Bear Valley Has Top Trails for Pt. Reyes Hikers

Bear Valley is the busy hub of Point Reyes National Seashore. From the park visitor center, more than 40 miles of trail lead through the valley and to the ridges and beaches beyond. Bear Valley is a great place to begin your exploration of the 71,000-acre national seashore.

The National Park Service’s Bear Valley Visitor Center is a friendly place, full of excellent natural history exhibits. Film screenings, a seismograph and dioramas tell the story behind the seashore’s scenery. Rangers can help you plan a walk to suit your time and inclinations.

Outside the visitor center there is much to see, including a traditional Miwok Indian village. The family dwellings and other structures were built using traditional Miwok methods. Near the visitor center is the Morgan Horse Ranch, where Park Service animals are raised and trained.

Two interpretive park trails are worth a stroll. Woodpecker Trail is a self-guided nature trail that introduces walkers to the tremendous diversity of the region’s native flora. Earthquake Trail uses old photographs and other displays to explain the seismic forces unleashed by the great 1906 earthquake. This well-done and entertaining geology lesson is particularly relevant because most of the land west of the San Andreas Fault zone is within the boundaries of Point Reyes National Seashore.

Bear Valley Trail, a former wagon road, is surely one of the most popular paths in the national seashore. It passes through a very low gap in Inverness Ridge and follows a nearly level 4 1/2-mile route to the sea. First-time visitors should enjoy this easy trail.

Repeat visitors will like Bear Valley Trail for the access it gives to half a dozen more remote, less-traveled trails. Some of these trails lead into the Phillip Burton Wilderness Area, which comprises about half of the national seashore. One option for the ambitious is the trek up 1,407-foot Mt. Wittenberg.

A favorite of mine is Coast Trail, which travels along land’s end through Pt. Reyes, as well as through adjoining Mt. Tamalpais State Park and Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Coast Trail offers days and weekends of fine hiking to remote back-country camps, hostels and inns.

Directions to trail head: Bear Valley Visitor Center at Point Reyes National Seashore is just outside the town of Olema, 35 slow and curving miles north of San Francisco on California 1. A quicker route is by California 101, exiting on Sir Francis Drake Boulevard, traveling through the town of Fairfax and over to Olema. A left turn on Bear Valley Road takes you to the visitor center and trail head.

The hike: From the signed trail head, Bear Valley Trail heads through an open meadow and passes a junction with Sky Trail, which ascends Mt. Wittenberg. Beyond this junction, the trail enters a forest of Bishop pine and Douglas fir.

Your path is alongside Bear Valley Creek. Notice that the creek flows north, in the opposite direction of nearby Coast Creek, which you’ll soon be following from Divide Meadow to the sea. This strange drainage pattern is one more example of how the mighty San Andreas Fault can shape the land.

Half a mile along, you’ll pass a second side trail, Meadow Trail, and after another mile of travel, arrive at Divide Meadow. A hunt club, visited by Presidents William Howard Taft and Theodore Roosevelt, once stood here. During the early part of the century, meadows and nearby forested ridges abounded with deer, bear, mountain lion and game birds.

Well-named Divide Meadow divides Bear Valley Creek from Coast Creek, which you’ll soon be following when you continue on Bear Valley Trail. Divide Meadow is a fine place to picnic.

Shady Bear Valley Trail junctions with a couple more trails, including Glen Camp Trail, which leads to one of the national seashore’s backpacker camps. Near the ocean, Bear Valley Trail emerges from the forest and arrives at an open meadow on the precipitous bluffs above Arch Rock. At low tide you can squeeze through a sea tunnel at the mouth of Coast Creek.

Unpack your lunch, unfold your map and plan a return route by way of one of Bear Valley’s many scenic trails.

Bear Valley Bear Valley Trails: Where: Point Reyes National Seashore Distance: To Divide Meadow, 3 miles round trip; to Arch Rock, 8 1/2 miles round trip. Terrain: Meadowland, forestd ridges, windswept beaches. Highlights: Moors, weirs, glens and vales call to mind the sea coast of Scotland. Close-up look at the San Andreas Fault. For more information: Contact Point Reyes National Seashore, Bear Valley Road, Point Reyes, Calif. 94956 (415) 663-1092