Poke hole in sky, change life forever
For Bay Area residents, one view can be a life-changer. But to get it, you have to get out from behind your phone ... away from a screen ... get out of your car ... maybe even get off the ground.
You’ll need to get into the sky.
It can forever change how you feel about where you live. Looking down from a small plane, your imagination will be fired by the recreation opportunities across the region’s bay, coast, lakes, parks and wildlands.
You can give your world a makeover with a scenic tour or pilot’s orientation flight.
Eight Bay Area airports and a seaplane base offer flights. The Napa Jet Center offers aerial tours of the Napa Valley, San Francisco Bay and Lake Berryessa for $350 for three, or about $120 per person. A “Discovery Flight,” during which you get to fly a small plane with a certified instructor as an orientation to flight training, costs about $150.
Having been to all 275 parks and recreation destinations in the region, at one point I thought there was nothing left to see. I was wrong. My time in the air — almost 2,000 hours — has revealed countless surprises.
San Francisco: The first thing you notice is the bay’s expanse and how it borders the densely populated cities. Flight rules allow you to go right over the Palace of Fine Arts, the waterfront, Crissy Field and the Golden Gate Bridge. Flying this route feels as good as standing on top of the Golden Gate’s North Tower, which I’ve also done. Once you pass the bridge, Baker Beach and China Beach, you’ll see a rocky face along the headlands that extends west to the Cliff House. This is how I got the idea to rock scramble for a mile or so here from Eagle Point to Lands End. At any point along the way, you could stop, peer out across the entrance of the bay to the Golden Gate Bridge and feel like you had it all to yourself. Without the flight, I might never have thought to do it. Peninsula: From Lands End, flight rules — to avoid SFO airspace — require you to arc out to sea, off Daly City. Heading south, you can then fly along the coast at low altitudes past Linda Mar, Devil’s Slide and Montara. You’ll see the cliff at Devil’s Slide and how the road is etched into its face — and you might wonder why the whole thing hasn’t fallen into the water. Montara Mountain then rises and connects to miles of wildlands. Half Moon Bay and its curving arc of beaches and surf zones are much bigger than many expect. From here, you can fly east and over the saddle at Highway 92, then drop down and buzz Crystal Springs Reservoir and the adjoining 23,000-acre watershed. Push the throttle forward and climb out toward Skyline. You tower over Filoli, the Phleger Estate and pop out over Kings Mountain. Ahead is a 50-mile expanse of wilderness, forest and redwoods and about 40 parks and preserves. At the Butano Rim, you can look down and see an abandoned dirt airstrip on a subridge outcrop that makes a great mountain biking destination with a view over Butano Canyon to the ocean.
Marin: When you fly west over Sir Francis Drake Boulevard, it is mind-boggling to see the sharp interface of humanity and wilderness. A great route is to fly above Lagunitas Creek and its four lakes, Lagunitas, Bon Tempe, Alpine and Kent. Heading north, you’ll fly above the San Andreas Fault and over the center of Tomales Bay, a spectacular sensation to see the gathering of tectonic plates. At the mouth of Tomales Bay, you can bear left — past Pierce Ranch, the Point Reyes Lighthouse and beyond to Drakes Bay and Palomarin, with miles of wilderness beach, cliffs and rock formations on your left, the North Farallones off to your right. You can crown the flight by arcing left at Point Bonita and its miniature suspension bridge and lighthouse, and then take in, straight ahead now, the full expanse of the Golden Gate Bridge backed by San Francisco.
East Bay: Whether you fly out of Oakland, Concord or Livermore, you get a view of the Bay Area paradox: traffic-choked roadways in the 580, 880 and 680 corridors that are bordered by wide-open spaces for miles. No matter where you fly, Mount Diablo rises and pokes a hole in the sky, at times above a fog layer, and feels like the heart of the region. Along the west flank of Diablo, flying south out of Concord and past Walnut Creek, you can see the series of amazing sandstone rock formations, Castle Rocks, China Wall, and then (near Blackhawk) Rock City. From the Diablo summit, trace the ridge that extends south over Morgan Territory and to giant Los Vaqueros Reservoir — it will take your breath away. On the other major ridge that extends from Richmond to Castro Valley, you can trace the 32-mile East Bay Skyline National Trail. In all, below you are 75 parks, 125,000 acres of public lands and 20 lakes. It can be mind-bending.
South Bay: A series of striking visuals emerge, starting with the size of the South Bay — by far the least-used public resource for its size in the region. You’ll see how millions of people are packed into the Santa Clara Valley. Mount Hamilton and its observatory rise above it all, bordered by wilderness on all sides and little-seen wildlands on its eastern flank. You can fly around the summit and venture east. Along 101, the urban sprawl south to Morgan Hill can be a shock, and yet it borders wilderness from Mount Madonna north to Mount Umunhum. Up here, flying north, you look down off your right wing and see all the millions of people, then look left and see redwoods that span for 30 miles to white beaches of Monterey Bay. Suddenly, everything is in perspective.
Having been to all 275 parks and recreation destinations in the region, at one point I thought there was nothing left to see. I was wrong. My time in the air — almost 2,000 hours — has revealed countless surprises.