I arrived at the Bear Valley Visitor Center right when it opened at 10am. The process for receiving my reserved permit was very simple. It is important to note that there are no fires allowed at the campsite but you may acquire a campfire permit in order to have a fire on the beach using driftwood. These are free, so I acquired one on a whim, but ended up not being able to start a fire because the driftwood I found was too damp. I didn't bring any firemaking materials beyond a lighter though, so I am sure others could get a lovely fire started with some proper tinder.
By 10:30am, I was on the Bear Valley trail and on my way to Wildcat camp 6.5 miles away. I would describe the trail as being quite easy. The first 3 miles are extremely flat with a few very slight ups and downs. The trail is more of a dirt road in this portion as it is quite wide. Most of the first half of the hike is walking through the woods and did get a bit chilly at times. I carried 2 liters of water which was easily enough to get me to camp, but it would be extremely easy to carry much less, as there was a creek right next to the trail for the first 3 miles or so.
After 3 miles, one turns off of the Bear Valley trail onto the Glen Valley trail. This trail is much narrower and does include a decently steep climb. The climb is only around a mile and a half though and really isn't too bad, before descending the rest of the way to the Wildcat camp. I found the ascent on the way back to be more challenging as it is quite steep right away, but maybe I was just sore ;-) Anyways, it is a very achievable trail for pretty much everyone regardless of fitness level in my opinion. The Wildcat camp is visable from quite a ways, which was a great motivational boost for the last portion of the trail.
I rolled into camp by 1pm, having averaged a bit better than 2.5 miles per hour. In short order, I had set up my tent, making sure to avoid the camp low spot as rain was forecast for in the evening.
All of the campsites are pretty nice, and there are some very nice large group campsites available. The shrubbery acts as a nice privacy barrier between campsites. I had campsite 4, which is the only smaller campsite that is extremely close to another campsite (8). If a large group cannot obtain a large group campsite, I would recommend reserving both 4 and 8. If you want more privacy, I would not recommend either of those two. In my opinion, campsite 7 seemed like the best one, being the only one that overlooked the ocean and had a great view on the bluff.
I packed myself a lunch and then headed down to the beach to eat. Originally I was planning on spending some time sitting on the beach, but after I got there I determined that the tide was coming in, so I decided to eat on the way while walking to Alamere Falls.
This section of the trip caused me unnecessary anxiety. I was very nervous by the tide coming in, because a sign had said that the tide can reach the cliffs and the beach did not feel very wide at points. That being said, I believe the stretch is actually walkable even at high tide provided the weather is mostly nice, so I was unnecessarily worried as I walked over.
Having no clue what to expect, it took me a long time to decide that what I was seeing in the distance was in fact the falls "Its the falls! No, it's just a white rock. Yeah, it's definitely just a rock. No wait, maybe that is water. Yes, it's definitely water! Or is it?"
Finally I made it to the falls, and after determining that there was in fact a route back over land, I sat down to finish the rest of my lunch (I was still worried about getting trapped with the high tide at this point).
Alamere Falls actually has several waterfalls at different levels, which is something I was unaware of at the time. When I made it to the falls, I thought what I was seeing was the extent of the falls, and I was very surprised to find two more small falls when I climbed/scampered up the steep trail up.
Looking down at the falls in the previous picture.
The "higher" falls
Because I was nervous about the high tide as previously mentioned, I took the land trail back to Wildcat camp. I'm not 100% sure, but this route felt like it took significantly longer than just walking along the beach, so that is something to keep in mind if you want to visit the falls from Wildcat camp.
It was starting to get dark by the time I came back to camp. At this point I was feeling quite sore and definitely wanted to spend some time sitting down, so I grabbed my dinner and stove, and headed down to the beach to watch the sunset and eat dinner.
With it getting dark by 5pm, I decided to try to start a fire, but as previously mentioned, I was unsuccessful at this. I just didn't have any sufficient tinder, and most of the small twigs on the beach were quite damp.
With not much to do after it was dark, I actually got into my tent at 6pm already. I read a bit and played some games on my phone, but eventually grew bored of that and went to sleep at the ridiculous hour of 7pm.
I woke up at 9pm to an absolute downpour (as I was expecting). There were portions of time where it was really coming down hard and the wind was tearing at my tent. I was praying that I wouldn't have to get out of my tent to fix anything, but luckily everything behaved and stayed put. There was about an inch of water underneath my tent at points, but it thankfully all stayed OUT of my tent. Eventually I dozed off again, and by midnight the rain had subsided.
In the morning, I took my time getting up and getting breakfast. I also went down to the beach and took a nice little walk before getting my things together. Nevertheless, despite taking my sweet time, I was hiking by 9:30am and had finished hiking by 12.
It was a very enjoyable trip and I would highly recommend it to anyone.
If I did it again, I might turn this into a two night backpacking trip, by first hiking to Coast Camp and then heading down to Wildcat.
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