Stinson Gulch

Stinson Beach is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Marin County, California, on the west coast of the United States. Stinson Beach is located 2.5 miles (4 km) east-southeast of Bolinas, at an elevation of 26 feet (8 m). The population of the Stinson Beach CDP was 541 at the 2020 census.Stinson Beach is about a 35-minute drive from the Golden Gate Bridge on California State Route 1 (the Shoreline Highway). It is near important attractions such as Muir Woods National Monument, Muir Beach, and Mount Tamalpais. It has a long beach, and the cold water produces fog throughout the year.Stinson Beach is a popular day trip for people in the San Francisco Bay Area and for tourists visiting Northern California. Although most visitors arrive by private car, Stinson Beach is linked to Marin City by a daily bus service, and the network of hiking trails around Mount Tamalpais also reaches the town. The beach is one of the cleanest in the state, and sandy, unlike the rockier neighboring beach in Bolinas.

McKinnan Gulch is a valley in Marin County, California, United States. It contains a small stream which descends the western slope of the Bolinas Ridge and drains into Bolinas Lagoon.Near the head of the gulch is an ore vein (reported in 1955) containing chalcopyrite, galena, pyrite, and calcite.

Bolinas Bay is a small bay, approximately 5 miles (8 km) long, on the Pacific coast of California in the United States. It is in Marin County, north of the Golden Gate, approximately 15 miles (25 km) northwest of San Francisco. The town of Bolinas is at its shore. The bay is fed by Bolinas Lagoon, a large inner harbor protected from the main bay by a spit of land, known as Stinson Beach. Along with nearby Drakes Bay, the bay is considered one of the possible landing spots of Francis Drake in 1579 during his circumnavigation of the world by sea.

Morses Gulch is a coastal valley in Marin County, California, United States. It descends the western slope of Bolinas Ridge and drains into Bolinas Lagoon.

Kent Island is a small island in Marin County, California. In 1964, it was proposed for large-scale development including a hotel and marina, but the plan was defeated in 1967. The island is now included in the Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary.

Bolinas Lagoon is a tidal estuary, approximately 1,100 acres (4.5 km2) in area, located in the West Marin region of Marin County, California, United States, adjacent to the town of Bolinas. It is a part of the Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary. In 1974, Aubrey Neasham and William Pritchard wrote in support of Bolinas Lagoon as Drake's New Albion landing site.The lagoon is a back bay of Bolinas Bay on the Pacific coast approximately 15 mi (25 km) northwest of San Francisco. The trough in which the lagoon sits was formed by the San Andreas Fault, which runs directly through it. The lagoon is separated from the main bay by a small spit of land, known as Stinson Beach, and the sand bar that encloses this lagoon is full of beachgoers and surfers on hot days, seeking to escape the heat and the urban Bay Area. State Route 1, the Shoreline Highway, runs along the eastern edge of the lagoon. Bolinas Lagoon is on the list of wetlands of international importance as defined by the Ramsar Convention for the conservation and sustainable utilization of wetlands. Portions of the lagoon are included in Marin County's Bolinas Lagoon Open Space Preserve, and the western shore is part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. The lagoon has a 16.7-square-mile (43 km2) watershed; streams and canyons feeding into it include Audubon Canyon, McKinnan Gulch, Morses Gulch, Picher Canyon, Pike County Gulch, Stinson Gulch, Volunteer Canyon, and Wilkins Gulch. Kent Island is located in the lagoon. Duxbury Reef State Marine Conservation Area lies offshore from Bolinas. Like an underwater park, this protected marine area helps conserve ocean wildlife and marine ecosystems.

Bolinas Ridge is a north-south ridge in southwestern Marin County, California. Much of the western side of the ridge is protected parkland in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, and the eastern side is watershed lands of the Marin Municipal Water District.

The Marin-Bolinas Botanical Gardens (14 acres) are botanical gardens specializing in succulents, located in Bolinas, California, United States. They are not open to the public as of 2018. The gardens were created by Dr. Herman Schwartz, a retired physician. They now contain over 2,000 species; the children's garden has 280 types of succulents. The gardens include six greenhouses, including ones dedicated to aloes and euphorbias. A Marin County native flower garden (6.5 acres) is currently being added.

Bolinas is an unincorporated coastal community and census-designated place in Marin County, California, United States. As of the 2020 census it had a population of 1,483. It is located on the California coast, approximately 13 miles (21 km) (straight line distance) northwest of San Francisco, and 27 miles (43 km) by road. The community is known for its reclusive residents. It is only accessible via unmarked roads; any road sign along State Route 1 that points the way into town has been torn down by local residents, to the point where county officials offered a ballot measure to which the voters responded by stating a preference for no more signs.

Alpine Lake is a reservoir in Marin County, California. Formed by Alpine Dam, it provides water to the Marin Municipal Water District. Below the dam lies Kent Lake. Alpine Lake is to the west of Bon Tempe Lake. Fishing is allowed, and Largemouth Bass, Smallmouth Bass, and trout can be caught. Boats and wading are not allowed on the lake.

Rancho Las Baulines was a 8,911-acre (36.06 km2) Mexican land grant in present-day Marin County, California, given in 1846 by Governor Pío Pico to Gregorio Briones. The grant extended around Bolinas Lagoon and encompassed present-day Stinson Beach and Bolinas.

Audubon Canyon Ranch (ACR) is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit environmental conservation and education organization headquartered in Stinson Beach, Marin County, California, on the eastern shore of Bolinas Lagoon. The lands upon which ACR operates are within the ancestral territories of the Coast Miwok, Southern Pomo and Wappo peoples. ACR recognizes that Indigenous communities are very much alive today and striving to protect and maintain relationships with cultural and natural resources on ACR lands; they acknowledge that Indigenous lands are occupied by them and others. Audubon Canyon Ranch was founded in 1962 to save a major heronry and block commercial development of Bolinas Lagoon in western Marin County, leading the way for the protection of Tomales Bay to the north. Today, Audubon Canyon Ranch stewards a system of nature preserves totaling 5,000 acres (2,000 ha) across 26 properties in Marin County and Sonoma County and conducts conservation science that in turn informs its education programs and directs its work on some of the region's most challenging environmental issues. ACR's conservation science program has monitored the North Bay region nesting successes of herons and egrets for over 40 years, collected long-term data sets on wintering shorebird and waterbird populations on Tomales Bay for over 30 years, and is using GPS to track the movements of individual mountain lions in the Sonoma Valley and Great Egrets and Long-billed Curlews on the coast. ACR's experiential nature education program, which turned 50 in 2020, has connected more than 300,000 Bay Area children and adults to the wonders of nature, cultivating environmental literacy and a conservation ethic. ACR's Fire Forward program, founded in 2017, is advancing our community's ability to use "good fire" to reduce risk and build ecosystem resilience against climate-driven wildfire events. ACR also stewards cultural treasures, including the literary legacy of American author M.F.K. Fisher at her last house at Bouverie Preserve.