Next up on our lighthouse tours was Point Reyes Lighthouse. This one had fog rolling over the cliffs as we approached the 313 stairs DOWN to the short lighthouse halfway down the cliff. The oil house was further down the cliff (in need of a paint job) and the fog horn and mechanical room was before you got to the light. What an interesting and precarious place to be stationed! It was very windy and I wore my windbreaker hood over my cap because if the wind blew it off, you would never retrieve it on these cliffs. I saw one cap off to my left as I descended the stairs… so point proven. On the link above there is a good video of the walk down and back up and a view inside the tower (which we were not allowed to do on this visit due to staff cuts from recent funding cuts).

The first order fresnel lens is still in the tower and the link above has a great time lapse video on the restoration process undertaken from July 8-13, 2019. Amazing work guys and what wonderful videos on the National Park website! Just to be very clear… I am against the defunding of our National Parks that is happening with a short sighted, group of leaders in 2025. They do not understand our country’s very short 249 year history (my ancestors have been here all 249 of those years) and it will prove to be a devastating move as history looks back on the group currently in power. I stand with park rangers, the National Park Service and historic records of the U.S. Lighthouse Service.

While on the walkway around the light tower, we talked with a whale photographer named Joey from Louisiana. He pointed us in a general direction and with binoculars we could just make out whales spouting. Exciting! On our walk back up we appreciated the landing spots designed for people to take in the views and rest. At the top of the hill and on the descending walk to the parking lot my husband spotted deer grazing and got a few good photos. All in all, it was a delightful visit and I highly recommend learning about our coastal protection history so that we can learn how to keep preserving these monuments to our very short history. America is still a teenager in relation to many other countries, and she has a lot of growing pains ahead. Let’s hope we can take her to adulthood.

If you are a history buff, there is much more information in the visitor’s center along with a whale skull and informational signs on the conglomerate geology of the cliffs. Definitely worth a visit.