Fitzgerald Marine Reserve Tide Chart

The reserve opens at 8 a.m. every day of the year, but its closing time moves with the season, and that is the column to watch in the table. In winter the county closes the reserve as early as 5 p.m., so a low that falls late in the afternoon gives you less time on the reef than its rating suggests: you want the hour after the low as well as the hour before it. In spring and summer the problem flips. Over the 12 months from October 2026, most of the windows that miss the reserve’s hours were early-morning lows before the 8 a.m. opening.

When the county’s published closing times run out, windows after the last date show “Not posted yet” instead of a guess, and the county’s hours page is the place to check. It also notes that weather or an emergency can change the hours.

The county’s address for the reserve is 200 Nevada Avenue, Moss Beach, and the main entrance has picnic tables and restrooms. The Friends of Fitzgerald Marine Reserve direct drivers to a parking lot on Lake Street, between California and Nevada streets, and stairs lead down to the beach and the reef. The Friends warn that both the stairs and the wet reef can be hard going for small children, so plan on a hand to hold.

From the parking lot, a short trail loops through a cypress forest and makes a good start or end to the visit: the Friends put the walk through the trees at 10 to 15 minutes and the whole loop at about half an hour. It is also the obvious thing to do while waiting for the tide to drop.

People have used this shore for a very long time. The county counts four Native American cultural sites along the shoreline and bluffs, one of them about 5,800 years old, and its history of the area notes that Native Americans fed Portolá’s expedition near Pillar Point in the mid-18th century. Since at least 1908, when the Ocean Shore Railroad reached the area, Moss Beach has drawn resort visitors, and people gathered food from the reef. University of California zoology classes have studied the pools since the 1910s.

Protection came in 1969, when the county’s Board of Supervisors passed a bill to make the Moss Beach tide pool area a reserve and the state legislature followed. The county also lists it as an Ecological Reserve under California’s Marine Resources Protection Act of 1990, and today the Montara State Marine Reserve covers it.

The county’s rules for the reef are stricter than many visitors expect. Look, but do not touch or handle anything alive, and do not lift animals into a cup or a bucket for a closer look, not even for a minute: moved from one part of the shore to another, they usually do not survive. Shells, rocks and loose seaweed stay where they are too, because hermit crabs and other animals live in and under them. Fishing is not allowed anywhere in the reserve, and neither are drones or remote-control boats and cars.

The reserve sits inside the Montara State Marine Reserve, which the county says runs south from near Montara State Beach and out to the edge of state waters, and where taking any living marine resource is prohibited. Dogs may walk the Coastal Trail but not go down to the pools.

Harbor seals live at the reserve all year, and the county’s rules mention their rookery. From March to June there may be very small pups lying next to their mothers on the rocks. A mother that is frightened off may not come back for her pup, so keep at least 300 feet away from any seal, and bring binoculars if you want a closer look.

A group of 15 or more needs a reservation, made by phone through San Mateo County Parks. For the 2026-27 season, which started on August 31, 2026, schools book first and other groups from October 5. The county allows at most two classrooms, or 75 people, on any one tour date, and pairs each booked group with a trained guide from the Friends group. Grade school classes can also use the county’s free pre-field-trip tidepool program to prepare.

Read this list with the 8 a.m. opening in mind. A daylight low at sunrise counts here, but the reserve may not be open yet, and in the spring and summer months that happens often. In fall and winter the lows move into the afternoon, where light and opening hours usually line up, as long as they come before closing time.