A Hidden Coastal Gem

I’m not exactly a morning person, but every now and then, I find it in me to go on a crazy early morning hike. And I’m thankful to have friends who are crazy enough to come along. We pulled ourselves out of bed at 4am. Glorious hour, really. Dark, cold, lonely….but not having to deal with traffic was nice. Once we got past the Golden Gate Bridge, the winding roads started becoming really narrow. So drive carefully!

I had seen so many pictures of this overlook, and I was so excited to be there for sunrise. But of course, as SF would have it, our views were clouded with fog. Lots of it. So we didn’t actually see the sunrise…so much for getting up early. The funnier story is that I completely forgot how the overlook faces WEST. So we wouldn’t have really seen the sunrise I had envisioned anyway. And there was no way we were staying until sunset. Sigh, a few hours of sleep wasted…BUT, being at the overlook on an early cloudy morning is nice in its own way. Not many people come to this overlook in general, I’ve heard, and on an early morning, there’s literally nobody there. We had the whole place to ourselves. The fog creates its own sort of majestic ambience. It slowly started to lift along the edges of the beach so we could catch a glimpse of the Point Reyes seashore. And it was gorgeous!

Tips:

The parking lot may be closed off if you come here super early, but just make a left near the entrance (in front of the gate) and park along the side of the road.
Dress warmly in layers. The mornings up there are COLD. And windy.
If you had other plans to hike around the area, maybe do the hike first and visit this place on your way back down. Hopefully it’ll be less foggy. But if you want to place to yourselves, early morning is your best bet. Or you could go twice 🙂

Hope you guys enjoyed this post! This place is hands down one of my favorite scenic locations in all of California. Even though I didn’t get to see it on a sunny day, it was still well worth the early wake-up call. Highly recommend making the trip out here at least once. This place is truly a hidden gem.