Muddy Hollow Trail
Trail length: 1.5 miles each way, out and back
Time: 2-2 1/2 hours at a leisurely pace
Terrain: mostly flat, muddy in parts in the wet season, marsh and seep areas, alder and pine woods
Restroom? Yes at Limantour Beach end of trail
Parking: small parking lot at Muddy Hollow trailhead; large parking lot at Limantour Beach
Kid friendly? Yes
Dates visited: 11/2/14, 2/15/15, 3/26/17, 4/15/17, 4/23/17, 6/2/18, 4/28/19, 6/13/20
Favorite plants on this trail: Candy Flower (Claytonia sibirica)
Favorite spots:
Walking through the shady path of alder trees and candy flowers. It's magical.
At the Limantour end of the trail, admiring the patterns made by the grasses and meandering waters of the marsh.
Watching for rare plants and butterflies along the trail edges filled with blooms.
This trail is exceptional for spotting butterflies, especially in the wet areas packed with flowering plants such as Common Cowparsnip (Heracleum maximum), California Poppy, California Bee Plant (Scrophularia californica), Blue Blossom (Ceanothus thyrsiflorus), Pearly Everlasting (Anaphalis margaritacea), Coast Indian Paintbrush (Castilleja affinis), Poison Hemlock (Conium maculatum), Trailing Blackberry (Rubus ursinus), Salmonberry (Rubus spectabilis), Thimbleberry (Rubus parviflorus), Hedgenettles (Genus Stachys), beautiful Checker Lily (Fritillaria affinis) and more. You will also encounter many signs of animals from scat to the marks left by elk scratchings on trees and peeling bark. The dry season (summer and fall) are great times to hike this trail so you avoid sloshing through the mud near the beginning of the Limantour end of the trail.
You have the option of starting at the Limantour beach end of the trail or at the Muddy Hollow Trailhead end.
Two trails with similar names start at the same point at the Muddy Hollow trailhead end: the Muddy Hollow Road trail heading north-west toward Drakes Estero, and the Muddy Hollow trail heading south toward Limantour beach. I typically park at the Muddy Hollow trailhead and walk the .3 miles on the wide gravel road, past the Estero trailhead. Surprisingly, there are interesting seep plants and birds in this beginning stretch. About midway through the trail, you treated to a shady path of alders often blooming with candy flowers on both sides of the trail.
Volunteer Opportunity: PRNSA Field Institute
The Point Reyes National Seashore Association needs assistants for their Field Institute classes. You will spend a day training with PRNSA staff, then a couple of times a year you'll select the classes you'd like to help with. Shortly afterwards, you'll receive a confirmation of which ones you've been assigned. As a facilitator, you get to take the class for free. Normally, two facilitators help with every class. Duties include signing in class participants, making coffee (for indoor classes), talking briefly about PRNSA, and generally helping out as needed. I've been volunteering for about a year. It's a great experience to work with other facilitators and get to know the amazing field institute instructors.