Treasure On the Bay

Treasure On the Bay
            Floating in the middle of a sparkling blue bay is an island made of rock, institutional buildings and a tower rising up from the rock. It looks both beautiful and forbidding.
            Striking views of Alcatraz Island can be seen from countless vantage points around San Francisco Bay. The building complex on Alcatraz once functioned as the notorious high security prison nicknamed “The Rock.” The unsustainable expense of housing prisoners and prison staff on an island, requiring all supplies and personnel to be transferred back and forth by boat, led the prison to be shut down in 1963.
            Since that time, Alcatraz has become a hugely popular National Park visitor site. The short ferry ride to get there is exhilarating. Once there, visitors can walk through history through various options, including through an audio tour featuring comments by former guards and prisoners.
            Alcatraz is also host to a variety of wildlife, including various birds ranging from gulls, cormorants and herons to peregrine falcons.
            Alcatraz is a favorite tourist spot that surprises even locals with the depth of information and the feeling one senses when visiting the island in person.
            The expense of running the prison is what shut it down, and its transformation into a National Park site has made it a treasure.
            This week’s Hike Notes, Tunnel Tops Outpost Meadow Expansion, introduces an expanded section of San Francisco’s Presidio, a place with grand views of the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz rising across the shimmering water of the bay.
            Visit and protect your treasured places, and keep putting one foot forward!
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New this week:
Hike Notes 222: Tunnel Tops Outpost Meadow Expansion