• Tips for Visitors
• Nature
• History

Tennessee Valley meanders for approximately two miles through serene, rolling hills down to the Pacific. It was once known as Elk Valley, popular for hunting such game as elk, bear, deer, and wild coyote. Now, a wide, well-groomed trail offers an easy walk, bike, or horseback ride to the ocean. Out under the surf, off the cove's black beach, lies the shipwreck of the SS Tennessee, the valley's namesake.

The 1.8 mile hike to Tennessee Cove begins at the trailhead parking lot, about a mile down Tennessee Valley Road. The view from the cove takes in wave-lashed rocks and the jagged edge of Marin County. Sandwiched between the bluffs on either side of the cove, lies a pocket beach. Swimming is not recommended. During low tide, it is possible to get around the southern end to reach another small, sandy beach with interesting rock formations, but beware of hazardous surf.

Much of the trail, partially paved, is wheelchair-accessible. The trail also offers a leisurely bicycle ride, with bike racks provided halfway down the valley and at the cove. Sausalito and Tiburon bike paths and local roads connect with Tennessee Valley.

Few tangible links with Tennessee Valley's agricultural past remain, but for decades, family dairies nestled in Tennessee Valley and provided milk to the growing city of San Francisco. Horses were another common sight, and today can be seen on a number of area trails. The Miwok Livery Stables, one of many GGNRA Park Partners, provides unique opportunities for riders, visitors, and students, including interpretive guided horseback rides to Muir Beach and other areas.

Tips for Visitors

• Coordinate your visit with a low tide and seasonal sand alignments to see the engine of the shipwrecked Tennessee.
• If exploring the cove, be careful not to get cut off from the main beach by high tides.
• Look for the hole high in the black rock cliffs that was carved by ocean waves.
• Golden Gate Transit buses stop at the intersection of Shoreline Highway and Tennessee Valley Road.
• Dogs are not allowed on the main trail.

"Some of the most eloquently sculpted seacliffs in the Headlands are at Tennessee Cove. The high sheer wall on the north side of the cove is primarily chert, hollowed by millennial waves into shallow caverns under layered arches that are greenish on the surface, except near the cornerstone of the wall, where the contorted layers are yellow-gold. Some 75 feet up the cliff is a "keyhole"—a 10-foot clerestory window in the wall affording a view of the sky. It is a result of waves from both sides of the wall cutting into a fault zone and undermining the wall until it broke through at its narrowest point, creating the window. The wall at the south end of the cove is even more spectacular; here the waves have exposed the basalt beneath the overlying chert, which here is not only reddish but warm gold to orange. "—From Marin Headlands: Portals of Time, by Harold and Ann Lawrence Gilliam