San Francisco from Muir Beach Overlook, photo by Harold Davis. View this photo larger.

We parked Mark’s truck near the Pelican Inn behind Muir Beach and drove in my car over to the Tennessee Beach trailhead parking lot. There was a stiff wind blowing, with some roiling clouds to the north. The parking lot was full of high school kids running a race.

In our hiking boots, backpacks and tripods on our backs, we headed down the easy trail, and then up, to the north, towards the ridgeline and away from the crowds come for the race. A fairly short, but very steep, climb got us to the top of the line of hills marching down to the sea. We took a shortcut down to the Coastline Trail, and joined it just to the north of Pirate’s Cove.

By the time we’d hiked along the trail to the point above the south end of Muir Beach, the wind had picked up to over forty miles an hour. I took a handheld grabshot back at the spectacular coast, and was almost blown over the edge.

It was nearly 6PM, with sunset a little before 7:30. We decided that the best way to go was to get some dinner at the Pelican Inn, and then find a good place to photograph sunset. After crab cakes and apple crisp with ice cream (me) and fish and chips with beer (Mark) we headed out for the Muir Beach Overlook to the north of Muir Beach.

The wind had gone down a bit, but there was still plenty of windchill. We fumbled out in the dusk on the walkway, and I took some exposures in the 20-30 second zone in both directions. The clouds we had seen earlier had blown up from the north, and were now in position, reflecting both city lights and the last of the sunset. If you look closely, you can see the Coastline Trail to the south of Muir Beach where we had hiked earlier in the day.

By now, it was dark and a ranger came out to say they were shutting the parking lot, and we chatted a bit. Mark drove me back around to my car, and I headed home across the Bay.

A mild but fun adventure, and a good antidote for the “sitting at the computer too long” blues.

[150mm in 35mm equivalent terms, 25 seconds at f/6.3 and ISO 100.]