Mount Tamalpais

Yesterday Josh and I drove over to Mount Tamalpais (Tam-ul-pie-us) to hike. Mt. Tam (for short) is just north of the Golden Gate Bridge in Marin County and is 2500 feet tall. We started at about 1000 feet by the Throckmorton Fire Station. Hogback Road Trail was about half a mile but it took us up about 450 feet. Then we were at Old Railroad Grade Trail which was a much easier incline. We only took that for a little ways before we took a shortcut on Fern Creek Trail. It pretty much went straight up from 1600 feet to 2250 feet. From there we were only .2 miles from the parking lot near the top.

At the parking lot there were bathrooms and a visitors center. They had an old gravity car on display which would haul passengers down the Old Railroad Grade to Mill Valley and a Train would bring them back up. The last one went down the hill exactly 80 years ago, October 31, 1929.

From here it was another 200 feet to the very top. You can see the fire tower up there.

We liked the views from the top of Mt. Tam even better than Mt. Diablo (that we drove up last fall). We could see San Francisco, all of the San Pablo Bay, Bay Bridge, Richmond Bridge, Mt. Diablo, San Quentin Prison, west to the sparkling ocean and north to Vallejo and Novato.

Coming down we took the easier Old Railroad Grade. It was definitely worth the 1500 feet up.