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Operational Changes Took Effect on May 1
The Lighthouse Visitor Center is now only open Fridays through Mondays. The Kenneth C. Patrick Visitor Center will be closed through late December 2013. More »
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2013 Harbor Seal Pupping Season Closures
From March 1 through June 30, the park implements closures of certain Tomales Bay beaches and Drakes Estero to water-based recreation to protect harbor seals during the pupping season. Please avoid disturbing seals to ensure a successful pupping season. More »
Special Memorial Day Commemorative at the Historic Coast Guard Cemetery
Coast Guard personnel raising the U.S. flag during the 2012 Memorial Day Ceremony at the Historic Lifeboat Station at Chimney Rock. As part of the National Moment of Remembrance on Memorial Day, Point Reyes National Seashore honors the sacrifice of the surfmen who served to protect America's coast as a part of the United States Lifesaving Service. Join the National Park Service and the United States Coast Guard at 2 pm for services at the Historic Life-Saving Service Cemetery located at G Ranch. As part of Memorial Day events across the country, participants are asked at 3 pm to pause and remember America's fallen wherever you are. Following the ceremony, there is an open house at the Point Reyes Coast Guard Lifeboat Station at Chimney Rock from 4 pm to 5 pm. 
Memorial Day Decorations at the Life Saving Service Cemetery at G Ranch The cemetery is located on a beautiful knoll overlooking Drakes Estero just off Sir Francis Drake Boulevard near the Coast Guard facility in the northern district of Point Reyes. The cemetery is a short walk from the parking lot off of the access road. A picket fence enclosure under Coast Guard ownership contains the marked graves of three surfmen who died while on duty at the United States Life-Saving Station at Point Reyes Beach in the early 1890s. The Life-Saving Station crews launched lifeboats into the heavy surf at the Point Reyes beach and conducted numerous rescues of stranded vessels on the treacherous Point Reyes Headlands. Over the course of 78 years, crews participated in an estimated 100 rescues in cold Pacific Ocean waters. A new Lifeboat Station was constructed in 1927 at a more protected location near Chimney Rock. The Station was rehabilitated by the National Park Service and now serves as an educational facility. The Lifeboat Station has received National Historic Landmark status because it is the last remaining station with an operating railway system for launching vessels on the Pacific Ocean. The cemetery also contains the headstones and remains of Hinrik Claussen, his wife, and son and daughter-in-law in one fenced area. Hinrik Claussen, a Scandinavian immigrant dairyman, provided oversight for the historic Alphabet Ranches established in the late 1800s on the Point Reyes Peninsula. Mr. Claussen lived at the G Ranch, one of the first ranches to be completed in 1872. |
Did You Know?
Deathcap mushrooms are found throughout the Point Reyes region and are the most poisonous mushrooms in the world. But they're fairly new arrivals here. They invaded the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1930s, likely brought over on cork trees from Europe for the wine industry. More...