2 min
Overview
Abbotts Lagoon is a family-friendly and partially ADA-accessible hike past a working dairy ranch to a brackish lagoon teeming with wildlife. A spur trail at the lagoon leads to an overlook of the ocean, while a faint, sandy path leads beyond the lagoon to Point Reyes Beach and the Pacific Ocean. Abbotts Lagoon is located in Point Reyes National Seashore, a U.S. national park 50 miles northwest of San Francisco. Start your hike from the trailhead, heading west on a flat gravel path that is ADA-accessible for the first 0.25 mile. The rectangular building to the north is a feeding barn and cow shelter at McClure Organic Dairy, also known as I Ranch. I Ranch—and H Ranch to its south—are part of the alphabet-letter ranches created on Point Reyes Peninsula in the 1860s when a San Francisco law firm scooped up 51,000 acres of land in the wake of California’s statehood in 1850. When the bulk of the peninsula became a national park in 1962, the U.S. government made a deal with local ranchers that they could lease the land from the government and continue beef and dairy ranching. Today, over a dozen ranches operate in Point Reyes National Seashore. At 0.2 miles, cross a wooden bridge with glimpses of Abbotts Lagoon. Abbotts Lagoon is named after two brothers, John and Carlisle Abbott, who leased I Ranch and H Ranch in the mid-1800s. Carlisle Abbott leased the land you are walking on, the historic boundary of H Ranch, from 1858-1865, and ran a dairy that produced butter until he pulled up his stakes—or in his case, cows—and resettled in Salinas. Beyond the first wooden bridge, at 0.5 miles, is a wooden bench and overlook to the north wing of Abbotts Lagoon. There are two Abbott brothers and coincidentally, Abbotts Lagoon has two wings: a large “south wing” by the ocean and the “north wing” that you see on the first part of the hike. The wings are joined in a narrow section at the 1.1-mile mark where a wooden bridge crosses over it. Altogether, the lagoon encompasses 282 acres. At 0.6 miles, cross a wooden boardwalk over a
Trail Stats
5.2 km
38 m
26 m
2 m
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