GOLDEN GATE NATIONAL RECREATION AREA, Tennessee Valley Trail, Marin County, California

The Tennessee Valley Trail is among many in the Marin Headlands. 

A short drive over the Golden Gate Bridge brings you from the city of San Francisco to the hills of Marin County, and to the Marin headlands, which line the passage from the Pacific Ocean to San Francisco Bay. One of my favorite places to hike in the Marin Headlands is the 1.7-mile Tennessee Valley trail that leads to Tennessee Beach. 

Tennessee Beach.

The beach gets its name from the wreck of the steamship S.S. Tennessee, which ran aground in heavy fog in 1853, with all 550 passengers and crew safely reaching the shore. At low tide you can still see the remains of the ship in the water.

The gravel trail is mostly level.

In late December, I went with my family for a hike on the Tennessee Valley trail. (The trailhead is about a 35-minute drive from our house in Oakland.) It was a beautiful sunny day--welcome after a week of steady rain. Many other people had the same idea, but the trail did not seem crowded despite all the hikers.  (At the trailhead there is a parking area and toilets and picnic tables.)

Boulders composed of sedimentary rock can be seen along the trail.

The trail is wide and mostly level, suitable for families with small children and even strollers, gradually sloping downhill from the parking area to the beach. Dogs, even on leashes, are not allowed, although we did see one man who was taking his cat for a walk. (The cat was eager to explore and did not seem too happy about being restrained on a leash.)

Because of the recent rains, we had to dodge a few puddles.

The rain had made the hills green and lush and we could hear the gurgle of small streams along the path. We did spot a few flowers, but it was a bit early in the season for spring blooms. We kept our eye out for wildlife, but except for two vultures circling on updrafts, we didn’t see much. On an earlier trip to Tennessee Valley we had spotted a doe and her fawn in a field being stalked by a bobcat. It was only when we put the long lens on the camera (we had forgotten our binoculars) that we saw the bobcat perched on a rock on the hillside above the field where the deer were grazing.

Tennessee Valley is part of the huge Golden GateNational Recreation Area, operated by the National Parks, that includes a wide variety of sites ranging from Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay, to Point Reyes National Seashore to the north and beaches and historic sites to the south of San Francisco. 

A sign in the picnic area near the trailhead tells how close the beautiful hills of Tennessee Valley once were in danger of development, before they became part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Thankfully, the project was halted and the beautiful hillsides are now preserved for wildlife and hikers like me.