Best Hikes San Francisco by Linda Hamilton

Author:Linda Hamilton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Falcon Guides
Published: 2020-03-07T00:00:00+00:00

A female elephant seal arrives for molting season. PHOTO BY CHRISTIAN VON TOERNE

Inside the wildlife protection area, you may also see harbor seals, California sea otters, and Steller sea lions, as well as many species of birds.

The Point of the New Year was seen and named by Father Antonio de la Ascension, chaplain for the Spanish maritime explorer Don Sebastian Viscaino, on January 3, 1603. Before the Spaniards arrived, the native Quroste people, a group of coastal Ohlone Indians, lived and fished on this shore for 12,000 years. On the beaches you can still see remnants of their ancient shell mounds that served as both compost heaps and burial grounds.

The elephant seals have chosen a dramatic setting: sandy, flower-covereded bluffs with scurrying rabbits and songbirds, cresting dunes, beaches that sparkle with mica, and fields of coastal plants like sand lupine and arroyo willow. Look closely because this place will be different the next time you visit. The dunes are constantly changing.

On the other side of a channel, you can see Año Nuevo Island, where today the seals live communally with sea lions and seabirds in a lovely old Victorian house built in 1904 for a resident lighthouse keeper. Between 1880 and 1920, hundreds of wooden-hulled steam schooners sailed the West Coast in dangerous conditions to haul lumber, farm products, and passengers between growing coastal towns. The federal government bought the island in 1870 and built a five-story lighthouse to help put an end to shipwrecks in the area. But still, the schooner Point Arena wrecked at Pigeon Point in 1913. Some of the wreckage drifted to the beach at Año Nuevo and was uncovered by storm waves in 1983. You can see part of the bow near the Año Nuevo Point Trail.

In early December the male elephant seals arrive for mating. The 5,000-pound bulls battle it out to determine dominance. They throw back their heads and make deep sounds called “clap-threats” with their long noses (inflatable “proboscis”). Only 10 percent of the males actually get to mate, so they learn even as pups how to chest butt on the beach.

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