Wild grandeur
The perfect day trip to Bay Area’s Marin Headlands, from hikes and art shows to sea lions and toddies
The Marin Headlands are a special place. They’re right across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco, but feel like a wild frontier. Cell service drops to zero, wildlife moseys in the road, and if you gaze out over the shining Pacific you can almost glimpse Japan (if you squint really hard and pretend).
Summer is an ideal time to visit the Headlands, part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. It’s windy but free of the bone-chilling wetness that blows in — sometimes at surprising horizontal angles — during other seasons. Regardless of the season, where should one begin?
We start our day at the Headlands Center for the Arts at historic Fort Barry. Back in the 1980s, artists restored these old military barracks using plenty of creative liberty. The center is an active arts destination, attracting rotating waves of artists-in-residence from all over the world. But it feels ancient and in some corners abandoned, with rust and peeling paint and cavernous hallways that whistle when the wind blows. “Desperation breeds commitment,” reads a note on the wall.
At the entrance, a staffer wrapped in a blanket offers us coffee from the lovingly redone mess hall. (You can attend community dinners if you’re a member, a status that starts at the quite reasonable $35 level.) She notes the premises might be haunted: “If you are open to the ghosts, you will discover them. If you’re not, you won’t.”
It’s always fun seeing how artists redecorate. Walls bear prints of animal bones and snakes from the University of California Berkeley collection. Last winter, the gym was transformed into a massive beehive, complete with the sounds of heavy buzzing, fragrant beeswax blocking the windows and a video of a man whose face is being covered by bees.
That particular exhibit’s gone, but others lie just ahead. There’s even an exhibit — The Latrine — in the art center’s restrooms. Metal toilet stalls curl as if following the Fibonacci sequence, and an array of urinals pose poetic statements for viewers. (It’s art — and those urinals are non-functional, so go ahead and read them, but don’t use them.)
They’re always up to something delightful and edgy: One is using sound technology beyond human hearing to record the noises of plants. Another is pursuing an investigation “centered on the redesign of the speculum.”
The grounds of the old fort are worth exploring with one of the hiking guides designed by the center’s artists. These are useful not so much in getting you from Point A to Point B, but in offering a window into the thought processes of a creative. One map offers personal recollections of the area, like “raccoon used a tool here” and “eviscerated pelican carcass from an otter kill.” Another chronicles a jaunt to nearby Rodeo Beach where the artist saw “anemones, some as big as saucers,” making her wonder if it will be the “quietest, most unspectacular beings that will outlast all else.”
One guide highlights an “ailing sea lion” that was found on the beach and rescued by the Marine Mammal Center, so that is where we head next. It happens to be Marine Science Sunday, and the place is packed with kids, some staring at sea otter and dolphin skeletons hanging from the ceiling.
“Why are they here — is it Halloween?” asks a girl.
“I just think they look pretty that way,” says the educator leading today’s talk. “You can see different types of bone structures.”
The center is the largest marine mammal hospital in the world, taking in sick, injured and stranded patients rescued from some 600 miles of California and Hawaii coastline. It’s loved locally for its free educational tours and classes. Most of the children raise their hands when asked if they’ve been here before, and none seem tired of it yet, popping out questions left and right.
Does a walrus hunt with its tusks? “No, they’re for getting onto the ice.”
How do you recognize a gray whale? “Their ‘blow’ is in the shape of a heart, because of their nostril shapes.”
What’s it called when a seal bounces on its belly? “The term is ‘galumphing.’ It’s from a Lewis Carroll poem.” (That would be “Jabberwocky,” and here’s Merriam-Webster’s take: “Carroll likely constructed the word by splicing gallop and triumphant [galumph did in its earliest uses convey a sense of exultant bounding].”)
After class is finished, we take a tour, starting at the center’s exhibit hall. There’s a tooth from a sea lion, cut like a tree trunk to show rings of age, and an X-ray from a California sea lion that ate a fishing hook. We check out the postmortem lab, where scientists study the causes of death for marine animals, which range from disease to ship strikes and sometimes dog attacks. Then it’s off to the pinniped pens, where we keep our voices low, so as to not disturb the animals in the open-air tanks.
