It is the longest wild, undeveloped stretch of coastline in California. I was walking along the beach looking at and photographing skunk tracks and trail patterns when I turned around and saw the distinctive shape of this heel pad in the sand. The light was rapidly fading as the sun sunk below the horizon, so I quickly began photographing the mountain lion tracks. The lion had hopped down from a bluff and walked along the base of the bluff toward a freshwater creek that emptied onto the beach here. The track on top is the hind track.
Size is about three inches.
The tracks on the far left and far right are mountain lion tracks. The pair in the middle are raccoon tracks. The straight mark in the sand at the top of the photo is where I rested the stick to take a photo. However, the shadow from the stick was cast over the tracks, so I moved it. The stride here is about 16 inches.