<\/a>Point Reyes: Tomales Bay State Park by TomHarrisonMaps.com (click to enlarge)<\/p><\/div>\n
THE HIKE<\/h3>\n
Signed Johnstone Trail departs from the south end of Heart\u2019s Desire Beach and immediately climbs into a moss-draped forest of oak, bay, madrone, and wax myrtle.<\/p>\n
A half-mile of travel leads to Pebble Beach. At a trail junction, a short side trail goes straight down to Pebble Beach, but Johnstone Trail swings southwest and switchbacks up forested slopes. Ferns dot wetter areas of the coastal slope. The trail crosses a paved road and soon junctions.<\/p>\n
To continue to Shell Beach, bear left with the Johnstone Trail. The trail detours around private property, and contours over the coastal slope at an elevation of about 500 feet. The path leads through Bishop pine and a lush understory of salal and huckleberry bushes. After a few miles, the trail descends through madrone and oak forest to Shell Beach.<\/p>\n
Hikers content with looping back to Heart\u2019s Desire Beach via Jepson Trail will continue straight at the above-mentioned junction. Bishop pine, along with its similar-looking piney cousins, the Monterey and knobcone, are known as fire pines, because they require the heat of fire to crack open their cones and release their seeds. Bishop pines are slow to propagate and are relatively rare in coastal California. (Another nice stand of Bishop pine is located in Montana de Oro State Park in San Luis Obispo County.)<\/p>\n
Surest way to distinguish a Bishop pine from its look-alike, the Monterey pine, is by counting the needles: Monterey pines have three needles to a bunch, Bishop pines have two needles to a cluster.<\/p>\n
From strategically placed benches, savor the fine bay views afforded by the Jepson Trail, which descends gently to Heart\u2019s Desire Beach.<\/p>\n
Interested in more hikes in Point Reyes National Seashore? Check out my guide: HIKE Point Reyes<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Johnstone and Jepson Trails: From Heart\u2019s Desire Beach to Jepson Memorial Grove is 3 miles round trip with 300-foot elevation gain; to Shell Beach is…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4364,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[137,99],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetrailmaster.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4363"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetrailmaster.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetrailmaster.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetrailmaster.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetrailmaster.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetrailmaster.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4363\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetrailmaster.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetrailmaster.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetrailmaster.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetrailmaster.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}