Spooner's Cove - California Central Coast

A couple of weeks ago we spent some time on the central California coast. One day we were looking for a place called Los Osos Oaks (The Bears Oaks) to do some hiking. As sometimes happens, the trail-head wasn't where our GPS said it was supposed to be. So we kept driving.

Instead of what we were looking for, we saw this. We both love the ocean, so we quickly forgot about our hike through the forest.

This photo was taken in front of the white building in the left side of the above photo.  Apparently, we had entered Montana de Oro (Mountain of Gold) State Park without knowing it. I'd heard of the place, but knew nothing about it. Anyway, this old wooden building (now a little museum) was once the ranch house for the 7,000 acre Spooner Ranch. This photo also shows the north side of Spooner's Cove. There is a lot of other history associated with this place, but I think this is enough for now.

Here is the southern side of Spooner's Cove.

This is the right side of the cove again. A lady working in the ranch house told me that there was a major archaeology dig on top of the hill. I saw a trail going up that way and knew we'd be checking it out. The lady then said that there was nothing left up there. Too bad! We settled for sniffing out some sea glass on the beach.

A nice little natural arch.

I'm sure that dog was supposed to be on a leash, or maybe not there at all. Still, it made for a nice photo.

You can see the ranch house on the very left hand side of the photo. That sharp point jutting out into the cove (on the left), is the end of the south side of Spooner's Cove (from the third photo).  The ranch (and now the park) has over six miles of ocean front. Most of it consisting of beautiful and rugged coves.

The scene in the last photo, was directly behind me.  This is the foundation of a storage building that was used to store crops, lumber and sheep products over a hundred years ago.

before being dropped in this gravity chute, which ended at a freight loading area for...

The ships that would dock at the edge of this rocky outcropping.

I was only being stupid here to show you how steep and far down it was to the ships. The actual trail is about 10 yards behind me.

A photo of the cove from way back in the day.

I'll shut up for a while now.

We found a way down into this one.

Each of these layers was the sea floor at some time in the distant past.

For those who have heard of it, that is Morro Rock in the distance (in front of the mountains)

This part of the trail is roped off, but that doesn't stop some people! Like my wife...

If you are ever in this area, I strongly advise you to come and see this place. There are also many great hiking trails in the area.




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