The Monterey cypresses ( Cupresses macrocarpa) that surround the buildings were planted as windbreaks at most of the outer point ranches during the early years. The trailhead begins at the restored ranch buildings that include the original house, several barns, as well as a blacksmith shop, school, carpenter shop, slaughterhouse. Other than the ranch, the entire reserve is given over to the elk, the fog, and the wind. The ranch itself was designated as a National Register of Historic Places in 1985 and the Park Service maintains the buildings. Three years later, Congress authorized creation of the wilderness area and the Park Service established the Tule Elk Reserve that now encompasses more than 2,600 acres of the peninsula. Thereafter, the McClure family ranched here until 1973. They did so with some success, running the “butter rancho” until 1936.
Transplanted Vermonters (like myself), the Solomon Pierce family was the first to try ranching on this site, beginning in the 1860s. Whether this line of stones marks the “path of the ghosts” that the Miwok spirit takes when it leaves this world is a question worth considering as one follows the trail to the end of the point. Charleston South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing, 2008.) Point Reyes Peninsula: Olema, Point Reyes Station, and Inverness. However, who placed the stones, for what purpose, and when still remains uncertain.”
The rock line is man-made and appears on an 1862 Coast Survey map, just four years after Solomon Pierce began ranching on the point. They are named the “Spirit Jumping-Off Rocks” by the Coast Miwok tribe, who believe when a person dies their spirit walks west. Helena in the northeast and run to the cliff edge, pointing to the Farallon Islands in the southwest. Today hikers encounter this mysterious low row of granite stones, 820-foot-long about 1.5 miles out the Tomales Point trail. Aerial view of Tomales Point, the “bill of the hummingbird.” The red line indicates the position of the mysterious “spirit jumping-off rocks.” The mysterious line of stones that crosses the Tomales Point Trail. Cloaked almost perpetually in fog, the point evokes a certain undefined mystery, a mystery that is embellished by an unnaturally straight line of small granitic boulders that crosses the peninsula about a third of the way out the trail. The point is so narrow that it was named “the bill of the hummingbird” by the first people, the Coast Miwok, the Hookooeko. The Tomales Point Trail starts at the historic Pierce Point Ranch and stretches northward nearly five miles to a narrow reef at the northernmost point on the peninsula. Life is already too short to waste on speed. Thus it stretches time and prolongs life. Walking takes longer… than any other known form of locomotion except crawling. High overcast, calm & cool. Check out this hike on our Trailfinder. This is part of a year-long effort to hike every trail at Point Reyes National Seashore, which turned 50 in 2012.
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