Bruhel Point

Caltrans vista point

Click for location.

The unassuming sign for the parking just says "vista point" and points at a block of parking spaces on the side of CA-1, but there's much more than that. Signs beside the parking help to point out how much more. One talks about the small wetland. It was this that drew the interest to purchase the parcel for preservation in the first place. One talks about the ocean preserve off the edge of the cliffs. The oldest illustrates the trails. One is accessible with benches every 100 feet, which is great except that it doesn't really help to see more to go parallel to the cliff. This trail rates a "meh" in my book. The other trail trots right on down to a bench up upon those cliffs looking out over that marine preserve. This one is absolutely brilliant. There are also more trails that are dirt, but as this is a wetland and I haven't got any Wellies, I didn't get very far on the one that loops around to the end of the accessible trail.

The Mendocino Shoreline. Here, there seem to be low mesas within the water instead of the stacks found further north.

The far side of a small cove. The trail around the side of the cove was nice and dry.

The breakers hint at places where more plateaus may wait just under the surface.

The primary trail is paved, albeit a while ago. This is an example of one of the secondary trails.

Always fun with the ocean mirrors the land.

Blooms along the accessible trail. The interpretive signs are planted with non-native bushes, so I'm suspicious this might be another oddity. They would do that sort of thing in the 1970s when the land was purchased by the state.

I have to admit I stopped by here on a few occasions. I wanted to see it with the different tides and I looked around a little more on some wanderings down to the top of the short cliff. It's just quite brilliant.

A square of splashes show where another rock will appear if the water drops a little more. Most the other rocks visible were not before.

The minor point.

The plateaus now stay somewhat dry. The waves haven't been very big.

A fellow was on the bench trying to spot whales. I forget which part of the year the migrate close to the shore, but there are certainly times to see them. I decided to try to get a better look at the tide pools. The upper ones were less lively and not as interesting, but the kelp made it too slick to continue down to the lower ones. There were still lots of crabs to watch and be watched by. They were all quite aware of me.

There were certainly a lot more sea anemones in the lower pools and muscles on the lower rocks.

Loads of crabs along the crack. Some dumped themselves into the water and some slid into cracks and some stood looking vicious.

No worries about the ocean coming up to get me, at least as long as there are no sneaker waves.

Four more crabs.

Since I couldn't get as far down the tide pools as I wanted, I wandered around to the inlet. Across the way, shapes were moving on the rocks. Seals! And they were quite aware of me just like the crabs. If they hadn't moved, I might not have even noticed the harbor seals.

There's eleven harbor seals down there. When I stopped moving toward them, they stopped moving toward the water.

All this was hidden behind that mini stack just north of the bench.

Still there are submerged rocks and the water plays around them.

I continued along the edge of the inlet. The trail was not so muddy. Water played its way down the side. That is probably what makes the spot weaker. Then again, just south of here is a large fault to weaken the rocks, so there could be a smaller one here.

There's a beach down there.

There were more seals both in the water and on the rocks by the bench. The fellow interested in the whales felt they were too common. They can be found in the harbor all the time. These close to the bench were not worried to see me moving.

Seals on the rocks and in the water. Well, one on the rock. In the water is hard to see.

There's the one in the water.

And another pair on a nearby rock.

The tide is getting very low indeed. The nearby fault is by the winery on the rocks to the sout there and is named for it.

All that is at just a random vista point.




©2020 Valerie Norton
Written 5 Mar 2020