What to Find at Point Reyes, CA

May 4


It would be hard to imagine the prospect of a more dramatic seashore than Point Reyes National Seashore, located around 30 miles north of San Francisco, and a place we hope to visit in mid June.  This is a place of the world where ancient cliffs meet head-on a pounding shore and at the same time hold back at places along its backside bays that are famous for its variety of species and water clean enough to sprout world renown oysters.  If the surface of earth could in some way

indicate activity below the surface, this also would make for the perfect symbol as the great San Andreas Faultline lies directly below. The peninsula that is the shoreline verifiably moves out toward the ocean every year, creating cracks and fissures between masses.  Where great diversity of geography exists so too very often does diversity of species, flora, fauna, and sheer landscape beauty.  "Within the seashore live nearly 15 percent of California's plant species and nearly 30 percent of the world's marine mammal species.  Close to 45 percent of all the bird species in North America visit the seashore."  Surrounding and interlaced within, agriculture, including cattle and dairy, offer bold green backdrops to the plateaued summits of cliffs; looking back over the front sides Drakes Bay (named after the famous Sir Francis Drake who allegedly anchored here on his historical 'world' trip in the late 16th century.  The Reyes point, descending down Chimney Rock trail (watch out for rock slides), is the oft visited Lighthouse built in 1870.  Pre-lighthouse, as records and much lumber at the bottom of the bay attest, this point of the cliff shore was a navigational nightmare, cited as the foggiest geographical position on the entire western shoreline, second only to that at Nantucket over on the other side of the continent.  Although the lighthouse still works to this day, the old hand-cared light itself is now computer generated.  From the lighthouse, 2.7 miles northward to Point Reyes Station, might be a

good place to park the car and take a stop at Osteria Stellina, a small Italian eatery specializing in brokering those locally grown cheeses, prime rib cuts, and oysters on ice.