This is not a trip that'll make for epic Outside Magazine stories, but we managed to introduce a few people to bikepacking, so...
A couple members of my bike team proposed a summer solstice bike campout at Haypress campsite in the Marin Headlands, just north of San Francisco. Unfortunately, due to a slight misreading of the calendar they reserved the campsite for the day after the solstice, but we decided to press on anyway.
I've done a few multiday trips before, but this was to be my girlfriend's first bikepacking trip. She doesn't have any fancy bikepacking gear, so we figured we'd throw an old rack and some crappy panniers we have lying around on her Marin 29er, and I'd use my more compact setup. However, when I went to setup the rack on her bike, I realized it only works for 26" bikes. Fortunately, I use my old 26" hardtail for bikepacking, so I put the rack and crap on my bike and left her with the seatbag and a backpack.
We don't have much super lightweight stuff (our tent is more than 15 years old), so my bike was pretty loaded down.
Two of our friends were scheduled to meet us at our place at 5:30. Perhaps unsurprisingly, we were assembled and rolling around 6. A quick stop for burritos and we were headed to the Golden Gate Bridge. The one guy we were supposed to meet there ended up being 5 people and we rolled across to Marin en masse.
Haypress is reachable either by road or dirt. Because we have self respect, we of course took the dirt.
After the first singletrack descent, here's a fork where you can choose a fire road ascent with a waterbar-infested singletrack descent or a less-steep all fire road route. The folks on cross bikes opted for the all fire road trip and the rest of us (of course) chose singletrack.
We stopped to take a quick group shot at the top.
We rolled into the campsite around 8, and over the next hour or so, the group swelled to more than three dozen. A surprisingly sizable group of folks, many of whom were bike camping for the first time.
We proceeded to celebrate the solstice with drinks and some howling at the strawberry moon, and rose early enough the next day to catch some amazing scenery on the way to the office in time for a 9:30 meeting.
We're already discussing another trip; either to a different campground in Marin or maybe even south. We're also busily researching the public-transit-assisted routes to see what we can fit into a weeknight overnight. Good fun!
