Pacific Coast, USA

Carlsbad, California

Oceanside, California

A low sun catches a jumble of red and gold riprap boulders on the Pacific shore at Carlsbad, California, near its border with Oceanside, seen from right at the water's edge across foamy surf toward breaking waves under a heavy blue sky. Key Features: The Rock Revetment: Boulders line this shore to slow erosion. The beaches belong to the Oceanside littoral cell, a sand system from Dana Point to La Jolla that the jetty at Oceanside Harbor cuts in two. Vanishing Sand: Storm swells have stripped the sand from stretches of Carlsbad's beach, exposing the riprap and leaving only a narrow strip for visitors. The Town's Origin: Carlsbad began in the late 1860s as Frazier's Station, a cattle stop on the old Camino Real. A Spa Name: It was renamed in 1883 when its mineral water was found to match that of the European spa town of the same name.

Pacificia California Coast

From a bluff thick with pink ice plant above Rockaway Beach, near Mori Point in Pacifica, California, surf rolls onto the sand toward the long, low silhouette of the Pacifica Municipal Pier, with hillside neighborhoods, headlands and rocky sea stacks beyond. Key Features: The Pier: A 1,140-foot open-ocean fishing pier, where anglers try for salmon, striped bass and halibut, open to walkers all year. The Bluffs: Mori Point and its headlands are National Park Service land, laced with trails above the surf. The Town: Pacifica sits about twelve miles south of San Francisco, its neighborhoods climbing the coastal hills above beaches loved by surfers and hikers. The Setting: Ice plant and coastal scrub cover the bluffs along this stretch of Northern California.

Kite Flight Pacifica CA

A paraglider drifts down toward the shorebreak on Pacifica's beach, south of San Francisco, with Pacifica Pier reaching into the gray Pacific and thick coastal fog erasing the horizon, leaving only the rocky headland beyond the pier and the surf below the pilot's boots. Key Features: The Pier: A landmark fishing pier reaching more than a thousand feet into the Pacific, loved by anglers and photographers. The Fog: Pacifica is called the fog capital of California, and the marine layer regularly blankets its beaches and bluffs. The Launch Sites: Mussel Rock Park in neighboring Daly City has hillside launch points that send pilots down along the beach. The Coastline: Rocky ocean bluffs line Pacifica, fifteen minutes south of San Francisco.

Pacificia California Coast

Looking north from the sandstone bluffs near Mori Point above Rockaway Beach in Pacifica, California, waves roll onto a wide beach dotted with beachcombers as paragliders drift over a nearby headland and the hazy Marin Headlands rise in the distance. Key Features: The Bluffs: Mori Point's eroded sandstone cliffs, part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, drop steeply to the shore and draw hikers and bikers. The Paragliders: Headlands north of Pacifica, including Mussel Rock in Daly City, are well-known launch sites for gliders riding the ocean updrafts. The Wider View: On clear days the view runs up the coast past San Francisco to the Marin Headlands and Mount Tamalpais across the Golden Gate. The Setting: Pacifica is prized for its sea cliffs, tide-washed rocks and long sandy beaches.

Pacificia California Coast

Below the eroding sandstone cliffs at Mussel Rock Park, on the Pacifica and Daly City border, a wide sandy beach curves south with people and dogs walking the shoreline and paragliders drifting over the headland, homes along Westline Drive at the top of the bluff and the rugged silhouette of Point San Pedro across the water. Key Features: The Rock: Mussel Rock is a sea stack, left offshore as the headland eroded unevenly. Paragliding: Pilots launch from the cliffs here and soar on the ocean breeze, the gliders seen over the bluff. The Park: Mussel Rock Park in south Daly City is a web of trails with hillside launch points. The Shoreline: The shore right below the park is mostly boulders, with the sandy stretch seen here a little farther along the beach.

