Skydive Golden Gate
Gnoss Field (Marin County Airport) / Novato · near Novato · SF Bay Area
Skydiving
At a glance
- Best season
- Year-round; summer fog burns off Novato by mid-morning; reservations required
What is here
- Scenery
- coastal
- Amenities
- Golden Gate Bridge / Alcatraz / Angel Island views · Only dropzone within ~25 miles of San Francisco · Flight path over San Francisco Bay · Wine-country and Pacific coastline panoramas
- Best for
- The San Francisco landmark jump
- Features
- Gnoss Field, Novato — ~24 mi north of the Golden Gate · Views of the bridge, Alcatraz & Angel Island · Bay and wine-country panoramas · Reservation-only tandem operation
Worth knowing
- Hazards
- Reservations required — no reliable walk-ins · Marine layer can delay morning loads · Small single-aircraft operation — limited daily capacity · Weight limits apply; weather holds possible
- Beginner friendly
- Yes
Guides, rentals and operators
- Operators
- Skydive Golden Gate
Skydiving detail
- Offerings
- tandem
- Aircraft
- piston
- Altitude
- 10k
- Stature
- 2
- Jump notes
- The closest dropzone to San Francisco — a small tandem operation at Novato's Gnoss Field, exiting around 10,000 ft ('two miles up') with the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, Angel Island, SF Bay, and the wine country all in view
- Stats note
- Tandems from ~10,000 ft ($269); reservation-required small operation
- Experienced hub
- No
- Intl tip
- The closest dropzone to San Francisco — tandems from ~10,000 ft out of Novato with the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, and Angel Island in view. Reservation-required, small single-aircraft operation; the marine layer usually clears Novato by mid-morning. For higher turbine jumps, Bay Area Skydiving at Byron is the alternative; for the SF landmark views, this is the one.
The guide
Skydive Golden Gate fills a gap every San Francisco visitor eventually asks about: it's the closest dropzone to the city, flyin…
In the Guidebook
Everything above is yours for free. The written guide to Skydive Golden Gate — what it is actually like, and what we would tell a friend before they went — comes with the Guidebook.
Getting there
- Coordinates
- 38.144, -122.556