Point Reyes Overnighter - The Dirty Way

I rarely get on the north side of Mt. Tam so I put this route together to ride trails over the mountain and into Pt. Reyes National Seashore! We carried camp and cook gear, which was a bit too much stuff for the route... On the bright side, the route went down Rocky Ridge, which was rippin' as usual, and Bolinas - Fairfax Rd., which was closed to cars. AMAZING. This took us to Bolinas Ridge Rd., an 11-mile trail that starts in second growth redwoods and dumps into a wide-open grassy ridge. The trail was damaged at parts by a combination of recent rains and free range cows. Our water bottles were splattered with mud by the end of it, so we avoided them to prevent exposure to E. Coli or any other bacteria found in cow manure. In fact, my water bottle completely sheared off on this trail and could not be recovered (check out my previous blog post). After all that, we ended up getting picked up by our friend who's an employee at Bear Valley Visitor Center. He trucked us to the closest pub/restaurant in Pt. Reyes Station and drove us around the park so that we didn't even have to unpack most of our gear! Typical adventure curation procedure... Check out the photos above! I snapped some shots of the Gray Whale skull and dioramas at Bear Valley. Also, there is an outline of the route below!

 

The Route

Day 1: 51mi, 50% road, 45% fireroad, 5% singletrack

  • Mill Valley - Sausalito Bike Path
  • Old Railroad Grade
  • Old Stage Rd.
  • Pan Toll Rd.
  • Ridgecrest Blvd.
  • Lagunitas - Rock Spring Rd.
  • Rocky Ridge Rd.
  • Bon Tempe Rd.
  • Bolinas - Fairfax Rd.
  • Bolinas Ridge Rd.
  • Sir Francis Drake Blvd.
  • Bear Valley Rd.

Day 2: Less miles, more road, lots of stops

  • Bear Valley Rd.
  • Sir Fancis Drake Blvd.
  • San Geronimo Valley Dr. 
  • Cross Marin Trail
  • Marin County Bicycle Route 20
  • Mill Valley - Sausalito Bike Path

The Rigs

  • My rigid 26" steel Mikkelsen with drop bars. Front Pass and Stow rack.
  • Daryl's carbon Santa Cruz hardtail 29er mountain bike.

The Gear

 

 

AdventuresKyle NgPt. Reyes, Bikepacking