![]() Lands End was used as a military fort, Fort Miley, starting in the late 1800's. San Franciscans could take the train out to the Cliff House until 1925, when a landslide closed the track. In 1888, German immigrant Adolph Sutro arranged to have a railway built from downtown SF out to the wilderness area where he had built the Cliff House and the Sutro Baths. The coastal trail used to be a railway line. Two centuries later, the Spanish explorer Don Gaspar de Portolamarched with his men up from Baja California and arrived at San Francisco Bay on October 31, 1769. The first Europeans to see Lands End were possibly privateer Sir Francis Drake and his crew, when the Golden Hind sailed down the California coast past the entrance to the bay in 1579. They had seasonal camps where the Sutro Baths ruins are now, eating seafood and hunting seals archeologists found their garbage dumps, more politely known as middens. An archeological site at Lands End was dated at 150 A.D., but there is evidence that Indians had been living in San Francisco for around 3,000 years. San Francisco was originally inhabited by the Ohlone Indians. Lands End San Francisco History Early History But the trail is frequently used anyway, as evident from the well-worn pathway leading to the cliff. The path leading to the scene of the 2017 tragedy has a fence (small one) and a sign warning not to go there, stating that people have fallen to their deaths here. The soil is crumbly and unstable near the edges and there is a 200 foot drop to the rocks below. It is so important to heed the warnings about not walking close to the edges and staying on the trails at Lands End. In just the first 6 months of 2017, in addition to the fatal fall, there were four cliff rescues just at Lands End. On June 22, 2017, a 17-year-old girl fell to her death from the cliff in an area fenced off to visitors. ![]() The dangerous cliffs at Lands End claimed another life on December 4, 2019, when a man fell 200 feet to his death. 2.5 hour tour through the Golden Gate and along the coast. See Oceanic Society tour for more info and booking. These are amazing tours guided by wildlife experts, and you get to see the islands offshore this is the only way to get out there. 7.5 hour tour out to the Farallon Islands. The whale-watching tours running in 2023 so far: Gray Whales, Orcas: December through May.Point Reyes north of SF is also a good place to see them. ![]() I've seen them off of Ocean Beach and Fort Funston beach, but the best way is to go out on a boat to where they are traveling offshore. Though they aren't usually in the bay, they do pass right by along the coast. The humpbacks are one of the larger whale species, 30 to 50 feet long (12 to 14 meters). Quite a treat to see so many whales, so close to shore.Įven if they're not out in numbers this year, there's still a decent chance of seeing one or two out in the channel. This was pretty unusual humpbacks tend to be solitary, appearing alone or just two. You could see them easily from shore, breaching and spouting. In the summer of 2017, large numbers of humpback whales were frolicking off Lands End, from the Golden Gate Bridge to the entrance to the bay near the Cliff House and Sutro Baths. The migration season is all year long because different species travel at different times. The cave entrance is tidal and the best light falls on the bay late in the day – detailed directions are below.San Francisco is on the migration route for a number of whale species, which gives us a great opportunity to get a look at them as they go by. Graffiti covers the walls – oddly making the place seem all the more menacing – but thankfully no body parts are to be seen. You might even have company, but of pigeons rather than Sawney’s descendants. The cave is a couple of hundred metres long, pitch black at the back (torches required), and has a distinct chill even at the height of summer. We can’t vouch for how much of the tale is true, but you can still travel along the highway (today the A77) where the ambushes may have happened, then follow in the clan’s footsteps down to the cave where victims may have been devoured. Each night Sawney, his equally savage spouse and two generations of their offspring would ambush unwary travellers on the nearby highway: their dismembered bodies forming the staple of a murderous diet. It’s a story guaranteed to send a shiver down many a spine folklore tells that Sawney Bean was the head of a cannibalistic Scottish clan that inhabited a deep sea cave on the South Ayrshire coast.
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