Trinidad Head

Trinidad Head is the 350-foot headland at the mouth of the bay, and the loop around it is the best land-based whale watching in the county. Gray whales pass close on their way north between March and June, then south again from September into January. Below, Green and Flatiron Rocks carry as many as 60,000 nesting common murres in spring and summer, along with pigeon guillemots, cormorants, storm-petrels and black oystercatchers.

Two things about this place are consistently misunderstood.

The first is the lighthouse. The one you can walk up to in town, take pictures of and read the memorial plaques at, is a 1949 replica built by the Trinidad Civic Club — though it does hold the original Fresnel lens and fog bell, and it was moved onto a new foundation in December 2023. The working 1871 Trinidad Head Light is out on the headland on a 13-acre BLM parcel, and it opens to the public on the first Saturday of the month, 10am to noon, with Trinidad Museum Society volunteers.

The second is who runs it. The City of Trinidad manages the loop trail; BLM manages only the lighthouse parcel, which came into the California Coastal National Monument in 2017. That's why no federal source publishes a trail mileage. Local sources put the loop at roughly 1.3 to 1.5 miles, and the first stretch is genuinely steep — a survey measured 14% grade for the opening fifth of a mile before it eases.

Franciscan fathers put a cross on the summit in June 1775 when Hezeta and Bodega anchored here, meeting the Yurok people of Tsurai, whose village stood above the bay.

Leash your dog. Never turn your back on the ocean.