Angel Island

Angel Island is a little secret in the bay area. Not many people know much about it, but most people know exactly what Alcatraz is and that island it tiny compared to Angel Island.

The island has been used for many things. It was first inhabited by the Miwok Indians who used the island to fish and hunt about 2,000 years ago. Camp Reynolds was established in 1863 to protect the bay during the Civil War. It was a detention camp for soldiers returning from the Spanish-American War and a recruitment and replacement depot during WWI. During WWII it was a processing facility for prisoners of war. The Cold War brought a Nike missile battery to the island, but it soon became obsolete.

The island was also used as a Quarantine Station where ships would be fumigated to get rid of any foreign diseases. From 1910 to 1940 the island was used as a US Immigration Station. Nearly one million immigrants from over 80 countries were processed here.

Now that you know more about what Angel Island is, let me show you what we did while we were there. First things first, we wanted to hike all the way to the top. It's called Mount Livermore and there were a couple really cool trails that lead to the top.

Some looked like this:

And some looked like this:

It was a foggy day (go figure) and once we got high enough you could see the fog all around. The trees were covered in moss.

Once we finally got to the top it was so foggy we couldn't see anything. It was chilly too. We decided it was time to eat lunch and we did so quickly because we needed to get moving and warm up.

We headed down on a different trail. On this side of the island there were awesome views of the city and we tried to get some good pictures in between the clouds. You can see Alcatraz too.

We got back on the main road and wound up getting a great history lesson from a volunteer at the guard house located at Fort McDowell. He told us about the men who were stationed on the island and showed us where the barracks, mess hall and hospital were located. The volunteer noticed Joe's shirt and turns out he was born in Iowa. Small world!

We had some time to spare before our ferry arrived so we went back to the picnic area near the port. There was this really cute little place to eat called Cove Cafe. There was even live music.

There's a lot more to do on the island too. They have a tram tour for people who don't want to hike, segway tours for people who want to look goofy (just kidding) and bike rentals. If we had more time we might have rented bikes.