Check out our adventures over 2 days at Point Reyes National Seashore in California. Along with Becky and our daughter, we are visiting the only national seashore on the West Coast. Teeming with amazing wildlife and views, see what makes the rugged coastline in Point Reyes so special!
This is the 1st of 2 posts on Point Reyes National Seashore. Check out the 2nd at: The Point Reyes Lighthouse and More.
Planning Point Reyes National Seashore
Point Reyes National Shore is just a short drive north of San Francisco in Marin County. And it offers some of the most amazing landscapes. Most of Point Reyes is on a peninsula separated by a rift zone of the San Andreas Fault. And it contains around 80 miles of shoreline, as well as open grasslands and upland forests. These different habitats provide a variety of wildlife including Tule Elk and seals we hope to see in the park. For more information, see: Point Reyes National Seashore (U.S. National Park Service).
There’s a lot to see here, and driving from one place to another takes time. So you need to have a plan in advance. And 2 activities that we want to do, take some additional planning. The 1st is something different for us. After telling our daughter they train horses for the national park service here, she wants to ride one. And though you can’t ride their horses, I found Five Brooks Ranch that operates in the park. They offer guided trail rides, and they have a perfect 1 hour ride for beginners. Advanced reservations are recommended, so I book a 2:00PM ride a few weeks out.
The 2nd activity you have to plan in advance is visiting the Point Reyes Lighthouse. But we know we can’t do the horseback ride and visit the lighthouse in the same day. So, we’ll do that tomorrow. So after visiting Muir Woods this morning, our plan is to head to Point Reyes in the afternoon. We’ll visit the Five Brooks Ranch for the horseback ride, and then head to the Bear Valley Visitor Center. We also want to do the short Earthquake Trail here, before exploring other areas of the park.
The Bear Valley Visitor Center
If you read our last post, Muir Woods Walk through the Redwoods & More, we ended in Stinson Beach. So, from there to the Five Brooks Ranch is only 20 minutes. So, yes you can do Muir Woods and some of Point Reyes in the same day. In fact, after visiting Muir Woods and having lunch in Stinson Beach, it’s not even 1:00PM. So, we have over an hour before we need to be at the ranch. And since the Bear Valley Visitor Center is just 5 minutes past the ranch, we stop there first.
We always recommend stopping at visitor centers before exploring a park. And the Bear Valley Visitor Center is the main one in Point Reyes National Seashore. It’s very large with nice restrooms, museum exhibits and the park store. So after getting our passport stamp and taking care of business, we check out the museum.
The museum exhibits highlight the different ecosystems within the park, and the plants and animals that live here. Seeing how amazingly diverse these areas are get us excited to explore more. So, we talk to the park rangers to get some more information. Interested in the seals we saw, they tell us some elephant seals have been seen at Drakes Beach. And the Earthquake Trail we are interested in starts across the street. But before we can explore them, we have to get to the ranch.
Our Guided Horseback Ride at Five Brooks Ranch
After spending too much time at the visitor center, we rush to get to Five Brooks Ranch. As soon as we arrive, we are greeted by someone that checks us in. Required for children, our daughter gets a helmet and is ready to go. She has never ridden a horse before, and we are a little worried. But she walks up the ramp and gets right on her horse like a pro.
Her horse is named Mexico and is the perfect size for her. Of course, ours are bigger and mine is the largest. And I’m a little nervous getting on. Both Becky and I haven’t ridden a horse in a long time, especially me. Once on our horses, we are joined by another mother and daughter. And it’s just the 5 of us. We line up with our daughter 1st behind the guide, and Becky 2nd. And I’m last bringing up the rear.
The 1 hour tour is on the Stewart Trail touted as a great ride for youngsters and beginners. And it starts behind the ranch on a road past a wooded pond, and then heads into the woods. The trail is nice and wide which makes me feel better especially as we traverse along a ridge. Our horses are taking their time, which is perfect for us. And after 30 minutes, we make it to a turnaround point. Our guide takes some pictures of us before we head back the way we came.
The ride itself was just over an hour. For the 3 of us with little experience, this was a safe and enjoyable ride. And after we get off our horses, we get ample time to pet them before we leave.
Cypress Tree Tunnel
At about 3:30, we decide to head to Drakes Beach to look for seals. On the way, the Cypress Tree Tunnel is something you can’t miss. That’s because it’s all grasslands except this row of cypress trees easily spotted miles away. You literally can’t miss it. As we approach the road, we see many cars parked off the street. So, we find a spot and pull over and walk to the road.
These Monterey cypress trees were planted in 1930 and line both sides of the road. And over the years they have grown together to create a tree tunnel. At the end of the road is the historic KPH Maritime Radio Receiving Station. Not only is it a historic Art-Deco style building, it is a fascinating icon of American communication. This radio station used to receive wireless Morse code messages from across the Pacific. You can read more about it here: Communications at Point Reyes.