1208 Pacific Ocean Sunset

The sun sinks into a bank of clouds over the open Pacific, setting the sky ablaze in orange, gold and deep brown at the moment it nearly touches the sea. Key Features: The Pacific: The largest ocean on Earth stretches along the western edge of the Americas, famous for its sunsets. West-Facing Shores: The Pacific coast faces west, so sunsets over the water are a daily show, often in vivid color. The Color: Low sunlight scattering through layered cloud gives the warm palette of golden hour over open water. The Composition: With no land or structures in view, the frame is all sea and sky.

Pacific Ocean Sunset

The sun sets low over the Pacific, turning the sky deep amber and burnt orange as thin veils of cloud stretch across the horizon above the hazy silhouette of a distant coastal range. The calm, darkening sea holds the last of the light as day turns to dusk. Key Features: The Coastal Silhouette: Layered hills rise from the sea on the horizon, where mountains meet the coast. The Atmosphere: Warm, diffused light and haze over the water come from the marine layer common at Pacific sunsets. The Moment: The last minutes before the sun goes down, when the sky's color is at its richest.

Pacific Ocean Sunset

A lone seabird crosses the sky near the glowing disc of the sun as it sets over the open Pacific, with gentle waves rolling in below, all bathed in deep amber and orange. Key Features: The Color: Near the horizon, sunlight passes through far more atmosphere, scattering away the blues and violets and leaving red, orange and gold. The Ocean: The Pacific is the largest and deepest of the world's oceans, and its west-facing coasts are famous for unbroken sunset views. The Moment: A single bird in flight gives scale and a fleeting sense of time to the still, open seascape.

Pacific Ocean California

From the sandy, ice plant-covered bluffs of Fort Funston, on the southern edge of San Francisco in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, Ocean Beach runs north toward the misty outline of Seal Rocks, with Pacific surf rolling ashore and a few walkers and a dog far below. Key Features: The Cliffs: Fort Funston's eroding sandstone bluffs drop to a secluded beach with a wide ocean view. Military History: The site once held Battery Davis, built in the late 1930s for huge coastal defense guns guarding San Francisco's harbor. Wildlife: The sandstone cliffs are one of the few coastal nesting sites left for bank swallows in California. The View North: The rocks fading into the fog are Seal Rocks, just off Ocean Beach near the historic Cliff House.

San Francisco CA

A western gull perched on a pier wall holds the foreground at Aquatic Park Cove in San Francisco, with the calm cove stretching behind it to the sandy beach and the historic waterfront, including the red brick of Ghirardelli Square. Key Features: The Cove: Aquatic Park has a narrow sandy beach and a grassy park at the end of the Hyde Street cable car line, in the Fisherman's Wharf district. The Waterfront: The Maritime Museum stands at the center of the cove near the beach, alongside Victorian-era buildings along the shore. Ghirardelli Square: Its restoration kept the charm of the original buildings, including the red brick facades and industrial details seen across the water.

Alcatraz San Francisco California

Alcatraz Island rises from the choppy waters of San Francisco Bay, seen from a passing boat with the Marin Headlands fading into haze behind it, its low profile of eroded rock topped by weathered buildings, from the old water tower and cellhouse to the lighthouse at the island's highest point. Key Features: The Lighthouse: The West Coast's first lighthouse began shining here in 1854; the current 84-foot tower replaced it in 1909 to rise above the new cellhouse. The Prison Era: The island held a federal penitentiary for some of America's most notorious inmates; the cellhouse and support buildings still stand. The Setting: About a mile and a quarter offshore, the island is surrounded by the bay's strong currents and cold water, the source of its reputation as an inescapable prison.

The Palace Of Fine Arts San Francisco

Tall cypress and willows along the lagoon partly veil the monumental Corinthian colonnade and open rotunda of the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco's Marina District. Key Features: The Origin: Architect Bernard R. Maybeck designed the Palace as a Beaux Arts evocation of a Roman ruin for the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition. The Lagoon: Maybeck kept the original marshland as a lagoon and wove it into his design, so the colonnade mirrors in the water. The Recognition: The Palace is a San Francisco Landmark on the National Register of Historic Places, set on about 17 acres beside the Marina.

