite not being able to do a lot of outdoor climbing, we welcomed the much needed rain. A group of us got together for a BBQ+Climbing day a weekend prior to this camping trip and since the weather had been so great, we decided to plan a camping+climbing trip for the following weekend in Mt.Tam. Yes!

Unluckily for us, the weather forecast 2 days later showed 40% chance of rain on Saturday. A day after that, the percentage jumped to 100%.

Poop.

Well, we weren't going to back out because of some rain. If anything, it'll be an experience.

Bootjack Campground - Quick Facts

$25 a night per campsite, including parking for one car. 8 dollars per additional car. Cash only!
15 total sites, on a first come first serve basis.
Each site includes a picnic table, fire ring/grill, potable water, and a food locker
Pets are allowed, but must be on leash (rangers will check up on you periodically to make sure)
There are super clean bathrooms, near the parking lot.

From when we arrived Friday night around 8pm to check out time on Sunday, I'd say it rained about 65% of the time we were there. As I've gotten older I started to get cold more easily, so like a stereotypical Californian I think anything under 60F is cold. Here's a list of what I brought (to layer as necessary) to make sure I was warm:

Uniqlo Ultrawarm Heattech as my base (never tried Ultrawarm before, worked well)
Frictionlabs hooded shirt
North Face 600 fill down jacket
Columbia Hot Thought Rain Jacket
Beanie
Uniqlo Ultralite packable down vest (used this on Sunday when it wasn't raining)

Friday Night : Weather was in the 40s/50s, with no rain or wind, so it felt quite pleasant. By the time we finished setting up our tents though, rain started coming down steadily -- it definitely put my waterproof jacket to the test. The jacket held up ok, but after a year of use the water wasn't beading up too well.

Saturday : Various times during the night I woke up to the sounds of heavy rain hitting the tent and the rushing creek running alongside our campsite. By 9am it was becoming increasingly difficult to fall back to sleep. I didn't feel inclined to get up and start the day when my sleeping bag felt so toasty, so I waited to see when my friends would wake up. Looks like everybody felt the same way -- everybody was up, but wanted to wait for the rain to let up just a bit.

Eventually, hunger called. We made some hot dogs, bread, boiled eggs, and fruit to start the day. We called it breakfast, but by the time we had our fill, it would be only a few hours before dinner. Haha.

Overall view of our site. I think we grabbed one of the most spacious ones. We never saw our neighbors at the site next to ours, even though there was a tent pitched up and a flower centerpiece surrounded by acorns and a Corn Nuts bag filled with what looked like old grass. Loved the eerie atmosphere that the fog was creating, but that seemingly deserted campsite gave us a bit of the chills.

Now that climbing was DEFINITELY out of the question for the day, our group split into two to do our own things. My group decided to explore the rest of the campgrounds now that we could see what it looked like in the day.

Walking around the edges of the area we found a couple trail heads.

"Which one should we take?"

"Ehhhhhhhh... the trail on the right looks more dark and mysterious," I said. "Let's do that one!"

We wanted to make it back in time to help prepare for dinner, so we didn't go too far on the trail, maybe only 2, 2.5 miles at most. The trail itself was very pleasant, it brought us through a plethora of views, including creeks via footbridges or the fog blanketing the trees of Mt. Tam.

From my 2 mile experience, I obviously can't generalize the entire trail... but for future reference if I wanted to convince my non outdoorsy friends to do this trail with me I'd tell them that navigating through Tokyo Station to make a train transfer involved more elevation change, haha. That is, if we only stroll through the same 2 miles, haha. Doing the complete hike is loads more strenuous, I'm sure.

Anyway, pictures.

The vegetation was lush from the rain:

Flowing creeks (my friends told me last year everything was completely dried up):

Enjoying the view:

Karl the fog making it's way through the trees:

We returned to camp to help assemble and cook kabobs (chicken and sirloin steak, mmm) for dinner:

It felt nice to warm up by a warm fire after walking through the rain:

I've heard much about Mt. Tam from both my outdoorsy friends and my photographer friends -- the layers of fog/hills, the beautiful hikes (steep ravine), picturesque landscapes. The rain may have changed my initial plans for hikes, exploration, and photos, but I still had a great time which left me yearning to return.

A full hike next time, for sure!

Featured Photo: A view from along the Matt Davis trail

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2 Days in the Rain - Mt. Tam