Let me start by saying that Summer is not the best time to visit the Marin Headlands and expect to have clear skies.

Regardless, I felt like a short backpacking trip this weekend and I was able to get reservations at a couple of the hike-in camps in the Marin Headlands.

So after work, I drove in and went down to Tennessee Valley. A short 1 mile walk got me to Haypress Camp, a small camp tucked into one of the valleys leading to Tennessee Beach. If the sun was going to be visible at sunset or sunrise I would have had to hike up to Coyote Ridge to see it, but as expected the coastal Summer fog/clouds blocked most of the light at sunset and all of it for sunrise so I just relaxed around camp.

In the morning, I dropped my gear back at my Jeep, and hiked down to Tennessee Beach for a stroll down the mostly empty beach (just a few walkers were around that morning).

Then I made my way up the Coastal Trial to Pirates Cove. Not really a beach, but after a little challenging scramble down to the ocean you can see why a pirate would use this cove: Very isolated and perfect for smuggling.

Then I climbed up from the cove and found that the cloud cover was high enough to see a good deal up and down the coast. Before long, I was climbing up into those clouds and onto Coyote Ridge. So not much to see from there, but it was my first time up to that part of the ridge. Making my way down the Miwok Trail back towards Tennessee Valley, I caught glimpses of Mt Tamalpias and Mill Valley through the thinning clouds. Which gave me some hope for the afternoon.

Picking up my gear back at my Jeep, I then made the climb up towards Hawk Camp east of Wolf Ridge. While Haypress wasn’t much to talk about, Hawk Camp was situated near to the top of the ridge and overlooked Gerobee Valley. On a clear day you could see San Francisco and the San Mateo Coast all the way down to Pacifica.

This wasn’t a very clear day, but the clouds did lift and separate a few times in order to reveal the primary reason for me to come to this camp: The view.

I even got the lower campsite, which had the best view. I would come to regret grabbing that site later.

Unfortunately, as evening approached the clouds moved back in and there was not much reason to pop up to the ridge behind the camp to see the sunset over the ocean.

The night was foggy/cloudy, but it didn’t rain.

Well, it didn’t rain anywhere except directly over my tent.

The previous time I had stayed at this camp and this particular campsite, the weather was mostly clear and I had no issues. But with the heavy fog and low clouds, there was a lot of moisture in the air that condensed onto the tree leaves and then dripped down onto my tent.

So not rain, but it was almost the same. The other two sites had less tree cover so didn’t have the ‘rain’ my site had, but despite feeling a bit damp in the morning, I stayed dry in my tent.

Again, no sunrise due to the cloud cover, so I was batting 0 for 4 on this trip. I made my way back to my Jeep and called it a day.

So not the best trip, but I knew going in the chances of good weather there in Summer was not very good.