Marin County Watershed : Hiking Cataract trail

Probably the best place to hike around San Francisco

Established in 1912, the Marin Municipal Water District provides high-quality drinking water to 187,500 customers in central and southern Marin County. It’s also a wonderful place to hike, and easy to get to since it takes about 1 hour drive to from San Francisco.

Access

There is different way to access the Marin County Watershed, but I would recommend either of these 2 accesses :
- The cataract Trail head : Accessible via FairFax, about 1 hour from San Francisco
- The rock Picnic Area : about 50 minutes of driving from San Francisco.

Trail Map

I encourage you to download and print the trails Map from the Marin Municipal Water district for a full description of the area.

Suggested Hikes :

The Cataract Trail is the most famous trail in the park. It’s a succession of creeks and waterfalls and with lots of surrounding trees and shade, it is the perfect hike for a hot or foggy day.
The two following hikes focus on this trail :

From Rock Spring Picnic area : The Cataract trail to Alpine Lake (5 miles Round trip)

From Cataract Trailhead : 7 miles round trip and similar to the previous trail, but it’s a loop : take Cataract Trail, then a left on the High Marsh trail, another left on Kent trail, left on the Helen Mark Trail and back to the trail head..