Montana De Oro, A Secret Gem of California

Montana De Oro, A Secret Gem of California

We enjoyed hiking at one of the most picturesque and serene locations on the Central Coast of California, Montana De Oro State Park, just 25 minutes off the 101 Freeway.   With majestic cliffs, the restless sea, coves strewn with spectacular rock formations, wildflowers, and hikes to soak up the vastness of the ocean and the constant murmur of the waves , this location is one of the hidden treasures of the California Coast.

Upon entering the Montana De Oro State Park after driving down Los Osos Valley Road, you will pass through a canopy of eucalyptus (planted in the late 1800s for commercial timber activity) to Spooner’s Cove.  A little further from Spooner’s Cove is the starting point of the Bluff Trail. The Bluff Trail is an easy three-mile walk on a broad path along the edge of cliff without any interruption of the magnificent views of the ocean. The trail is flanked by miles of short-brush filled with wildflowers such as the golden California Poppy, the violet thistle and other brightly-colored flowers giving the location its name, “Mountain of Gold". 

You can walk down to the coves and inspect the layered rock formations that rise at stunningly acute angles from the ocean. What seemed at first like sedimentary limestone rock at first, these sheets of rock had also intriguingly low-density.  These rocks are actually fossilized diatoms (micro-plants) deposited on the ocean floor from millions of years ago of marine photosynthetic activity.  The fossilized remains of these once-food producing (carbon-storing) organisms were now left with just their silica-rich cell walls intact.  The layers of the fossilized diatoms have been lifted out from the sea by tectonic activity to become these angled rocks.   We were surprised that these surface protrusions were also the tip of the remarkable “The Monterey Shale Formation” that extends miles below ocean floor and about 300 miles inland, recently deemed to hold billions of barrels of oil (resulting from the carbon-producing diatoms) that will now be recovered by the controversial process of “hydraulic fracking”.