Fun in the Sun

Warm weather and clear skies have finally returned to the bay area. Thus, it is time to get out and start enjoying nature again! Along those lines, yesterday, Brett and I visited Point Reyes National Park (view map).

We got there around 4 p.m. and found the road down to Chimney Rock and the Point Reyes Light House closed to the public. We were disappointed because that was our destination, but we decided to just turn around and head down to Drakes Beach (at Kenneth Patrick Visitor Center) and see what we could see from there. When we pulled into the large parking lot, it was mostly full and there were a fair number of people there. We saw the visitor center and went in to talk to the park ranger. She told us that right now is peak migration season for Pacific gray whales and they pass by the CA coast, so a lot of people come out to watch for them. Thus, they close the road down to Point Reyes Light House and Chimney Rock to their tour buses only until 5:30, due to the large volume of people wanting to go down there to watch for whales and the small parking lots down there that cannot accommodate them. Fortunately, we were there late enough to miss the *huge* crowds, but she said that 700 people had taken their bus tours down that day.

We decided to hang out at Drake’s Beach until 5:30 and then drive down ourselves. We were able to do some pretty hiking and look at some beautiful views of the shoreline and the ocean after a short hike up to some high cliffs.

At 5:30, we headed down the road. We briefly went to Point Reyes South Beach, but there were a lot of people sun bathing and surfing and the views weren’t that interesting, so we continued down. We did not go to Point Reyes Light House, as it seemed like that’s where most cars were going and it would be more crowded and we were more interested in the wildlife and the views. We headed off to the Chimney Rock side of the peninsula. On the way down, we saw elk and some hawks. There were also a lot signs for Historic Ranches, and thus lots of cattle guards and driving through pastures with cows where you had to watch for them on the road. Some were close enough to touch if I had rolled down the window and tried.

We ended up in a *tiny* parking lot (less than 10 parking spaces) on the Chimney Rock side of the peninsula. They must normally get hardly any visitors when it’s not whale season. We took the hiking trails down to Chimney Rock and when we got to the shore, we saw two large groups of elephant seals hanging out on the beach. We were again up on high cliffs, so we were looking down on them below, laying on the sandy beach by the water. The best part, though, was that we sat and watched the water for a while, and started seeing whales spraying water as they crowned for air off the shore. The ranger told us that there had been 7 reported whale sightings all day. We watched for about 10 minutes and saw 4 different sprays although we never saw more than that.

There were large amounts of time spent in the car, including miles and miles on Sir Francis Drake Blvd as it passed through towns, forests, and hills, and at times was fairly winding and at times fairly narrow. However, it was a worthwhile trip,