evohr.org > trips > Año Nuevo

We had an especially gorgeous fall this year, so for one of our spur-of-the-moment fun days, we decided to head off to the Año Nuevo State Reserve.

The main attraction here is the elephant seals, who get involved in some spectacular midwinter mating rituals. (Imagine sweaty SUVs crashing into each other to establish dominance.) This gets so popular that during "peak season" you need to make reservations almost two months in advance to be allowed into the reserve to see it.

We figured that by jumping the gun a bit, we could avoid the rush, but we ran into a few snags. As it turns out, we needed to take two trips (in late October and early November) to actually see our first elephant seals.

Click on any image below to start the slide show at that point:

October 2000

elephant family m_snuggle m_warm m_bond m_front
Cove Beach
glisten delta shimmer gold
critter critter_crop critter_crop2
beach clouds clouds2 contrail
feathers feathers2
November 2000
wild seals seals2 dunes
b_easter b_happy b_cold mk_hat m_nurse
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