Journeys›Photograph

Weekend Drive Along the Northern California Coast

·San Francisco, California·#bay area#landscape-photography#pacific-ocean#marin-headlands#coastal-drive
Purple thistle flowers in the foreground with a sparkling ocean and hazy hills and coastline in the background.

Took a weekend drive out along the coast, over the bridge and up Highway 1 to the overlooks above Muir Beach. Windy up there — whitecaps all the way out, and the dry grass on the bluffs kept flattening sideways. The thistles are blooming now, big purple heads on those spiky stalks, right at the edge where the ground drops away.

We pulled off at a couple of spots and leaned over the railings to watch the surf work the rocks at the bottom of the cliffs, that green-white churn a few hundred feet straight down. From the higher turnouts you could see the city across the water, half-buried in haze, and the whole run of headlands folding south toward it, one ridge after another.

Home by afternoon, ears still full of wind.

Looking down a steep cliff into a rocky ocean cove with dark blue water crashing against the shore and rocks.A panoramic view of a rugged coastline with a vast blue ocean, distant hills, and a rocky cliff in the foreground.A vast blue ocean from a high cliff, with green and brown hills, scattered trees, and distant land under a hazy sky.Blue ocean with whitecaps seen from a high, forested cliff; distant coastline and hills under a hazy sky.High-angle view of a steep, grassy coastal cliff descending to dark rocks and a bright, shimmering ocean.A steep, green and brown grassy coastline meets a sun-dappled ocean under a hazy sky, with distant hills.

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