“People actually RUN this?!” says Clare in disbelief, Day 4 & 5
Two facts we learned very quickly during our two night stay in Mill Valley: you can’t hang clothes to dry AND everyone living there must be an Olympian.
Day four of our Walking Holiday in Marin County was a scheduled “day off” so we could wash clothes and rest. I had washed clothes in the sink the night before & hung them on coat hangers, expecting everything to be dry by morning. To my surprise, everything was still damp when we awoke — even the dry fit clothes! This was a problem, as these were the very clothes we needed to wear that day. The air in Mill Valley was simply too moist to ever dry anything. Thankfully, we had a space heater, a drying rack, and a hair dryer. With a lot of patience and directly applied heat, we were spared the indignity of walking through town with wet clothes.
Laundry issue resolved, we ventured out to find food and explore. Our AirBnB was at the top of Mill Valley and the quickest, most direct route into downtown Mill Valley was via the Dipsea Steps.
The Dipsea Steps are a series of staircases that connect the upper and lower sections of Mill Valley. At best estimate, there are 690 steps since the last renovation. Every year, intrepid marathon runners begin near the base of these steps to compete in the Dipsea Race, a grueling 7.4 mile run up and down the Dipsea Trail all the way to the coast. The steps alone are the equivalent of walking up a 50-story building!
That was our “walk” into town.
Once in town, we meandered through Old Mill Park, home of an old mill, small grove of redwood trees, outdoor amphitheater, and the Mill Valley Public Library. That library will forever be etched in my memory because it was the first library I’ve ever been kicked out of. Now granted, I was technically kicked out of the Book Sale Room, not the actual library, and that was only because they weren’t open to the public that day. But still, it counts, and I DID sneak in a quick photo looking out into the park from the book sale.
At this point we were starving, so we stopped at Kitchen Sunnyside for a nice long brunch with HUGE portions and a never-ending supply of coffee. This was followed by a walk through town and stops at the Book Depot Cafe and Mill Valley Market, where we picked up dinner provisions and lunch for the next day. We had to walk back up those 690 steps to return to our lodging — there was NO WAY I was repeating that for dinner! On the bright side, going back up the steps had its distractions — there were small bronze plaques inserted into the steps that serve as encouragement and memorials, and some of them were just plain bizarre. It kept our minds preoccupied instead of focusing on the fact that our hearts were about to explode.
a secret garden
Catholic Church
On day 5, we tackled the rest of the Dipsea Trail, which our AirBnB host described as “ooh, that’s a tough one!” Having already hiked the portion connecting Muir Woods to Mill Valley, we really didn’t want to repeat that section. So we scheduled a Lyft driver to pick us up at our lodging and drop us off at the Muir Woods Visitor Center. We were lucky to obtain a driver, as there were very limited options for rideshares in Marin County (especially as you head further north). The guy who picked us up had a Slavic accent, short cropped hair, large chain necklace and he refused to open the trunk for us to store our luggage. Eric and I are convinced he was secretly a transporter for a Russian crime syndicate and probably had a dead body in the trunk.
We picked up the trail from the main parking lot at the Visitor’s Center and it was an immediate climb up. This section of the trail followed along and sometimes merged with Deer Park Fire Road, continuously climbing up about 1,000 feet in elevation. Alternating between deep forest and fully exposed trail, nearly every part of this section was challenging but exhilarating. With its crazy root systems and never-ending elevation gains, it made sense why the locals referred to this section as “the Cardiac.”
When we reached the summit (just before mile marker 5), we stopped to eat our packed lunch and enjoy the breathtaking views of a clear day on the Marin County coast.
Shortly after mile marker 5, the trail began to descend and we found ourselves in lush forests with moss covered trees. Some of the descents were steep, but nothing compared to what we had done on our first day on the Coastal Trail. At mile marker 7, we could see our destination Stinson Beach and after a short jaunt through more moss covered trees, we made our way to the Sandpiper inn (which I will cover in my next post).
