Tunitas Creek

Course

The creek rises at an altitude of 1860 ft on Kings Mountain in the Santa Cruz Mountains and flows to the Pacific Ocean at Tunitas Creek Beach. An all-weather paved county road, Tunitas Creek Road, follows its course. Steelhead trout have been found in the creek.

Tunitas Creek Open Space Preserve, owned by Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District, encompasses approximately 2,200 acres along the creek.

History

The first European land exploration of Alta California, the Spanish Portolà expedition, traveled along the coast on its way north, camping near today's San Gregorio, from October 24 to 26, 1769. On the return journey to San Diego, the party camped near Half Moon Bay on November 16, and at Tunitas Creek on November 17. Franciscan missionary Juan Crespi noted in his diary: "This morning broke very cloudy, and as soon as we started on our way it began to rain, and in the whole three leagues [about 7.8 miles] that we traveled it was falling on us. We halted on the banks of a deep arroyo."

The name "Arroyo de Las Tunitas" appears on the diseños (claim maps) of both Rancho San Gregorio (1839) and Rancho Cañada Verde (1838) because it was part of the boundary between them.

Tunitas Creek Beach is enclosed by 100 ft cliffs.

The beach was formerly private,

Tributaries

• Dry Creek
• Rings Gulch
• East Fork Tunitas Creek
• Mitchell Creek

References

References

1. {{Gnis. 236624. Tunitas Creek
2. U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline data. [http://viewer.nationalmap.gov/viewer/ The National Map] {{webarchive. link. (March 29, 2012.)
3. [http://www.topozone.com/map.asp?lat=37.35919&lon=-122.39166&size=l&u=4&datum=nad83&layer=DRG25 USGS], retrieved September 20, 2007.
4. Weigel, Samantha. (May 31, 2017). "Protecting Tunitas from trash: County, POST look to purchase secluded coastal property". [[San Mateo Daily Journal]].
5. Rogers, Paul. (June 16, 2023). "Famed musician's former beach property to become new park on San Mateo coast". [[The Mercury News]].
6. (June 30, 2020). "Midpen Open Space purchases 540 acres on San Mateo County coast". [[Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District]].
7. Bolton, Herbert E.. (1927). "Fray Juan Crespi: Missionary Explorer on the Pacific Coast, 1769-1774". HathiTrust Digital Library.
8. Gudde, Erwin G.. (1949). "California Place Names: A Geographical Dictionary". University of California Press.
9. "Tunitas Beach". NOAA.
10. Vonderlin, John. (December 15, 2008). "Blink + you'll miss 'Gordon's Chute' Shoot".
11. Chamings, Andrew. (June 15, 2023). "SF rock star's former Bay Area property to become public beach".