Virtual Guidebook to Marin and the North Bay Counties
Tomales Bay State Park
Marin County California

Sheltered from the wind by the spine of the peninsula the little pocket beaches north of Inverness are delightful places for picnics and playing in the relatively warm water of Tomales Bay. They are even likely to have sunshine when the rest of the coast is foggy. The bark slab shelters on Indian Beach suggest to me that the simple natural life of the Coast Miwok Indians might have been quite pleasant here.

A dense forest of Bishop pine clothes the eastern slopes of Inverness Ridge from just north of Bear Valley to Marshall Beach. Tomales Bay State Park protects a large part of this beautiful and interesting "fire pine" forest as the "Jepson Memorial Grove" named for botanist Willis Linn Jepson.