We drove a few miles north of Santa Crux this morning to hike the bluff trails in Wilder Ranch State Park. We parked at the Four Mile Beach Parking Area and hiked to the Wilder Beach overlook and back for 9.75 miles round trip with about 300 ft of up and downs across some of the beaches. This route is a combination of trails and farm roads.
View as we hiked down from the parking area towards Four Mile Beach.
There is a pond by Four Mile Beach where we saw these ducks in the water. There were also several surfers catching waves.
zoom of the ducksPano at Four Mile Beach
Looking back at Four Mile Beach from the bluff.
Between Highway 1 and the bluff's edge are many Brussel sprouts fields as the Wilder Ranch grows 12% of the nation's crop. Near here an owl flew over us twice.Pano from the south end of Four Mile Beach:
sea rock off the south end of Four Mile Beach with lots of shore birds 
View to the south as the sun is still low on the horizon
We took the trail down and crossed Three Mile Beach, looking back northward.
Overlook from the south end of Three Mile Beach looking northward.
Rocky ledge at the bottom of the bluff
There are many of these warning signs along the bluff
The water just off of this shoreline is part of the Natural Bridges State Marine Reserve. The area between Three Mile Beach and Strawberry Beach have several of these large flat sea rocks.
Beautiful area
We watched water come out of a blowhole in one of these sea rocks.
We decided to stay up on the bluff and hike around Strawberry Beach.
Looking back north at Strawberry Beach
View further to the south, there are many coves to hike around.
This sea rock that looks like a medieval tower, has many shorebirds on top
Lots of pelicans and cormorants
We hiked down to Sand Plant Beach and walked across the sand before returning back up to the bluff.
More bluff scenery to the south we hiked along
View looking down into Fern Grotto Beach, we decided to explore this area on our hike back.
View to the north from the south of Fern Grotto Beach
We watched the waves wash cormorants off of the large sea rock in the back.
seagulls lined up along the bluff
I think this is the cove where schooners stopped to load lumber in the 1800's.
This area has so many lovely seascapes
Sea caves at the bottom of the bluff
Overlooking Wilder Beach, we turned around a short ways beyond this spot.
View along the bluff as we hiked back northward
View overlooking Fern Grotto Beach, the Fern Grotto is in the back of this beach.
We took a lunch break at Fern Grotto Beach.
The Fern Grotto
part way inside the grotto
Looking back inside the grotto, it was very cool in here.
Looking out from inside Fern Grotto
Lots of ferns hanging off the outer grotto wall
Zoom of two pelicans
Enjoying the views as we continue to hike up along the bluff
All of a sudden, a large number of seagulls flew past us
More beach views as we recrossed Three Mile and Four Mile Beache
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