I love the sea to summit concept!
We headed down to the Bay Area from Reno, to see my mom for mothers day & I got the okay to go run for a couple of hours on mama bears day. Started around 5:30 pm from the lifeguard tower. I wasn't totally sure where to start because the back of the tower isn't technically on the beach, so I went around to the front of the tower so that I could do a beach start. Two of the lifeguards were doing push ups in the back garage area of the tower. They looked at me like "can we help you, why are you hanging around our garage", so I explained that I was doing a run that started at this lifeguard tower and headed up towards Mt.Tam. They asked me which trails and told me that it's a 2300 foot climb, looking a little concerned. I just smiled and said "yea, should be fun!".
Not being familiar with the trails or the route, I had Gaia pulled up and my phone in my hands then entire way up. The tree coverage on the steep ravine trail, messed with my gps a bit and made my arrow look like I was off route and heading in the wrong direction, I back tracked to the last junction and started heading up some steep stone stairs only to find that I was now even more off route. So I back tracked again. This time heading in the right direction that I was originally on. After that the navigation was smooth & straight forward. Got to the summit in around 1.15 and booked it back down. Gorgeous day! Starting in the early evening was a good call. Perfect temps, not many people for a Sunday and the sun glow coming through the trees on the descent was unreal!