Scenic Vistas Along the Northern California Coast

The California coastline stretches 840 miles along the western United States. There are many beautiful locations along the coast, but most people think of locations in southern California such as San Diego, Santa Barbara, Big Sur, or Laguna Beach. However, heading north of San Francisco one can encounter some stunning views along the coastline that are less crowded and well worth the visit.

Highway 1 runs along the California coast. It is a winding and twisting road. It will take a driver much longer to travel highway 1 than if she takes highway 101 or Interstate 5. However, the views along highway 1 will be well worth it. The ocean is not always visible from the highway, though. In places the highway turns inland to find a way to cross a river or go around a high hill. However, for the most part you will be just a short distance from the ocean.

My daughter Andrea and I traveled the road on a fairly sunny day in February as we headed toward Redwood National Park. We drove up from San Jose and crossed over to Highway 1 at Bodega Bay. It’s possible to catch the highway right after crossing the Golden Gate Bridge, but we drove around San Francisco so we reached the ocean a little farther north.

Bodega Bay is almost completely surrounded by land with just a small opening to the ocean. It is a popular spot for visitors, but we didn’t stop.

We continued north with our first stop at Arched Rock viewpoint. Here we could see the rocks just off the coast including the one after which the location was name. At this point I began to realize one of the problems I would face this day, the sun. When I was taking photos looking north, I was getting good color and views. However, if I turned south, there was a problem. Because the sun was lower in the south, I was getting a lot of reflection off of the water causing my photos to be washed out with little color. I would encounter this throughout our drive north.

Arched Rock is part of Sonoma Coast State Park which extends for 17 miles from Bodega Bay to north of Jenner at the mouth of the Russian River. There are a number of beaches, camping sites, and view points along the way. The view points here are among of the best along the northern California coast. These photos are from Duncan’s Cove

Goat Rock Park lies at the mouth of the Russian River, but somehow we missed the exit. Nevertheless, we were able to view it from above and were intrigued by the wildlife. We saw a huge flock of birds come like a cloud down the Russian River. There was another large flock of birds on the beach there. It reminded me of the feeding frenzy we saw on our way to the Channel Islands. At the south end of the point of land the birds were on, the sea lions were taking their afternoon naps. In the meantime a couple of guys were entering the water to kayak. It was an entertaining viewpoint.

The highway moves away from the ocean for a while as it goes around a tall hill along the coast. However, this offers a great opportunity for a beautiful view of the coast from Vista Point up high on the hill. An easy 3/4 mile loop walk will take visitors out to some view points to see these wonderful views, at least they could be. Mother nature can always throw something at you. In our case it was just the hazy light. The view points were basically south, and as I said earlier, that created a lot of glare. In this case I would have preferred a slightly cloudy day, but such was not the case.

Eventually we came to another state park, Salt Point State Park. Our visit here was to Stump Beach. The trail down is not that great, but it does have steps in some places to make it easier. The beach itself is a beautiful, somewhat secluded cove. A trail leads hikers out to the main ocean area.

We passed through the Sea Ranch area. This part of the California coast seems to have more homes which were often on the ocean side of the highway so the views here were not as good. Other parts of the coast were occupied by stock grazing particularly cattle, but we also saw sheep and alpaca or llamas. Despite the human interventions, we did find a few good views.

We came to Navarro Beach and decided to check it out. This was an interesting beach. There was a lot of driftwood on the beach, and it had attracted a lot of attention. In fact there was an interesting structure being built of driftwood. I think whoever showed up at the beach tended to add their part to the build. The beach is at the mouth of the Navarro River. Across the mouth of the river were some interesting sea stacks including another one that had an arch naturally carved into it.

At this point we were not far from Fort Bragg. We passed through Mendocino and came to our hotel. After checking in we went down to a beach area known as Glass Beach. The name refers to the thousands of weathered glass pieces that have washed up on the beach. A nearby garbage dump caused glass bottles to be broken and washed ashore. It is illegal to remove any glass from the beach, but many people do anyway.

For me the rocky landscape was more interesting than the glass. There are a lot of rock formations going out into the ocean here creating interesting vistas as the waves come crashing in. The wind here was very strong. We had encountered wind throughout our journey, but it seemed even stronger here. I had to stop and brace myself a few times. The wind was also whipping up the waves so there was some pretty nice wave action going on as well. More opportunity to work on my wave photos.

Speaking of the wind, Andrea enjoys taking selfies, but her coastal selfies showed the issues with the wind. Each selfie gives her a new hairdo. So which one is your favorite?

Despite the wind we enjoyed our first day of traveling up the California coast. We will continue north the following day as we are heading for Redwood country. In the meantime, vote for your favorite windblown look and share your own California coastal stories in the comment box.