• Tips for Visitors

Sweeney Ridge is a hilly hiking area of ridges and ravines between San Bruno and Pacifica, about a 25-minute drive south from San Francisco. The ridge's 1,200-foot-high summit, covered with coastal scrub and grassland, slopes down to the bay on one side and to the Pacific on the other. Wildlife includes hawks, deer, and a plethora of both native and introduced spring wildflowers. A walk along Sweeney Ridge takes you through a history of San Francisco's 20th-century coastal defense system. It was from this high point Spanish explorer Gaspar de Portola first saw San Francisco Bay more than 200 years ago.

On Sweeney's crest, look for the stone plaque honoring Portola's expedition. A nearby granite monument directs you to views from this scenic San Francisco Bay Discovery Site, including the Farallon Islands, Mt. Tamalpais, Point Reyes, Mt. Diablo, the Montara Mountains, and San Pedro Point.

At the Sweeney Ridge trailhead stands a cluster of Lord and Burnum greenhouses originally built in 1949 by orchid legend Herb Hager and now known as Shelldance Nursery. Hager created world-class hybrid orchids here, naming many after the area. The nursery still cultivates hundreds of orchids and bromeliads in the greenhouses, flowers that thrive in the Pacific Coast environment that is so like the wet and cool cloud forests where many species originated. The Nursery is open to the public on weekends, with educational programs by appointment.

The sandy coastline and adjacent wind-protected valley of Thornton State Beach are good venues for picnicking, beach walking, surf fishing, and flying remote-control gliders. The entrance to the beach is just south of Fort Funston. Park on Highway 35 (Skyline Boulevard) at the gate across from John Daly Boulevard and walk down.