The land here is losing ground, literally. Marine and wind erosion strip one to three feet of coastline annually, an average that spikes in heavy storm years. The result is a marine terrace elevated fifty to a hundred feet above sea level, its edge a steep bluff dropping to the littoral zone below. The San Andreas Fault runs roughly parallel to the shore, a geological reminder that this coast is not merely eroding but actively shifting. Sea stacks - vertical rock formations of sandstone layered with quartz - have resisted the erosion that consumed the softer soils around them. They appear standing in the surf, perched on the beach, and occasionally stranded atop the terrace itself, ancient seafloor monuments lifted by uplift and left behind by the retreating land. At Gleason Beach, Highway 1 had to be rerouted 400 feet inland, the first Caltrans project undertaken specifically because of sea level rise.

The park's ecology spans three distinct zones, each with its own community. Offshore, gray whales migrate along the coast while harbor seals and California sea lions haul out on the rocks. Kelp beds, though modest compared to those farther south, shelter marine organisms in the cold northern California water. The tidepools, fewer and less populated than warmer zones support, are still rich with flora and fauna clinging to the intertidal rock. Above the bluffs, California coastal prairie takes over - moderately acidic loamy soils that stunt some plants while nurturing rare species. Lupine, thistle, and wild oats bloom across the grasslands in spring. California mule deer browse the prairie, and the adjacent Ocean Song preserve extends the habitat corridor to the ridge-top forests of the California Coast Ranges. The acidity that limits growth also creates opportunity: rare plants that cannot compete in richer soils find refuge here.

Long before European settlement, the Coast Miwok and Pomo peoples inhabited this coastline. Archaeological evidence dates back to at least 1849, when the first formal finds were recorded, though the habitation itself stretches much further. Dozens of prehistoric kitchen middens and other traces of tribal life have been documented across the property, which falls within the boundaries of the Mexican land grant Rancho Bodega. Russians began logging the old-growth forests above the coastal prairie in the early 19th century, part of the same colonial enterprise that established Fort Ross to the north. European settlers followed, and their agricultural presence left remains of barns and outbuildings scattered across the prairie. At Duncans Point, iron pins driven into the sandstone bluffs testify to a once-active shipping industry. The underwater zone, extending a thousand feet from shore, holds its own secrets: records suggest seventeen vessels may have been lost in these waters, though no wrecks have yet been found.

The Kortum Trail connects Goat Rock, Shell Beach, and Wright's Beach along the coast, its wooden walkways bridging wetlands and its side paths descending to the shore and the bouldering routes at Sunset Boulders. The trail bears the name of Bill Kortum, a Sonoma County environmentalist whose unlikely path to conservation began on a Petaluma poultry farm. Kortum's mother was a descendant of the Donner Party; his father's parents made wine in the upper Napa Valley. After studying veterinary medicine at UC Davis, Kortum spent years traveling as a bovine veterinarian, and watching California's rural landscape disappear beneath development changed him. He became a driving force behind the creation of the California Coastal Commission, the body that has shaped the state's relationship with its shoreline ever since. He died in 2014 at eighty-seven, but the trail that carries his name still offers what he fought to protect: whales offshore, wildflowers underfoot, and seventeen miles of coast that belong to everyone.