WILDLIFE WATCH PARTY
Get a front-row view of trekking whales and lounging elephant seals
Even in the midst of the Bay Area’s hustle and bustle, seeing winter wildlife is as easy as a drive to Point Reyes National Seashore. There, where the Pacific surf laps the shore, you can marvel at migrating gray whales and elephant seals hauled out on the beach.
Jutting 10 miles into the Pacific, the Point Reyes Peninsula is a great spot for whale-watching enthusiasts. It’s bordered by the protected Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary, creating a food-rich 20-mile-wide highway for gray and humpback whales on their migration between Alaska and Mexico.
Throw in a newly restored 1870 lighthouse and an everexpanding elephant seal colony, and you have the perfect recipe for creating your own multistop wildlife watching tour, one you can repeat into spring, tracking whale migration patterns, elephant seal colony size and their cycle of life. All for the price of a shuttle ticket and just a couple of hours’ drive away.
This three-stop tour includes Point Reyes Lighthouse, Chimney Rock and Drakes Beach, which you can visit on weekdays by car, or on weekends and holidays by mandatory park-operated shuttle. Since the weekend option has the advantage of volunteer docents and ranger talks, I’m opting for the shuttle.
Point Reyes Lighthouse is whale-watch central. Recently reopened after a 15-month rehabilitation project, it’s all spruced up with equipment improvements and new pathway. Gray whales are visible from the observation deck — or you can take a 300step trek to the lighthouse itself — as they head south from Alaska to Mexico each January and return northward in March.
Whales spend a third of their life on their 10,000-mile migration, so on this particular wintry day, I optimistically scan the sea for delicate, heart-shaped plumes and flukes, spouting, sounding and spy-hopping, when heads poke vertically out of the water. Even without sightings, it’s a lovely thing knowing they’re out there.
On weekends, there’s an added treat with the Journey of the Whales ranger program, and winter wildlife docents on hand with answers, as well as binoculars and scopes.
Next stop, Chimney Rock and elephant seals. The elephant seals arrived at the Point Reyes Headlands in the 1970s, liked what they found — and they keep coming back. The main colony is best seen from the Elephant Seal Overlook above Drakes Bay, with cast and behavior changing monthly through spring.
A cacophony of sound is my first clue to their presence: bull males’ deep-throated trumpeting, moms’ lower rumblings and the pups’ high-pitched screeching sounding like a troop of monkeys.
The scene unfolds with bulls occupying their claim, sometimes relieving tension chest to chest and proboscis to proboscis, females giving birth and nursing their single pups, and bachelors hanging out on the outskirts. They don’t eat or drink while hauled out on the beach, resuming only when they begin their 11,000-mile migration, traveling up to a mile deep in ocean waters.
A few elephant seals haul out at the beach near the Historic Lifeboat Station. I watch a well-scarred bull, a mother nursing her pup and a group of immature males, one whose puppy-eyes are hard to ignore.
A short hike to the end of Chimney Rock Trail offers another whale-sighting opportunity, and a view to the sea that feels like the end of the world.
At Drakes Beach, elephant seals took advantage of last year’s government shutdown and occupied a section of both the beach and parking lot. Now they’re back, offering a rare close-up view of life on land.
I watch in awe as bulls, who appeared immobile, suddenly take off, two tons of undulating blubber and muscle scooting across the beach surprisingly quickly. It’s a good reminder to stay a safe distance away and respect their space.
Return in spring and you’ll see mother whales and their calves swimming closer to land to return north, their breathing sounds sometimes audible. Elephant seal females will be molting and weaned pups — called weaners — will be lamenting their loneliness. And Chimney Rock’s vibrantly hued wildflowers will try to steal the show. Don’t miss it.