Presidio Dunes

April is a beautiful time to visit Presidio of San Francisco, located on the northern tip of the San Francisco peninsula. If you recall from Presidio for a New Perspective in December 2012, my family only recently “discovered” the Presidio area. The area was a military outpost for over 235 years, until it became part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in 1994. Parts of the area were used for military purposes, but others were left wild, giving us window into the natural habitat.

My folks, husband, and I visited the Presidio last April, on a beautiful and blustery day, after a long period of gray and rainy days. Our first destination was Baker Beach. We roamed the sandy beach, grateful for our wind breakers, but we did see a bikini or two on the beach! I love this view of the Golden Gate Bridge, so different from the familiar view from Oakland and the Embarcadero in San Francisco.

View of the Golden Gate Bridge from Baker Beach

I was pleased to see that some sand dune areas are roped off from public access, allowing them to revert back to their wild state. The native plants thrive in the shifting sands. This is a great place for a gardener to study and contemplate how to create a dune garden. You can learn more about the natural setting on the National Park Website: http://www.nps.gov/prsf/naturescience/index.htm

 

Protected Dunes at Baker Beach

We ate our lunch among the pines and dunes of the sheltered picnic area, and then wandered along the road looking at plants, military bunkers buried in sand, and vistas of the Bridge and the Marin Headlands.

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