Tidepooling

Twice a day the Pacific pulls back its blanket and shows what lives underneath: octopus, anemone gardens, ochre sea stars, chitons and hermit-crab traffic. California's coast holds some of the richest intertidal life on earth, and most of it is a short walk from a parking lot. Fitzgerald Marine Reserve south of San Francisco and Duxbury Reef at Bolinas — the largest shale reef in North America — are the northern anchors, with Natural Bridges, Point Lobos' Weston Beach and Asilomar's Great Tide Pool carrying the Monterey coast. In the south, Crystal Cove, Little Corona, Leo Carrillo's Sequit Point, White Point and Cabrillo National Monument's terraced pools are the classics, and La Jolla's Shell Beach and Hospital Reef sit right in the city. MacKerricher's Laguna Point and Salt Point's tafoni sandstone hold the north coast.