Año Nuevo State Reserve

see all photos »

I set out this Fourth of July to a place I’ve been wanting to check out for a while, the amazing Bay Area park known as the Año Nuevo State Reserve. It’s the world’s largest breeding ground for elephant seals, and also a good spot for viewing sea lions, harbor seals, and other types of wildlife.

Most people visit Año Nuevo during breeding season which is from mid-December to mid-April, a time when you can only enter the area with a docent on a guided nature walk. However, I heard it’s pretty any time of the year, that through July you can pretty much have the place to yourself, and that you can still see sea lions molting on the beach there. Sea lions + hardly any people = a perfect day-trip for me! (One thing that always irks me is when humans find it necessary to go into nature and gossip loudly about their lives, scaring most living things away rather than observing them unobtrusively.)

see all photos »

Luckily, being off-season for this park, the crowd was minimal. My friend and I paid the $6 parking fee, parked in the shade, slathered on our sunblock, and headed out to the lookout, a beautiful walk with the Pacific below us and olallieberry bushes lining the path in many areas. I picked a couple and tasted them--- quite sweet, rather like blackberries, actually, but I didn’t want to take too many so there’d be plenty of them for the birds and other people. Docents were stationed at the end of the 3 mile hike, right at the point where you can see the sea lions sleeping on the sand. There were only 2 of the gentle creatures visible when we were there, mostly sleeping and then slowly moving themselves a few feet for a better spot. We heard some sniffling from a nearby bush, and slowly out came a smaller sea lion, a female. I took a short video of her shuffling about 20 feet away to the water. Very cute. With its panoramic views and great wildlife viewing, I highly recommend Año Nuevo! Check out this useful website for more information.

see all photos »

Oh yeah, I also want to note that the site doesn't mention that the hike to the sea lions is actually somewhat arduous in one part where the path requires climbing a sand dune. My friend recently had knee surgery and wished there had been some warning about it on the site. For people with physical limitations, the route isn't entirely accessible.

On our way home we stopped by the Pigeon Point Lighthouse, one of the tallest lighthouses in the US and I believe the tallest on the West Coast. It's very picturesque. Check out the photo.  I really want to go back there sometime and stay in the hostel which used to be the lighthouse keeper's living quarters.