Moat Creek at Highway 1, Mendocino County

I’ve stopped at the small Moat Creek parking area a number of times now, always to follow the short path to the shore. The site is just a bit south of the town of Point Arena, and the beach is popular with surfers (high tide) and with tide pool explorers (low tide). On this visit, I decided to check out the Bluff Top Trail. It was only about 90 minutes before sunset on a Saturday and the tide was still out, so I had enough time to follow the looping trail before climbing down to visit the nearly deserted beach.