Mt. Tamalpais: The Cataract Trail

February 18, 1996: Mt. Tamalpais

On the Cataract Trail

See also pp. 183-185 in Spitz, Barry, Tamalpais Trails, San Anselmo: Potrero Meadow Publishing Co., 1995 (3rd ed.). This book contains more detailed distances, which I have omitted here. Also see Mike Thoma's page about part of this hike.

This is a nice shuttle hike that involves a walk of almost three miles coupled with a climb of about 1300 feet, at least according to the map (see below), along a delightful little stream that flows from Rock Spring on the west side of the Mt. Tamalpais summit ridge down into forest-surrounded Alpine Lake, one of the Marin Municipal Water District's major reservoirs. You can go downhill (as Spitz describes the walk in his book) or uphill, which is tougher but perhaps more interesting, as you are always looking up toward the waterfalls. My daughter Esther, my son David and I made this hike on the date above; my wife Angela dropped us off at the Alpine Lake trailhead and picked us up at Rock Spring.

How to Get There

If you want to hike downhill (or downhill and then uphill again), go to the Rock Spring parking lot and trailhead as described elsewhere. To hike uphill (or uphill and then downhill for a round trip), go north (or south) on highway 101 to the Richmond-San Anselmo exit at Larkspur Landing, and turn west (left) on Sir Francis Drake Blvd. You'll go a few miles west through the (relatively) small towns of Kentfield and Ross (notice the bear sculpture in front of the fire station, to your left) and then will turn north into San Anselmo. Cross through a major intersection below the hill with the red landslide scar on the southwest side, and continue through San Anselmo for about three miles to its neighbor, Fairfax. In the center of Fairfax there's a stop. Turn left here, then immediately left again, and then immediately right onto the old Bolinas-Fairfax highway (they defined the term highway a lot more loosely in those days). Continue along this narrow two-lane road (watch for oncoming traffic and bicyclists) for about eight miles, first through the suburbs of Fairfax, which cling to a hillside that you will climb, then past a country club on your left, and then into the wilderness where the MMWD hold sway. Keep an eye out for the spot where the left lane fell off into a canyon; until Caltrans gets around to figuring out how to fix this, you have fifty yards of (signed) one-lane road. You'll pass over delightful open hillsides and green, ferny forest depths, and if you look quickly enough you might see a hidden pond or two, complete with lily pads. Eventually, you come down to the north shore of Alpine Lake and cross the dam at its west end. A couple of hundred yards beyond, the road makes a hairpin turn to the right; this marks the trailhead for the Cataract Trail. Parking is very, very limited here, so arrive early or arrange to be met elsewhere by the driver.

You can also get here from the other direction, almost as easily. From the Rock Spring parking area , turn left from the summit drive along the West Ridge road (which is closed at night), and follow it north along the West Ridge of Mt. Tamalpais -- one of the most beautiful drives in the state of California. If the day is clear, watch for hang gliders launching from the ridge crest. In about five miles you'll come to the Bolinas-Fairfax highway, in the depths of a forest. Turn right (left will take you down to highway 1 near Bolinas) and descend two or three miles. Eventually you'll come to the same hairpin turn mentioned above. The trail takes off to the right.

The trail starts out paralleling a short arm of Alpine Lake, on the west side. You walk south, climbing slowly uphill through redwood forest, for about a quarter of a mile, until you come to the place where Cataract Creek pours into the lake. From here, you will do all the climbing you could possibly wish.

The trail climbs fairly steadily through brushy forest along the west (left) side of Cataract Creek, with good views to the left and ahead of the plunging waterfalls. (Spitz takes us downhill along the Cataract Trail in his book, and hardly bothers to describe these beautiful falls -- probably because when facing north you won't notice them.) From time to time you climb up rocky steps; at other places there are occasional switchbacks where the slope is particularly steep.

At about half a mile along the trail you come to a beautiful wooden bridge that takes you across to the east side of the creek, and another fifty yards of climbing will bring you to a rocky outcrop that gives you a view back down to the bridge and downstream. Take a moment or so to rest here and enjoy the view, even if -- unlike me -- you don't feel the need for a breather.

You keep on climbing for a few hundred more yards, and the Olmsted map promises you more of the same, but then, suddenly, you come into a narrow, wooded valley through which the trail leads you, along a near level, for almost a quarter of a mile -- a welcome respite. Here, too, you may feel your first drops of rain, if it happens to have been a foggy morning, as ours was; don't panic, they may well be falling from the trees above, not from the sky.

Shortly after you start to climb again, you'll come to a rocky section of trail overhanging the creek some fifty or more feet below. Here a pipe guardrail has been built -- a good place to stop and lean on it and enjoy the view across the creek, which shows a giant oak tree guarding the almost vertical fall of a tributary creek, looking somewhat like Illilouette Falls plunging into the Merced River in Yosemit above Happy Isles (though on a smaller and less rocky scale, of course).

You continue to climb, but your upward journey is now almost done. You'll come to a narrow and somewhat rotten-looking bench by the trail; never fear, it's strong enough to sit on. You might want to bypass it, however, because there's an even better one a couple of hundred yards higher up, past a couple of switchbacks, where the Cataract Trail joins with the High Marsh Trail.

If you are using the Olmsted map (see below), this point can lead to a bit of confusion. According to the map, we are now at 1400 feet (a climb of some 720 feet since we started), with another 240 feet and almost half a mile to go to reach Laurel Dell. Don't Panic! Things are not quite so bad. In actuality, you are only one or two hundred yards from Laurel Dell, and almost on a level with it; just keep on through the trees and in very short order you'll come to an open meadow, with two or three picnic tables under the trees on the north side, where you are. Great for picnics on sunny days, but the trees tend to drip a bit in the fog... If you go on up the creek another hundred feet, you'll find a hitching rail and horse trough, fed by an elevated pipe from two tanks on the northwest side of the creek. I didn't try the water, but I suppose that it's fairly safe to drink...

There are two ruts through the middle of Laurel Dell; these, I suppose, constitute the Laurel Dell Road. You turn right on these, but swing left away from them in a couple of hundred feet, where there is a sign warning against bikes and unleashed dogs; this is the continuation of the Cataract Trail. Just beyond the south end of the meadow, in a little Douglas fir wood, you'll find the Mickey O'Brien Trail turning off to the east.

The rest of this walk is the reverse of the first part of the hike of Jan. 7. A couple of points worth adding here:

(1) You have to cross the creek to the west side on a bridge. The first obvious place to do this is the wrong one (I don't think Spitz mentions this, since the problem doesn't arise when you're traveling in the other direction); you'll find yourself headed back north again. If this happens, retrace your steps to the east side of the creek and look for where the trail climbs south over an outcropping of serpentine. Once you get to the top of this, the trail will be obvious. The next bridge crossing is the correct one.

(2) When you get into the forest on the west side of the creek, take a look at the moss on the trees. Some of the moss feathers appear to be almost two inches long. Again, this is a rain forest.

We started just after ten in the morning and arrived at Rock Spring a few minutes after noon. Not bad for three miles and 1300 feet along one of the pleasantest trails on Mt. Tam.

Don Harlow

The adjoining map is excerpted from "A Rambler's Guide to the Trails of Mt. Tamalpais and the Marin Headlands", 6th ed., published by The Olmsted &Bros. Map Co., P.O. Box 5351, Berkeley CA 94705, tel. +1-510-658-6534. Cost of the entire map is currently 5.95 $US.
This document is owned by:
Don Harlow <donh@netcom.com>