N38 W123 - Point Reyes Headlands, CA
Posted by: 
DougK
N 38° 00.000 W 123° 00.000
10S E 500000 N 4205815
This confluence point is near the southern tip of the Point Reyes Headlands. It is an interesting spot with ocean nearby on three sides.
Waymark Code: WM9BD5
Location: California, United States
Date Posted: 07/26/2010
Views: 19
This is an fascinating piece of land in
Point Reyes National Seashore, surrounded pretty closely by ocean on three sides. It looks almost like luck that this confluence spot was on land. Given that Point Reyes is on the Pacific Plate, heading north relative to the North American Plate at two inches per year, one can see that in a few thousand years the plate will have moved away and this point will be in the ocean! So come visit it while you can.
To get to this point take Sir Francis Drake Boulevard through Inverness and out to the western beach area of Point Reyes National Seashore. Drive past many historic farms of Point Reyes, which are designated with letters. The letter descend through the alphabet until Historic A Ranch, circa 1859. At the road junction just past the farm, turn right and the road heads up hill. There are two roads (little more that tire tracks) that say "Authorized Vehicles Only". At the second one, my GPSr indicated that I was about a a quarter mile away from the confluence point, so I parked off the road, not blocking the off road access.
From here, I started walking and startled several Tule Elk with decent sized antler racks. I walked north on the road a bit, but it soon faded to near nothing. At that point I crested a downhill slope and was a few hundred feet away. Walking down a slope of about 30 degrees, I let my GPSr guide me to the spot and the GPS settled in at the confluence and stayed there unwavering. I took pictures in all directions and enjoyed the view from the hillside. The most noticeable feature is an almost rectangular reservoir, probably for cattle.
This spot on the planet is certainly a unique confluence point. From North America, it is the last landfall of the 123rd meridian before Antarctica and the last land under the 38th parallel until Japan.
Afterwards a drive out the Point Reyes Lighthouse is a worthwhile excursion as well.