The Palace Of Fine Arts San Francisco

Across the lagoon, the view runs straight through the great central arch of the Palace of Fine Arts rotunda to the colonnade beyond, with reflecting water, willows and pines framing the reddish Corinthian columns and sculpted frieze panels and waterfowl gathered in the foreground. Key Features: The Origin: The Palace was one of the finest buildings of San Francisco's 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition. The Architect: Bernard Maybeck, one of America's most influential architects, set a new standard for civic architecture in the city with this design. The Rebuild: Built of temporary materials for the fair, the decaying Palace was reconstructed in permanent materials between 1964 and 1974. The Rotunda: The open rotunda rises about 162 feet, framed by sweeping colonnades and the lagoon.

The Palace Of Fine Arts San Francisco

Cypress and pine frame the great domed rotunda of the Palace of Fine Arts across its lagoon in San Francisco's Marina District, its arched openings, paired Corinthian columns and carved friezes filling the frame with the curving colonnade beyond. Key Features: The Origin: The Palace faithfully recreates Bernard Maybeck's building for the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, rebuilt in permanent materials decades after the fair. The Design: Maybeck chose the theme of a Roman ruin, meant to show the passing of grandeur and the vanity of human wishes. The Structure: An open-air octagonal rotunda on eight piers, flanked by two curving colonnades along the lagoon. Its Legacy: The Palace and the Marina Green are the only parts of the 1915 Exposition still on the site.

Tree Of Life

The immense, gnarled trunk of El Árbol del Tule, a Montezuma cypress, fills the churchyard in the town center of Santa María del Tule, Oaxaca, Mexico, its buttressed roots, deeply furrowed bark and thick lobes of wood looking like several trunks fused into one. Key Features: The Ancient Tree: More than 1,500 years old, it is one of the oldest trees in the world, written about by both the Aztecs and the Spanish. Record Trunk: At 11.62 meters across and 35.4 meters tall, it has the largest trunk diameter of any tree on Earth. Hidden Shapes: With a little imagination, its knots and folds become the faces of goblins, monsters and animals. One Tree: DNA tests confirmed it is a single living tree, though researchers once thought it might be several grown together.

The Golden Gate Bridge San Francisco

Waves roll in over Baker Beach in the Presidio as the Golden Gate Bridge stretches across the strait, its towers and cables reaching toward the rugged Marin Headlands, seen low from the water's edge. Key Features: Baker Beach: One of the closest beaches to the bridge, it runs a mile below the cliffs of the Presidio's western shore, with the headlands beyond. The Bridge: The Golden Gate Bridge spans the entrance to San Francisco Bay, linking the city to Marin, and is one of the most photographed landmarks in the country. The Coast: Cold currents and steady wind shape the waves here, while the headlands' dry, rounded hills rise behind.

Napa Valley CA

Bunny Foo Foo, a 35-foot stainless steel rabbit, leaps above the vineyards of HALL Wines along Highway 29 in St. Helena, Napa Valley, its polished lattice body shining against a clear sky over the vines and wooded valley hills, a small American flag in its forepaw. Key Features: The Sculpture: Artist Lawrence Argent made it from more than three metric tons of polished stainless steel. The Setting: It stands beside Highway 29, one of Napa Valley's main wine touring roads. The Artist: Argent also created Denver's giant blue bear and Sacramento's giant red rabbit.

Humboldt Lagoon State Park California

Humboldt County, California

A jagged bluff streaked with rust, ochre and blue-gray rises straight up from the shore at Humboldt Lagoons State Park on California's north coast, its jointed rock crowned by a fringe of wind-sculpted scrub and grass against a deep blue sky. Key Features: The Rock: Hard rock deposits here shield the underlying Franciscan formation from the waves, leaving pinnacles and jagged bluffs. The Lagoons: A thin strip of dune and beach separates the park's chain of lagoons from the open Pacific, part of the largest lagoon system in the United States. The Setting: Forty miles north of Eureka, the park's dunes, forest, prairie, coastal scrub and marsh support a rich variety of plants, birds and wildlife. The Coastline: Dark cliffs mark where the sandy lagoon beaches give way to bare, mineral-streaked rock.