Tamalpais Valley is the first green fold north of the Golden Gate, a neighbourhood of wooden houses tucked into a narrow valley below the slopes of Mount Tamalpais, where Highway 1 leaves Highway 101 and starts its long, twisting journey up the coast. Mill Valley, with its redwoods and its old railroad depot turned bookshop and café, is just next door, and San Francisco is ten minutes away across the bridge.
The mountain is the soul of the place. Mount Tamalpais, or Mount Tam, rises to just under eight hundred metres above the bay, and its slopes are covered with redwoods, oaks, chaparral and grassland, criss-crossed by trails. Mill Valley is the start of the Dipsea Race, the oldest trail race in the United States, run every June since 1905 over the mountain to Stinson Beach. In the 1970s, riders here bombed down the fire roads on old bikes, and their tinkering helped create the mountain bike. Muir Woods, a grove of ancient redwoods in a canyon on the mountain's southern side, is one of the most visited forests in the country.
As the finish of a Yosemite and Tioga trip, it comes after a long day. The Tioga Road crosses the Sierra Nevada at nearly three thousand metres through granite domes, meadows and lakes, and it is usually closed from late autumn to late spring because of snow. Coming back, you descend through the Central Valley, with its farms and heat, and then into the Bay Area traffic. Arriving here, among the trees and the fog, is a soft landing.
The roads around here are some of the best in the Bay Area. Highway 1 climbs out of the valley in a series of tight bends towards Muir Beach and Stinson Beach, with sheer drops to the ocean, and the Panoramic Highway and the road to the summit of Mount Tam offer views over the bay, the city and the Pacific. They are narrow, busy with cyclists and tourists, and often foggy, so ride with care.
Fuel, food and services are easy to find in Mill Valley and along 101, and the cafés in the town centre are good for a coffee and a pastry. Watch the fog spill over the ridge in the late afternoon; locals call this valley the fog belt, and it lives up to the name.