Salt Point — Gerstle Cove
Salt Point SP, Sonoma Coast · near Jenner / Sea Ranch · North Coast
Tidepooling
At a glance
- Fee
- $10/vehicle day use
- Season
- Year-round · visitor center closed but access open
What is here
- Species
- Chitons & limpets on sandstone · Sunflower star (rare, recovering) · Purple urchins · Honeycomb tafoni formations
- Highlights
- Gerstle Cove Reserve · Tafoni Sandstone
Worth knowing
- Good for a first timer
- Yes
- Gear
- Grippy shoes · Wind and fog layers · Camera for the tafoni stone · Nothing leaves the reserve — abalone days are over
Tidepooling detail
- Nickname
- Tafoni Shelves of the Sonoma Coast
- Pool type
- sandstone
- Program
- self-guided
- Mpa
- Gerstle Cove State Marine Reserve — one of California's oldest no-take reserves
- Best tide
- Below 0.0 ft; sandstone shelves on the cove's south side
- Docent note
- No regular program; ranger station (707) 847-3221
- Intl tip
- 90 min north of the Golden Gate on Hwy 1 — pair with the Sea Ranch chapel, Fort Ross, and Jenner's river-mouth seals. Gerstle Cove's pools sit below the day-use lot; the tafoni honeycomb stone is a photographic destination in itself.
The guide
Salt Point State Park protects six miles of the wild Sonoma coast ninety minutes north of the Golden Gate, and Gerstle Cove is …
In the Guidebook
Everything above is yours for free. The written guide to Salt Point — Gerstle Cove — what it is actually like, and what we would tell a friend before they went — comes with the Guidebook.
Getting there
- Coordinates
- 38.5661, -123.3325