Earthquake Trail at Point Reyes National Seashore

To celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary, my husband and I made a return trip to Point Reyes National Seashore, which we visited last summer for the first time. Our daughter is now a more wilful toddler, and is rejecting her carrier more and more--so we had to tailor our "hikes" to extremely gentle walks.

The Earthquake Walk was one of those hikes, right across from the Bear Valley Visitor's Center in Olema. 

We chose the Earthquake Hike because of its accessibility--it is a 0.6 mile hike that is paved and handicap-accessible. We were not expecting to learn so much! Apparently, this area was the epicenter for the famous 1906 earthquake that wreaked so much havoc on San Francisco. The hike has all kinds of fascinating geological features, with lots of signage to teach both adults and kids all about the San Andreas Fault. According to one of the interpretative panels, the Point Reyes Peninsula leapt 20 feet northwestward in about one minute's time during that quake. There is a really cool fence that helps to illustrate the extent of that shift. One section of the fence now stands about 20 feet apart from the other section, but before the earthquake they were one contiguous fence.  ​

Listen below to an interesting NPR segment on the earthquake, from the centennial anniversary of the disaster. ​

In addition to all of the fascinating geological stuff, we enjoyed seeing some gorgeous oaks and some truly impressive bay trees (the latter looked to be a couple hundred years old to me). Bear Valley Creek was quite full with the winter rains, and our toddler really enjoyed throwing leaves into the water from the footbridge to watch them flow away in the clear water.