The radio station is open on most Saturdays, but it’s after 4:00PM and most likely closed. It’s also a long walk and we still want to go other places. So, we turn around and head back to our car. But it’s a nice stop to get a few pictures on the way to the shore.
Drakes Beach at Point Reyes National Seashore
About 4 miles down the road from the tree tunnel, we make the turn for Drake’s beach. From tree tunnel, it’s about a 10 minute drive that leads to a large parking lot. The Kenneth C. Patrick Visitor Center is located here, but today it is closed. It is engulfed in tarps and appears to have been fumigated. We’re not sure why, but we’re here to check out the beach for seals.
There’s a little path to walk to the golden sand beach. There are a lot of people camped out on the right, so we head straight toward the water. And only after a few minutes, we see a seal pop its head out of the water. Excited we already saw one, we walk down the beach to the left away from others.
The beach here is long and wide, and the sand is easy to walk on. And our daughter spots something in the sand. It’s a whole sand dollar! Walking along the beach we find more while admiring the various shorebirds around us.
On the way back the fog looks to be rolling in above us. We find some rocks in the surf with some anemones in the tide pools. After about 30 minutes and not spotting any more seals, we decide to head back.
Tule Elk and North Beach
From Drakes Beach, we drive back up from the shore to connect to the main road through the park. And I spot what looks like a baby coyote walking alongside the road, though no one else sees it. But around a couple curves, we spot some tule elk up on the ridge grazing. But there’s nowhere to pull off to take a picture, so we take the next turn toward North Beach.
At the end of the road, we find a parking lot for Point Reyes Beach North aka North Beach. We also find some restrooms here and decide to make a pit stop. We don’t stay long, however, because we want to see if we can spot the elk again. And on the way back toward Drakes Beach, we spot them again.
They are up on the ridge, and there’s still no place to pull over. So, Becky snaps a few pictures of them from the car. With their heads down grazing, we don’t get a great shot. But seeing their distinctive antlers, we are glad to spot this subspecies of elk only found in California. And if it wasn’t for the preservation efforts made here, these elk would likely have become extinct.
On the Way Back
It’s already after 5:00PM by the time we decide to head back. And, we still want to hike the Earthquake Trail by the Bear Valley Visitor Center. It’s about a 30 minute drive and we are starting to get hungry. So, on the way we stop at the Inverness Park Market.
This market has it all. Besides being a convenience store with all the normal things you can buy, they have a full deli inside. You can order fresh made burritos, soup, burgers, sandwiches and more. But short on time, we decide to just get some snacks and drinks to take with us. We would love to stop here for breakfast or lunch tomorrow, but unfortunately they are closed on Sundays.
From the market, it’s just a few miles to the Bear Valley Visitor Center. As we make the turn toward it, we see a deer near the road. Seeing the deer, we get excited to do the Earthquake Trail. And we make it to the parking lot just after 6:00PM.
Earthquake Trail
The Earthquake Trail is a short 0.6 mile loop trail. But the appeal of this trail is it’s on the San Andreas Fault zone. And there are many interpretive signs along the path. The trailhead is at a grassy meadow, before it heads into the woods. The trail itself is a paved accessible walkway perfect for a nice walk. Once we make it to a small bridge, we head deeper into the woods.
Right about half way on the trail, you can see the power of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake here. There is a fence here where one side jumped 16 feet in less than a minute. Steps along one side lead to where you can see how far apart the other side separated.
It’s pretty fascinating to see up-close how far apart the fence actually separated. And Once past the fence, we start looping back and cross another small bridge. It opens up back toward the grassy meadow. And that’s when we see a large tree.
Our daughter takes no time to take the opportunity to climb on this tree. It’s what she does. And after a few minutes, we continue down the path through the grassy meadow back to the parking lot. It took us less than 30 minutes. Once back to car, we head back to San Francisco for the night.
Summary of Day 1 at Point Reyes National Seashore
Our 1st stop was the Bear Valley Visitor Center which is a beautiful building with a store and nice museum. It’s always good to start at a visitor center to get information and learn about the park. But the big thing we did today was our daughter’s 1st horseback ride. She did great, and we highly recommend Five Brooks Ranch if you’re looking to ride horses in the park. After the horseback ride, we stopped at the Cypress Tree Tunnel on the way to Drakes Beach. We only spotted 1 seal, but enjoyed the walk along the shore where we found sand dollars. And afterwards we spotted a coyote and tule elk, before heading back to do the Earthquake Trail. This park is very diverse with a lot of fascinating history. And we can’t wait to come back tomorrow to see the lighthouse!
If you are visiting San Francisco, check out our post on San Francisco Top Things to Do & See.