The pens are often used as recovery areas for sea lions, seals and Southern sea otters. Otters are related to weasels and are just as devious, our guide explains: “We’ve had to otter-proof, because they will unscrew things, break things and try to escape early.”
The circumstances that lead these creatures here vary, but invariably are tragic. Sometimes it’s the harsh natural world: Oslo, an elephant seal pup rescued in June in Santa Cruz, had fish spines stuck in its face and eyes that the center’s veterinary team removed. And sometimes it’s us humans. An educational display shows Lucinda, a harbor seal pup that was “found with fishing gear dangling from her tiny body. The most heartbreaking part was that Lucinda’s mouth was tugged at each time she moved her front flipper due to the hooks and fishing line that connected them.”
There are no spaces big enough to hold gray whales here. But there’s a chance you might spot the huge animals blowing “hearts” on their migration along the California coast, if you venture out on the Tennessee Point Trail, a short but stunning path overlooking the mighty Pacific.
The trail sits atop a conjunction of tectonic plates and, like most of the land around here, is always rising, falling, eroding, building and weakening. It’s shaken by earthquakes and the incessant pounding of waves. Stay away from the unstable cliffs. There are old concrete structures to explore, which smell of cinnamon from local plants and have a churchlike feel, thanks to the bell of a buoy ringing distantly in the ocean.
Walk for just under a mile, and you will find your reward: the Tennessee Point Labyrinth. This labyrinth is situated on a prominence with three sides dropping sharply into the foaming abyss — a setting of such wild grandeur, you wouldn’t be surprised to see a knight playing chess with the Grim Reaper himself.
We walk the stonemarked labyrinth, taking breaks to observe seabirds gliding below and the distant outlines of the Farallon Islands. Maybe we did it wrong, but there was no sudden revelation or shift of mindset when we reached the center. Instead, there was a cache of seashells, dead roses and .50-caliber shell casings — and a rock upon which someone had scrawled, “No more divorce, celebrate sobriety.”
That’s, like, their opinion. But it gets us thinking about where to get a drink. There are not many options in the Marin Headlands for dinner, but a good one is Farley at Cavallo Point Lodge. Situated at historic Fort Baker, with a porch offering views of military parade grounds and the Golden Gate Bridge, the restaurant excels in modern-California cooking with farm-to-fork flair. Think organic salads of local produce and cocktails with just-plucked herbs.
There are candles, real fireplaces and whiskey toddies to shake away the darkening chill. Befitting Farley’s near-the-bay perch, chef Michael Garcia serves up plenty of seafood, including poached Oishii prawns with a Bloody Mary cocktail sauce, blue crab cakes with dill remoulade and pickled mushrooms and Saltspring Island mussels with smoked tomato and pancetta. Everything gets better when you pair it with the pillowy Parker House rolls with sweet-cream butter and lavender salt.
We get a seasonal squash soup with sunflower seeds and chile-oil drizzle and an ahi burger that’s rare and meltingly soft, with green olive tapenade and pickled red onions. The truffle fries are perfectly crisp and the mixed-green salad tangy and loaded with body-affirming nutrients (we tell ourselves). All in all, it’s a light but decadent meal – satisfying, but not so heavy that we have to galumph it over the bridge back home.
IF YOU GO
Headlands Center for the Arts: Open from noon to 5 p.m. Sunday through Thursday (except certain holidays) at 944 Simmonds Road, Sausalito; headlands. org.
The Marine Mammal Center: Open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. from Friday through Monday at 2000 Bunker Road, Fort Cronkhite, Sausalito; free, but tickets must be booked ahead at marinemammalcenter.org.
Tennessee Point Labyrinth: Accessible via a 0.8-mile oneway hike on dirt trails from the Rodeo Beach Coastal Trailhead near 11050 Mitchell Road, Mill Valley.
Farley at Cavallo Point Lodge: Open daily at 601 Murray Circle, Sausalito; eatatfarley.com.