Ecological Musings: Año Nuevo State Park, Pescadero, CA — June 13th, 2025

Background:

I’m currently taking a California Ecology class. One of the class assignments is to keep a field journal of each of our weekly trips. Today’s journal is about watching Elephant Seals and eating berries as we frolicked through Año Nuevo State Park.

Baseline Data

Name: Año Nuevo State Park

Address: Approx. CA-1, Pescadero, San Mateo County, California, 55 mi south of San Francisco

Coordinates: ~37.108° N, 122.337° W

  • Date: June 13, 2025

  • Time: 9:00 AM – 4:00 PM

🌤️ Weather Overview

  • Temperature:

    • High: ~60 °F

    • Low: ~50 °F

  • Cloud Cover: Partly Cloudy

  • Wind:

    • Direction: ~WSW (~240°)

    • Speed: ~7 mph

  • Humidity: ~83%

  • Precipitation: None reported

I’ve been coming to Año Nuevo State Park for a long time. I freaking love this place. Like Butano, it is absolutely magical. Honestly, I think there’s just something about Pescadero that’s completely and utterly magical. Every other nature adventure here is just like entering into a whole different world full of diverse wildlife, edible plants, and more.

One thing that I did at Año Nuevo this time around that I actually had never done before is — you guessed it — eat a ton of berries. I’d always seen the local raspberries growing around, but I was too afraid to ever try them. This time around, however, with the confidence of being in Gillian’s presence, I gave it a go. Those berries were freakin’ delicious.

By far, the highlight of visiting Año Nuevo State Park, however, is getting to see the Elephant Seals as they molt and rest on the beach. This time around, we encountered a docent who had carefully arranged a number of different skulls and bones for us to observe. We got to see how truly big a whale vertebrae is and get a good sense of the size of an elephant seal skull compared to that of, say, a coyote.

Finally, we came across the elephant seals. They are so adorable and I love them SO much. I love how they just lay there and then flop around up and down when they need to move. One thing I learned, that I hadn’t known before, is that elephant seals spend a lot of time in deep waters. Apparently they often take micronaps and can often sleep (in a downward drifting sleep spiral for about two hours) at depths of 1000 feet underwater. To me, that’s absolutely insane. And the coolest part is that their brains wake them up right before they run out of oxygen. It’s kind of hard for me to fathom how certain mammals, who rely on breathing oxygen, have somehow evolved to be able to sleep in deep water. Evolution is a magical thing.

Size comparison by height of each boy.

One thing that I didn’t quite get to see, but that a lot of other people saw, was the fin of an orca in the ocean that was likely searching for its next meal. To me, this was incredibly cool. I’d always known that great white sharks roamed Bay Area waters, but I had never known that orcas did too!

On a fun note, my brother’s friends joined us for this particular hike. To the right is a photo of them comparing their varied sizes to that of differently sized elephant seals.

We also went searching for fossils towards the end of this particular hike. Although I’d been coming to Año Nuevo State Park for a long time, I had never realized how many fossils were embedded in the sandstone.

At the end of the hike, I kidnapped the boys and took them to a place that I never skip out on whenever I visit Pescadero: Harley Goat Farms. There, I was greeted by Panther the cat who always sits in my lap every time I visit the farm. We also stopped by the local pie shop and the local coffeeshop for pies and iced lattes.

Overall, nothing beats Pescadero. 10/10 — will always come back!

huda .