Naturalists At Large - Sites by Region: San Francisco Bay Area

Sites by Region

San Francisco Bay Area

Salt Point State Park — Located about 90 miles north of San Francisco. The Park has 6000 acres of fascinating and diverse habitats for the study of forest, grassland and coastal land forms. This large coastal park offers a rich variety of botanical, geological, marine and historical topics for your students and faculty to explore. The rugged coastline of the Park varies dramatically from protected sandy beach coves to sharp bluffs and sheer sandstone cliffs that plunge straight to the sea. Several rocky beaches provide excellent opportunities to study the inter-tidal zone. For more information on Salt Point State Park, please read about our Outdoor Learning Center programs. See the site description!

Providing an opportunity to study an early 19th Century Russian settlement in California, Fort Ross State Park is near to Salt Point. It served as a staging area for sea mammal hunting and a source of agricultural products.

From 1818-1824 the Fort Ross forests provided lumber for shipbuilding and agricultural products for itself.

Point Reyes National Seashore offers natural beauty, high bluffs, dramatic cliffs, an excellent visitor's center and Native American cultural center. Nearly 20% of the State's flowering plant species are found here. Over 45% of North American bird species have been sighted.

Click here for Point Reyes Webcam

See the site description!

The Santa Cruz Mountains — the San Francisco Bay Area's urban wilderness. Naturalists at Large offers programs at Redwood Glen and several sites surrounding Santa Cruz on Monterey Bay. Day options near Santa Cruz also include sea kayaking at Elkhorn Slough and visits to the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Mount Cross and Loma Mar provide schools with wonderful retreat sites and environmental education. These excellent facilities and easy access to the Bay Area make them incomparable for outdoor education. Challenge courses and climbing walls, miles of hiking trails, open spaces, recreation fields, oak trees, towering redwoods, swimming pools, playing fields, several lodging options and an optional marine program at several nearby coastal parks or the Monterey Bay Aquarium makes Mount Cross and Loma Mar perfect for Bay Area schools. See the Mount Cross and Redwood Glen site descriptions!

For more information on Mount Cross, Loma Mar and Redwood Glen, please read about our lodge-based programs.

Established over a hundred years ago, Pinnacles National Monument is an excellent outdoor education site. Located along the transition between the Coast Ranges and the San Joaquin Valley, Pinnacles is a mosaic of chaparral-covered slopes and lovely spring wildflowers.

The mixed evergreen forest along the slopes and in the deeply incised canyons provides welcome relief to the warm spring and summer days. The Monument is all that remains of an ancient volcano eroded over geologic time by water, heat and frost. Pinnacles offers interesting volcanic and tectonic geology and transition vegetation between the Coast Ranges and the San Joaquin Valley. Activities includes hiking, outdoor skills and an introduction to rock climbing.

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Sites by Region

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Santa Cruz

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