Pt. Reyes National Seashore, CA
JFK’s stroke of the pen creates a national treasure

John Kennedy had little inkling of the effects his action would have when he signed the measure that created the 71,000-acre Pt. Reyes National Seashore in September 1962.

The legislation extended federal protection to a triangle-shaped peninsula, northwest of San Francisco, that ran from Bolinas Lagoon in the south about 30 miles north to the western end of Tomales Bay. The peninsula was a wild and mostly inaccessible land – dairy farmers used its seaside leas to feed their cows, and oystermen fattened their spawn in the nutrient-rich shallows, but there was very little other use for it. If anything, Pt. Reyes was noted mostly for the fact that it was the coolest place in summer in the Lower 48 states (average daytime temperature: 55 degrees F.)

Still, JFK’s stroke of the pen preserved an historically important piece of land. Olema Valley, on the peninsula’s eastern flank, had been the epicenter of the 1906 earthquake that destroyed San Francisco. Its west side, which included tall sea-facing bluffs that looked much like England’s White Cliffs of Dover, was the place many historians thought that the great privateer Sir Frances Drake stopped in 1579 to repair his ship, the Golden Hind. (Drake named his landfall Nova Albion – New England – beating the pilgrims by 41 years in applying that moniker to any section of what would eventually be the United States.)

But Kennedy’s signature did two other important things: First, it established a new form of national park; located near an urban area and deliberately conceived as a green barrier to runaway development and sprawl. Second, it galvanized a previously inchoate movement of conservationists and environmentalists that would eventually call a halt to California’s (and later, the nation’s) post-war rush to pave and tame its natural landscape.

In the late 1950s, Pt. Reyes’ locale, Marin County, a place some would later dub “the Bay Area’s green lung,” was under a massive assault from freeway builders and housing developers. The state highway department was planning to build an eight-lane freeway through Olema Valley that would whisk commuters to upscale new neighborhoods that would soon replace dairies and farms.

The state envisioned this mighty road running even as far north as Eureka, 250 miles distant, passing on its way through Bodega Bay, just over the Marin border. There, Pacific Gas & Electricity Co. was planning to build a nuclear power plant. (Alfred Hitchcock filmed his famous horror film, The Birds, in Bodega in 1962.)

The psychology of the era was such that when people saw a beautiful place like Olema Valley, they reasoned that it would be a great place to live if only the state would build high-speed access to it. California’s road planners were moving to oblige them.

But other people had different ideas about how to best enjoy the sights of Olema Valley and the Pt. Reyes Peninsula. Inspired by San Francisco’s recent “Freeway Revolt,” when activist citizens stopped the state from slicing and dicing San Francisco with a series of ill-conceived expressways, Marin conservationists began pushing for federal protection of Pt. Reyes.

Congressman Philip Burton, a feisty Scoop Jackson Democrat who was tough as nails on foreign policy and gentle as a doting mother on domestic issues, joined the fight and began lobbying Congress to set aside Pt. Reyes.

His eventual success later led to the establishment of national seashores in Texas, Massachusetts, Florida, North Carolina and Georgia, and urban parks in such metro areas as Los Angeles and New York. It was a new concept in preservation – rather than establishing vast parks like Yosemite or Grand Canyon, the federal government was now piecing together important land parcels close in to populated areas and setting them aside.

The public loved the concept. In 2003, a shade less than 2.4 million people visited Pt. Reyes – a figure that easily exceeded visits to such other California national parks as Lassen, Redwood, Sequoia/Kings Canyon and Death Valley.

People’s reasons for visiting Pt. Reyes are varied. Certainly its proximity to San Francisco counts for a lot. But here’s a Top 9 list of things that attract people here:

1. A varied and wild seashore. From the relatively placid waters of Drake’s Estero and Limantour Beach on the southward-facing part of the peninsula, to the dramatic, wave-thrashed strand of 10-Mile Beach on the west, to the shallow estuarine waters of Tomales Bay on the east, Pt. Reyes offers a satisfying array of encounters with ocean and bay. Kayakers love Drake’s Estero.

