Boone's stop at Point Bonita: the human story of a light reached only through a hand-cut rock tunnel out to a wind-lashed point, where keepers minded the wick and fog signal until the Coast Guard automated the station around 1980. Covers the closed footbridge, the platform-only view today, and why you should check opening days at nps.gov/goga first.
Now let me tell you about one of the trickiest lights to get out to on this whole shoreline, and the folks who tended it. To reach the Point Bonita light, you don't just walk up to it. The trail drops you into a tunnel bored straight through the rock, and it's said to have been cut by hand — Chinese laborers, so the story goes, chiseling the stone slow and careful. Beyond that tunnel the land pinches down to almost nothing, and the only way across to the light is a slender little suspension bridge strung high over the surf, with the waves grinding away at the rocks below.
Imagine keeping a light out there. The Park Service will tell you Point Bonita was among the last lighthouses on the California coast to keep a keeper on hand. Somebody lived out on that lonesome finger of rock, trimming the wick, minding the fog signal, walking that swaying bridge in the wind and the dark. This light's been guiding ships in since the eighteen-fifties, and for well over a hundred years there was always a keeper here. Then, around 1980, the Coast Guard automated the whole business. Machines took over the watch, and the keepers walked off the point for good.
Now, a word before you get your heart set. That famous suspension bridge is closed until further notice, so these days you walk out to the viewing platform and gaze at the light, but you can't cross to it. And mind yourself out there — the ground falls away steep and there's no rail, so keep well back from the edge and stay on the trail. The light itself only opens a handful of days, on hours that seem to shift around, so check ahead at nps.gov slash goga before you make the trip.
Photo: Allan J. Cronin · CC BY-SA 3.0
