See also pp. Follow 116 west through downtown Petaluma, up over a low ridge of hills, and down through beautiful, rural Two Rocks Valley. In about twenty miles, you join with state highway 1, coming north from Pt. Follow highway 1 west a couple of miles to Valley Ford and keep going along it another eight or so miles until you finally reach the coast at Bodega Bay, site of Alfred Hitchcock's famous movie The Birds . If you just want to hike, continue on north along highway 1, winding in and out along high cliffs and through beautiful canyons of the Sonoma Coast State Beaches for about eight miles.
Shell Beach is another mile and a half north.
Turn left here into the parking lot. There is a rest room under the trees at the head of the short trail down to the beach. On the other side of the highway is the western terminus of the three-mile trail over the hills to the Pomo Ecological Campground. The takeoff point of the Kortum Trail is at the northwest corner of the parking lot. As you face north along the trail, you'll see, in the middle distance, a tall rock mesa and, behind it and to the left, an even taller grassy hill.