Accessibility

Audio Files for Forward Into Light Special Event

Go to the Forward Into Light webpage to find all signs and posters displayed around the lighthouse for this event. Each has an audio file and written transcript. 

 

The National Park Access Pass

The Access Pass is available to all U.S Citizens or Permanent Residents who have a disabiity. This is a free pass that gets you into all of your over 400 National Parks across the country. You can get one of these passes at the fee station at Cabrillo National Monument. Simply bring your ID and proof of disability.

 

How Can We Serve You?

Cabrillo National Monument is YOUR park. We have worked hard to provide easy access for everyone to enjoy their visit to the park. Please click on the links below to find out how we can best serve you.

• Deaf/Hearing Loss
• Blind/Vision Loss
• Physical or Mobility Concerns
• Cognitive Concerns
• Visiting with a Service Animal

 

National Accessibility Achievement Award - 2005

The National Park Service (NPS) initiated the National Accessibility Achievement Award Program in 1998 to recognize outstanding accomplishments that result in greater opportunities for persons with disabilities within the NPS.

In October 2005, Cabrillo National Monument was recognized for our efforts in using tactile models and wayside exhibits to help accomplish our mission and forge connections between visitors of all abilities. Special recognition was given to the park Superintendent and Chief of Interpretation for their long-term dedication and commitment to universal design and equal opportunity.

National Park Service Director Fran Mainella stated, “Cabrillo’s accomplishments are not only creative and original; they are an outstanding example of providing effective communications to an extremely diverse audience, including those who have a visual limitation.”

After evaluating the needs of visitors and the need to make emotional and intellectual connections between the resources and visitors, the park has designed, fabricated, and installed a variety of tactile models that effectively tell the stories with minimum words. The first tactile model installed was a bronze sculpture of a gray whale and calf, which was mounted at the Whale Overlook. Gray whales migrate past Cabrillo each December through February on their way to the calving lagoons in Baja, California, and can be seen from the Monument. This model gives all visitors a sense of the size, shape, and characteristics of these marine mammals.

 

Bronze tactile model of a Pacific Gray Whale and calf is an award-winning addition to the Whale Overlook.

NPS Photo

 

The second set of bronze tactile models installed interprets the Old Point Loma Lighthouse and its setting in San Diego Bay. One model contains the lighthouse and its outbuildings, the assistant keeper’s quarters, barn and oil shed, and the rain catchment basin and picket fence. The model of the Old Point Loma Lighthouse provides a way for visitors to understand the shape and sizes of the various structures and their juxtaposition to each other. The other model illustrates the lighthouse on the end of the Point Loma peninsula and its relationship to the geography of San Diego Bay. These models were installed in a plaza with an audio station at the end of the walk leading to the lighthouse. Through research, we have learned that bronze sustains constant touching, threats of vandalism, and effects of exposure to ocean salt air.

 

Tactile model of the Old Point Loma Lighthouse and outbuildings enable visitors to experience the lighthouse area as it once was.

NPS Photo/Dan Zeller

 

Bronze tactile model of the Point Loma peninsula enables visitors to experience the location and orientation of the Old Point Loma Lighthouse.

NPS Photo/Dan Zeller

 

The models were sculpted by Carl Glowienke of Sea Life Sculpture Studio in Santee, California. Cabrillo National Monument thanks Mrs. Connie Golden and other Cabrillo National Monument Foundation members for their generous contributions which made the tactile models available.