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| Ayala Cove. It was previously known as "Hospital Cove" because the first quarantine hospital was in this area. It is now the ferry terminal and park headquarters on Angel Island |
In spite of having visited the bay area numerous times, we had never been to Angel Island. The 1.2 square mile island is located in San Francisco Bay. To the south of Angel Island is Alcatraz Island and San Francisco. North of the island is the city of Tiburon, which is located in Marin County.
Unless you have wealthy friends in the bay area who own a boat, you'll need to take a ferry to reach Angel Island. Ferry service runs from both San Francisco and Tiburon. If you're visiting from San Francisco it would be using the Blue & Gold Fleet Ferry Service. From Tiburon you would use the Angel Island Tiburon Ferry Service. The schedules vary throughout the year so make sure you are looking at the appropriate schedule if you are planning a visit.
Blue & Gold Ferry Service San Francisco to Angel Island
Angel Island Tiburon Ferry Company
If you're looking for great hikes in a historic setting away from the hustle and bustle of the city, Angel Island is the perfect place to spend a day. Even though we visited on a weekend, it was off season so the ferry and the island itself were not crowded. Although some services on the island (bike rental, café, shuttle tours) were closed, we found that to be a small trade off for the peacefulness we were able to enjoy. The small visitors center/museum was open and is well worth investing 15-20 minutes of time at the beginning or end of your day.
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| Angel Island Visitors Center |
Angel Island
The land that now makes up Angel Island has a long and interesting history. If you go back ten thousand years it wasn't an island, but a part of the mainland. It was cut off by the rise in sea levels from a previous "global warming" event, known as the end of the ice age.
Jumping forward a bit, in 1863 during the Civil War, the US Army built an artillery on the island to help defend San Francisco in case it was attacked by confederate troops.
In the 1880's the army designated the entire island as Fort McDowell. In addition to a traditional fort, facilities were built to serve as a quarantine station as well as a discharge depot for troops returning from the Spanish-American War. The quarantine station was an attempt to reduce the threat of Bubonic plague from Asian passengers prior to them being allowed on the mainland. It continued to serve as a transit station for troops during World War I and World War II. During World War II it also was used as a detention station for Japanese, German and Italian immigrant residents of Hawaii who had been detained as well as Japanese and German prisoners of war.
From 1910 to 1940 a part of the island known as China Cove was used as an immigration station. Immigrants from 84 different countries were processed here, however, for the approximately one million Chinese immigrants that came through Angel Island the journey was a difficult one. Because of the Chinese Exclusion Act immigrants from China were put through a rigorous background check, physical examination and disinfection process. Sometimes this process was only a couple of weeks in length but other immigrants were detained for up to two years before being admitted or denied entry into the US. The housing conditions for these immigrants were described as being deplorable.
While many of the buildings in the immigration station were destroyed by fire in 1940, some buildings remain and are now open to the public as a museum. There is a small admission fee (currently $5) for the museum. Unfortunately due to time constraints we decided to save the museum for another visit.
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| Immigration Station Museum |
In 1955 the California State Park Commission purchased 38 acres of land around Ayala Cove which is where the ferries dock. This was the original Angel Island State Park. Additional acreage was purchased in 1959 and the park was expanded. In 1962 the last of the Department of Defense operations were removed from the island and in December of that year the entire island became Angel Island State Park. From what I have been able to learn, there are a few tent campsites on Angel Island, but these sites are very popular and extremely difficult to book. For all practical purposes Angel Island State Park is a "day use" facility.
We took the ferry from Tiburon ($15 round trip which included park admission), which is a short fifteen minute ride. Along the way we had great views of the waterfront area of Tiburon, Alcatraz, the San Francisco skyline and were entertained by numerous seals and sea lions playing and feeding in the chilly water.
The ferries dock in Ayala Cove where the park headquarters are located. There are restrooms, visitors center, and picnic tables located in this area. During busier times of the year the café and bike rental station is located here as well.
There are numerous trailheads that can be accessed from Ayala Cove. Some of these trails traverse the inner section of the small island and pass over Mt. Livermore, which at 788 feet above sea level is the highest point on the island. We opted for the longest (5.5 miles) and flattest trail, the Perimeter Road trail.
As the name implies, the Perimeter Road trail goes around the entire island. Also, it's actually a road so it's paved surface would be good for bicycles as well. A short walk up a somewhat steep path will lead you to the Perimeter Road trail. Don't be intimated by this section, it's by far the steepest grade of trail you'll encounter.
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| Near the Perimeter Road Trailhead. In the background is Ayala Cove |
Once you reach the trail, you have two options, left or right. We chose to go left (counterclockwise) which means our 360 degree view out from the island went from looking back at Tiburon to Berkley/Oakland, the Bay Bridge, San Francisco, and finished with the Golden Gate Bridge. The views were nothing short of spectacular the entire time. We made a couple of diversions off the trail to spend a little bit of time in the immigration station area where there are numerous informational displays (don't miss the memorial wall) and Quarry Beach.
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| Quarry Beach. The Bay Bridge and San Francisco Skyline in the background |
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| Nice looking buck grazing alongside the trail. There is a large, managed deer population on the island. |
If you're planning to hike the entire Perimeter Road trail you can't go wrong going in either direction. If you are going to do just part of the trail, the views going clockwise are probably a little more dramatic. If you're interested in the immigration station museum, a counterclockwise direction will get you there first. Below are a few more photos from along the Perimeter Road Trail.
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| Tiburon, with Mt. Tam in the background. |
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| Quarry Beach, with Berkley/Oakland in the background. |
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| Alcatraz, with the San Francisco skyline in the background. |
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| Golden Gate Bridge! |
We caught the last ferry (currently 3:30) back to Tiburon. Our only regret for the day was that we had not gotten an earlier start and taken one of the first two ferries to the island in the morning instead of the 11:00 ferry.
Angel Island was a very pleasant surprise and is a place we look forward to visiting again in the future!
