Drake’s Head lies just across from the east side of the spit, named like so many other locales in our area after Sir Francis Drake, the pirate and slave trader who took a break somewhere around there. The post-colonial names of many of the features around us also reflect the dark–light duality of this region. Desiccated moon jellies, a dried-up leopard shark and the carcasses of many shorebirds serve as reminders of the circle of life. Photo by George KunzePelicans can be seen along the Limantour Spit. It’s not a great idea to scramble over dunes toward the beach for lots of reasons, among them the potential that you’ll trample protected snowy plover nesting areas, and those little shorebirds have enough to contend with. It might be tempting to forge ahead as far as possible during higher tides, but your only way out is back again or over the dunes. Water and suctioning mud flats in the shallows of the estero will prevent your passage. At about the mile mark, what’s left of the trail fades, and if the tide is not quite low, this is where it ends. Long pants are a good idea if you want to avoid scratchy brushes with the brush. On days without this serendipitous combination of factors, you can still take the spit trail along a short mile one way, crowded with coyote brush and lupine that can obscure the path entirely. On a low-tide day, though, you might make a path all the way to the tip of the spit, just across the water from Drake’s Head, and make a loop by returning along the beach side. Behind the dunes, on the spit trail, you won’t find crashing waves or beach umbrellas. The “detour” is really the Limantour Spit Trail, which tracks behind the dunes along the Limantour Spit, the westward-running strip of sand that forms Limantour Beach. But for those willing to make a low-tide detour before they catch sight of the Pacific, some surprises await. Most people arriving at Limantour Beach at Point Reyes understandably make straight for the ocean.
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