Day 114.

Sweeney Ridge – 11 miles.

Today we hiked to the place where the San Francisco Bay was discovered.  Most bays are discovered by boat (not surprisingly), but the SF Bay was actually first seen by land.  The Spanish explorer Gaspar de Portola overshot Monterey Bay, laid anchor near Pacifica and hiked to the 1,200-foot summit at Sweeney Ridge.  From Sweeney Ridge, the bay stretched out below him to the east (luckily on a non-foggy day!)

The mouth of the bay is tiny (narrow enough for the iconic Golden Gate Bridge), so it doesn’t look like much from the ocean.  From there though, it expands out all the way down to San Jose and covers an area bigger than Rhode Island!

Today we enjoyed views of the bay, San Andreas Lake (that I mentioned yesterday) and the ocean.  Add in wildflowers, wild strawberries and eucalyptus groves and it was a pretty awesome hike.  Plus, our timing was perfect: just as we were finishing our last couple of miles, the wind picked up and the fog started rolling in over the mountains.  You could literally watch it creeping across the sky!!

Day well spent.

Miles walked: 476 | Miles to go: 24