Gray Whale Cove State Beach is a sheltered beach nestled in the cliffs of Devil’s Slide. It’s amazing that such a rugged beach exists so close to the concrete streets of San Francisco. The slopes of Montara Mountain rise abruptly from the ocean creating a very impressive backdrop. A steep road and then a very…
Category: Personal
Julia Pfieffer Burns State Park
Julia Pfieffer Burns State Park is known for the iconic McWay Falls, which is the epitome of Big Sur promotional travel material. A short path leads to this extremely photogenic waterfall that is walked by nearly every traveler through Big Sur. This attraction is heaven for tripods and large SLRs! Here is a photo of…
Garrapata State Park – Beach and Soberanes Point
We enjoyed the spectacularly rugged coastline of Garrapata State Park at Garrapata Beach and on the trails around Soberanes Point. Garrapata Beach is a gorgeous beach with solitary rocks protruding from the fine sands. We ate lunch on a rock and watched collosal waves thunder ashore. Soberanes Point is incredibly scenic with an intricately carved…
Cowell Ranch Beach
Cowell Ranch Beach is a little known beach just south of Half Moon Bay. The beach was purchased by the Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST) in the 1980’s and is now part of the State Park system. Reaching the beach entails a half mile walk through a farm easement to reach the bluff and then…
Mendocino Trip Recap
Mendocino is a gorgeous area of the northern California coast. We visited six parks with incredible variety from giant redwoods to lush fern canyons to rugged coastline. Here is a list of the series of blog postings from the trip: Hendy Woods State Park Van Damme State Park Mendocino Headlands State Park Russian Gulch State…
Montgomery Woods State Natural Reserve
The sixth park we visited was Montgomery Woods State Natural Reserve in the heart of the coast range. It’s located about one hour from Mendocino on windy roads, or alternatively, the reserve can be reached by the equally windy Orr Springs Road from Ukiah in 13 miles. We decied to see this reserve and then…
Point Cabrillo Light Station State Historic Park
The fifth park we visited was the Point Cabrillo Light Station State Historic Park. We parked near the visitor center and took the half mile walk down through meadows and wind-shaped vegetation to the lighthouse located on a protrusion of the coastal terrace into the Pacific Ocean. The lighthouse was built in 1909 and has…
Russian Gulch State Park
The fourth park we visited was Russian Gulch State Park for a Saturday morning run. We took the Fern Canyon Trail and then the Waterfall Loop Trail to a beautiful 36 foot tall waterfall in a very lush setting. We then continued to the North Boundary Trail where we saw an area of famous pygmy…
Mendocino Headlands State Park
The third park we visited on our trip to Mendocino was the Mendocino Headlands State Park. I was amazed by the beauty of the this park – the intricate and rugged rock formations chiseled by the powerful Pacific Ocean are a gorgeous site to see. We were expecting it to be cold (and we heard…
Van Damme State Park
The second park we visited on the trip to Mendocino was Van Damme State Park, located a couple miles south of Mendocino on Highway 1. We did a run up the Fern Trail along Little River. The trail is aptly named as a carpet of ferns covers under thick stands of second growth redwoods and…
Leor Pantilat's Adventures