Bay Area Hiking

National Parks and Monuments

Contents:

Golden Gate National Recreation Area
Muir Woods National Monument
Pinnacles National Monument
Point Reyes National Seashore

Parks

Golden Gate National Recreation Area

Land's End, San Francisco, looking towards the Golden Gate Bridge

The Golden Gate NRA is the world's largest urban national park. The total park area covers 76,500 acres of land and water. Its lands stretch through 3 counties: San Francisco, San Mateo, and Marin. They include some of the most popular tourist destinations in the Bay Area: Muir Woods (see below), the Marin Headlands, Alcatraz, Fort Point, Lincoln Park, Land's End, the Cliff House, the Sutro Baths, Sutro Heights, Crissy Field, Fort Mason, and the Presidio of San Francisco. It also includes the beautiful beaches of Baker Beach and China Beach, which have prime views of the Golden Gate. It includes 3-mile long Ocean Beach, the longest beach in San Francisco. In Marin County, it includes popular Stinson Beach. It has Fort Funston, which which is famous for its hang-gliding and its huge WWII coastal battery bunkers. The most historically significant spot in the GGNRA is Sweeney Ridge above Pacifica, the site where Spaniard Don Gaspar de Portola first discovered San Francisco Bay. Paved multi-use trails, busy roads, and remote dirt paths run throughout the region, providing many opportunities for running, walking, and hiking. The busy Golden Gate Promenade runs for several miles along the San Francisco Bayshore through its many tourist hotspots. In contrast, the trails through the rugged hills of Marin County are more challenging, and much less crowded. Here are some links:

Bay Area Backroads:

Muir Woods National Monument

Muir Woods is probably the most famous and popular redwood grove in the world. Located in Marin County just north of the Golden Gate, and below Mt. Tamalpais, it's "only" 560 acres in size, but gets inundated by over 1.5 million visitors a year. During the summer, herds of tourist buses line the roads. Still, the huge redwood trees and the cool scenic canyon are worth seeing. 6 miles of paved trails lead through the main part of the park. Unpaved trails lead out of the canyon and crowds to join the huge network of trails around Mt. Tamalpais. Here are some links:

Pinnacles National Monument

Bear Valley Cave, Pinnacles National Monument

Remote Pinnacles was declared a national monument in 1908, making it one of the oldest national monuments in the country. The 24,000-acre park, located an hour south of Hollister and east of Soledad, consists of high craggy rock spires formed by an ancient volcanic explosion. It lies along the San Andreas Fault and has moved with the fault almost 200 miles northward from where it was first created. The rock pinnacles rise some 500 to 1200 high and make this area one of the best rock climbing locations in California. There are 2 extensive cave systems here: the Bear Gulch Cave and the Balconies Cave. These are talus caves formed from huge fallen boulders that have filled a canyon. (The caves are dark and have no lighting, so bring your own flashlights.) More than 30 miles of trails run through shady forests, through the dark caves, and up to high canyon ridges. Spring and fall are the best times to visit. Summers can get extremely hot here, and winter rains can close some of the trails and caves. (During the peak of El Nino, storms actually totally cut off access to the park and the surrounding valley for awhile.) The park has two sides, with no road connecting them. The eastern side is the more popular, accessible by taking Hwy 146 south of the Hollister through the scenic valley along east of the park. This side of the park is more developed, with a private campground near the entrance. The western side is more primitive and requires a long, winding road trip through the mountains to reach it from Soledad. Here are some links:

Point Reyes National Seashore

Drake's Beach, looking toward Limantour Beach

Point Reyes is a national treasure. It's the seaside equivalent of Yosemite in its beauty, variety, natural history, and grandeur. It's a huge park, covering 65,000 acres, with 30 trails totalling 140 miles in length. Located only 30 miles and an hour's drive north of San Francisco along Hwy 1, it's a triangular point of land jutting into the sea, sitting on the west side of the San Andreas Fault. The fault has played a prominent role in the area's history. The land mass that became Point Reyes actually originated several hundred miles to the south and has been carried northward by movements along the fault. The last great movement was during the Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1908. The epicenter of the quake was actually in the Olema Valley at Point Reyes. An interpretive earthquake trail shows the effects of the quake, including a fence that was split by it. Point Reyes continues to move north and will someday be an island. Even today, it seems like an island, so unique and isolated from the mainland. It's surrounded by water: the open ocean on the northwest, Drakes Bay on the southwest, Bolinas Lagoon on the south, Tomales Bay on the northeast, and the creeks of the Olema Valley on the east. It's an extremely diverse area. It has long, sandy beaches, steep coastal bluffs, rolling grasslands, tall forested ridges, deep canyons, and green valleys. It has large saltwater lagoons, earthquake-created lakes, streams, and waterfalls. It has oyster farms, historic dairy farms, horse riding stables, hike-in campgrounds, 3 visitor centers, a re-created Indian village, a raptor research center, and a famous lighthouse. The lighthouse at Point Reyes is on the foggiest, windiest point on the Pacific Coast of North America. However, on clear winter days, it's one of the best spots in California for whale watching. Wildlife include tule elk, several species of deer, coyotes, 400 species of birds, and marine mammals from seals to whales. The beaches include ruler-straight 10-mile beach, which is exposed to the full fury of the open sea; broad, sandy Limantour Beach; protected Drake's Beach, which is suitable for swimming; and tranquil waveless beaches on Tomales Bay. The coastline between Limantour Beach and Bolinas is a wild section of coastline with steep bluffs, hidden beaches, sea caves and tunnels, and waterfalls that plunge into the sea. The Point Reyes area is so diverse and complex that whole books have been written about it. Check the links below for more information:

Bay Area Backroads:

Drake's Estero, looking towards the oyster farm

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Ron Horii, San Jose
Created 10/8/97. Last update: 10/7/2002