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The road construction is done, so Fairfax-Bolinas Road reopened on Friday, once again making it possible to drive to the Cataract Creek trailhead at Alpine Lake. It was raining pretty hard when I parked, so I sipped coffee until it let up a little. I still had to put on rain pants and jacket, plus carry an umbrella.
This shot and the one before it were done from beneath the umbrella, which I've finally gotten the hang of. It can be frustrating if you don't work more slowly and methodically than normal.
The rain finally let up, which was great because at 55 degrees it wasn't really cold enough to hike up that steep canyon wearing all that rain gear.
When I got farther up the trail and realized I was missing a lens cap, I was pretty sure I'd dropped it around here somewhere, and as I was hiking back down the trail to look for it I met up with another hiker who'd already picked it up for me.
Stone steps on the Cataract Trail.
After I left the waterfall area I hiked a short way along a trail up on Bolinas Ridge to look for this very mushroom. Some years they don't come up, so I was glad to find a few of these purple-stalked specimens right where I've seen them before. They look like a shorter version of the Cortinarius vanduzernsis that I've found up in Sonoma County, but I'm not sure that species grows this far south.
Waterfall Clip
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