2. Varied geography.  The peninsula is a long fertile valley on the east that rises to heavily wooded Inverness Ridge, then descends to the ocean as a series of grass and chaparral-covered hills and valleys. There are small lakes at the southern end of the park that are favorite day-hike destinations. Mt. Wittenberg, the park’s highest peak (1,407 feet) provides great views of the 110-square-mile park’s expanse. The post-Civil War lighthouse at Pt. Reyes is also a favorite day trip (beware, it’s 308 steps down to the lighthouse from the trail!) that takes in the Pacific and Ten-Mile Beach.

3. Whale watching. Humpback whales make frequent appearances off the coast here as they ply their migration route between Alaska and Baja California. In all, 12 species of marine mammals, including harbor seals, as well as 37 species of land mammals, thrive at Pt. Reyes. Also, 65% of the bird species in California have been sighted here.

4. Varied plant life  From the east, as you head up Olema Valley toward the park, Inverness Ridge is heavily timbered, primarily with Douglas Fir. In aspect, the valley and ridge look much like inland coastal terrain you’d find in Oregon. The forest used to be much more extensive, but the Mt. Vision fire of 1995, started by careless campers, destroyed great swaths of woods and many of the park’s most notable trees. The silver lining here is that the destruction of dense forest opened up considerable patches of land for grazing by wildlife. Other plant communities at Pt. Reyes include grass, chaparral, heather, kelp beds, oaks and riparian woods.

5. The Bear Valley Visitor Center and Earthquake Trail.  Most park visitors start here. The barn-like visitor center is easily one of the handsomest buildings in the national park system. Just outside, on a short loop trail, you can walk along a section of the San Andreas Fault and see evidence of how land shifted dramatically on April 18, 1906 when the fault shrugged and destroyed San Francisco.

6. A rich history. For a sparsely populated locale, the peninsula has some of the state’s more interesting historical footnotes: Drake’s landing in 1579; the 1906 earthquake; the lighthouse at Pt. Reyes, which over the years has prevented hundreds of millions of dollars in losses from shipwrecks; the emergence of a thriving local dairy industry (the park has several dairy farm inholdings) whose members’ dedication to the land indirectly inspired the movement to save Pt. Reyes.

7. Johnson’s Oyster Farm. About halfway across the park from the visitor center on the way to Pt. Reyes Lighthouse, a sign points to Johnson’s Oyster Farm. Don’t pass it up. This inholding, located amid huge piles of oyster shells, provides Bay Area restaurants with some of the West Coast’s finest oysters. You can watch workers shucking oysters they pluck off a creaky conveyor belt (you can buy some on the spot) or head over to the shallows to see the long underwater fences that hold oyster spawn steady as the clean saltwater bathes them in nutrients.  

8. Great food  Manka’s in Inverness is a three-star restaurant (four would be tops) that specializes, a la Alice Waters, in making dishes from the freshest ingredients of the day. Olema Inn in Olema is a destination restaurant that many people think nothing of driving 60 or 90 minutes to get to. Like Manka’s, Olema Inn stresses fresh local produce and meat, and regional wines. For a less upscale experience, head over to Tony’s Seafood in Marshall (on the east side of Tomales Bay) for some barbecued oysters and beer. For the time that you’re there, all will be right with the world. 

9. (Mostly) great neighbors. The small towns that adjoin Pt. Reyes National Seashore have a tantalizing knack for being both rustic and sophisticated. The level of services can be as high or informal as you want them to be. The big burg in these parts is Pt. Reyes Station, a ranching and farming center that mixes cowboys, Mexican immigrants, artists, activists and second-home weekenders with no apparent difficulty. The coffee’s as good here as anywhere.  

Besides Manka’s and its beautiful location at the base of Inverness Ridge, Inverness has become a favorite place for Marinites to retire – after living on the county’s east side for years, they make the 25-mile move west and finish out things while still in Marin.  

Olema, near the Bear valley Visitor Center, is a tiny place, but has B&Bs and good places to eat. Marshall, on the east side of Tomales Bay, is a small fishing town. It’s more of a workaday place than, say, Inverness, but is an easy favorite among kayakers.

The most peculiar neighboring town is Bolinas, where it’s still 1967. Think of a Northern Exposure-ish village where the daffy, colorful, hip characters passed their shelf life long ago. Still, you can get decent coffee and beer here, and Agate Beach at the west end of town, which looks out over Duxbury reef, the bane of many a 19^th-century ship, is a fine day trip. 

A useful web site.   

– Patrick Totty