![]() The National Park Service strongly recommends for your safety that sea kayaking be done with one of the park's authorized guide/outfitters. Visitors may kayak on their own or with a park authorized guide/outiftter. Sea kayaking on your own in any area of the park should not be attempted by novice or first time kayakers or anyone who is not properly experienced, trained, conditioned and equipped. The challenging and quickly changing weather and at times extreme sea conditions and dangerous sea caves greatly add to the risks of sea kayaking in the park. Location: Off the coast of Southern CaliforniaĪrea: 389.9 square miles (1,009.Sea kayaking is a high risk activity that has caused the death of park visitors and annually numerous near fatal incidents with sea kayakers occur in the park. ![]() On our trip to the islands, we ran into an huge pod of dolphins-literally more than a thousand of them according to the guide-and saw a couple of humpback whales. If you’re lucky, you might even spot some marine animals on the way. Tickets are affordable and, more importantly, the boat ride offers you a totally different perspective of the islands and the southern California coast. They’re essentially your only option if you don’t have your own boat or want to spend money on a plane ride. There’s only one company that offers boat trips to and from the Channel Islands: Island Packers. It may be an archipelago, but the park is only a scenic boat ride away from Ventura, a coastal town just northwest of Los Angeles. The beauty of this national park not only lies in its actual natural beauty, but also in its accessibility. How to Get to Channel Islands National Park Video shared from the National Park Service website. Highlights of Channel Islands National Park You can read more about our Terms of Use / Disclosure here. This Channel Islands National Park information page contains affiliate links. This is a place where you can enjoy spectacular coastal scenery, see an abundance of wildlife, and enjoy activities like hiking, surfing and sea kayaking. While it’s difficult to really explore all five islands in-depth-unless you have a couple of weeks’ time to dedicate to this park-, the beauty of the Channel Islands is that you can get a sense of what this stunning archipelago is all about by spending a day (and preferably a night as well) on just one of the islands. The largest visitor center is the one in Ventura, which is also the departing and arrival point of island ferries (see below). ![]() This gorgeous park is only a short boat ride from the two mainland hubs of Santa Barbara and Ventura. These now-native island foxes are one of the most iconic-and visible-endemic animals in Channel Islands National Park. Mammoths became pygmy mammoths while gray foxes evolved to a species not larger than a cat. Many mammals made it across the Santa Barbara Channel, eventually evolving into species unique to the islands.Ī lot of them, adapting to the difficult conditions on these remote islands, grew smaller. ![]() Much of it is endemic, thanks to the islands’ isolated history. On land, too, there’s an amazing variety of life. Other high-profile marine animals include seals and sea lions, dolphins, humpback whales and sharks. Vast kelp forests surround the islands, providing a refuge and habitat for both the tiniest and the absolute largest animals, from plankton to blue whales. These currents stir up nutrients from the ocean floor, mixing all sorts of marine flora and fauna in a giant soup of life. This is the meeting point of a cold water current coming from the north and a warm current flowing in from the tropics. This, in addition to the region’s variety in geological and geographical features, is one of the main reasons for its extraordinary biodiversity-there are over 2,000 animal species on and around the islands. The result of volcanic activity and plate tectonics, none of the islands were ever connected to the mainland. The five islands in Channel Islands National Park are Anacapa, Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, San Miguel and Santa Barbara. Five of the eight Channel Islands are protected as Channel Islands National Park. The sea floor around the archipelago consists of sea mounts, underwater plateaus, canyons and vast basins-Santa Cruz Basin, for example, is deeper than the Grand Canyon. The eight Channel Islands are located between the Southern California mainland and the open Pacific Ocean, in an oceanic region characterized by a remarkably varied topography. Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, COĪlso known as the “Galapagos of North America”, California’s Channel Islands are a biodiversity hotspot, home to seals, whales, sharks, dolphins and unique land animals.Great Smoky Mountains National Park, NC/TN.
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