SF, CA - We Almost Stayed Home

HIKING THE MARIN HEADLANDS

We had planned to stay in today but decided last night to head over to the Marin Headlands, directly acorss the bay from SF. In fact the Golden Gate Bridge links SF and the Marin Headlands. And, are we ever glad we got there.

        Great hike

        Wonderful views of the city, the bridge, the ocean, the lighthouse, the rocky shore

        Excellent history lessons about the defense of the bay

        Marvelous weather

THE HIKE

        We got to the Ranger Station and, while I was looking at something on the bookrack, I hear Gary and the Ranger talking. Obviously, the Ranger heard:

        ‘could you recommend a hike with elevation?’

Gary said he asked:

        ‘could you recommend a hike with an elevator?’

And, with that we headed out the direction the Ranger pointed. I’m just kidding about the elevator. Though the trail went inexorably upward, we enjoyed it immensely. And many others enjoyed it with us. We saw couples out for a hike, several groups out to backpack and stay over night, we saw bicyclists looking for a good challenging hill to bike up and we saw a family with two kids, one 5 and one 4. These two kids were bounding along on this 5 mile trail with 1300’ of elevation. We were quite impressed. (The parents told us they were working on building up their kids’ endurance.) What we didn’t see were more people like us, you know, old farts still trying to prove they are young. All kidding aside, we probably didn’t see anyone over 40 or so.

The trail wound around a ridge and a side trail went to the top of the ridge where the radar system for the Nike missiles operated. Finally, we began to wind down the trail, with views of the ocean with every step. We stopped on one of the batteries which dot the hill for lunch.

If you were to ask me what I was most surprised about in the San Francisco area, I’d reply with:

         the marvelous stairways dotting the city

        the numerous defensive sites both on the north and south sides of the bay.

Here at Marin Headlands we saw defenses from the Civil War to the Nike missle era in the 60’s. Most of the defenses were bunkers dug into the hillsides with large guns pointing out to sea since we expected invasions to come from this direction and we needed to protect shipping through the channel. Here is a good example of a battery, called the Townsley. The hill was completely topped, the army put in what they needed and then the hill was completely recovered with the dirt to conceal the battery. Inside were 2 16” guns which could shoot 2100 lb projectile 25 miles out to sea. Inside this bunker lived more than a hundred men, ready to launch w/ 5 minutes notice. This battery was built in 1940 and represented the epitome of defense at the time. However, it was obsolete by 1948 when it was scrapped and abandoned. This was a battery designed to protect against invading armies, the new threat was atomic coming from a plane. Here’s what it looked like inside and here’s what we could see from outside. It was obviously much more concealed during the war.

In the picture below, you can see the Townsley hill on the right with a tunnel leading into it. The other tunnel is to the left of the hill at the end of the road which goes up to it. These tunnels lead into where the generators, the munitions, the offices and the quarters for those manning the battery are. The batteries themselves are on the other side of the hill facing the ocean.

Here’s where the guns were placed, on a circular track so they could be rotated to face the whole bay. Note how thick the shield is atop the gun emplacement to protect it from enemy fire.

Here’s the size of the area which the 2 Townsley guns (red dot) could cover.

When the army left in 1972, they gave the land to the National Park Service and it is now a part of the Golden Gate Park. Interestingly, had the army not held this land for so long, it might now be developed. There was a plan in the 60’s to build a development called Marincello in the center of this valley.

This was the late 50’s and early 60’s when the only questions were how many homes to build, where to put the roads and where to put the retail. Soon other questions began to pop up including: Do we need this development at all? Luckily in the 60’s people were beginning to question other things like development and growth. They held meetings, signed petitions and joined with the others who were pushing for a national park here. Finally, when the army left, it gave the land to the NPS and we can hike this today. Sometimes I wonder what we are protecting today for generations tomorrow.

VISITING THE POINT BONITA LIGHTHOUSE

Another landmark here is the Point Bonita Lighthouse. During the early years of San Francisco, the population was fairly small. However, after the discovery of gold, the population soared from 900 in 1849 to 20,000 in 1850. Though many came via the overland route, many came by boat around South Africa and up the coast. That part of the journey was frought with peril but so was actually getting into SF via the Golden Gate, the 1-mile wide opening into the Bay. A narrow channel, strong currents, submerged rocks and shallow sand bars combined with frequent periods of intense fog, offer mariners an extrememly hazardous route. Here’s a chart which shows depths through the Golden Gate. Note how deep the channel is but how shallow it becomes shortly after this on both sides of the channel, the bay side and the ocean side. The darker the purple, the deeper the channel and the lighter the blue, the shallower. No wonder ships have to follow the channel concisely.

The first picture looks out to the Pacific Ocean while the second picture looks into the Bay.

A series of lighthouses was developed to guild ships throught the channel. One was on Alcatraz Island, one was at Fort Point on the south side of the channel and one was to be placed on the north side of the channel. This lighthouse, the 3rd on the west coast, was completed in 1855 but, since it was put on a high hill, it was often obscured by fog so they built it much lower and closer to the water line so that the fog wouldn’t obscure it. The new lighthouse was on a rock close to the water and to get ot it they had to hand-dig a tunnel through another rock and build a bridge to get out to it. A hand-dug tunnel and a long bridge made this lighthouse particularly difficult to construct.

Of course, having a lighthouse didn’t mean that there were no shipwrecks. Here is a chart showing the shipwrecks around the entrance to the Bay. Under each drawing of a sinking ship is the list of names of ships which sank at that spot and the date they sank.

However, the lighthouse did cut down on the frequency and number of sinking ships and made passage to SF for both passengers and freight much more reliable.

Because the small rock on which the lighthouse and the keeper’s home is build is fairly small, on a few can cross the bridge at one time to tour it. Here is the bridge to the light house, with the lighthouse at the end. This is not the original bridge but a recent replacement just exactly like the original. The NPS strives for authenticity.

After our visit to Marin Headlands for our hike and tour of the battlements and lighthouse, we headed on back home. We stopped at the north end of the Golden Gate Bridge to take some pictures and we had a woman take a picture of us with the bridge in the background. Well, she didn’t get as much of the bridge as we would have liked but the thought was good.

It was a beautiful day and we had a great time. We’re so glad that we didn’t stay home today as we had originally planned. Let’s wait for a rainy day to stay home.

11 1925’ sometimes we wear our selves out.