Posts Tagged ‘Hill 88’
Tuesday, September 6th, 2011
How many hills do you know of what come with their own Yelp entry?
You ought to get on up there sometime to check it out:
“Hill 88 is a wild ghost town in the sky, hidden way up high in the Marin Headlands. It’s on Wolf Ridge, between Fort Cronkhite/Rodeo Beach and Tennessee Valley. You can barely see it from below, and it’s nothing like most of the old little rusty lifeless bunker sites. This is a crazy Cold War mega-complex teeming with tons of crows dancing in the whipping wind above huge expanses of the bay and SF. It’s part of the old Nike Missile program, officially SF-88C. Was apparently the radar and control center (aka the IFC, or Integrated Fire Control area) of the Nike Missile launch site that’s further down the hill to the east.”
So, those are some of the remnants of Project Nike on top of now-flattened Hill 88 in the foreground along with the three peaks of Mount Tam (with the West Peak also flattened by the Air Force) in the background.
As seen from San Francisco:
Click to expand
Now, you Know Better Your Marin County.
Tags: 2010, 2011, 88, air force, ajax, area, army, atomic, base, bay area, beach, bombers, bombs, california, Cold War, county, Fort Cronkhite, ghost town, headlands, hercules, hiking, hill, Hill 88, Integrated Fire Control, marin, Marin Headlands, military, missile, mount, mount tam, nike, nike b, nuclear, photo, pics, presidio, rodeo, rodeo beach, San Francisco, sf-88, sf-88c, sf-89, sutro, tam, tamalpais, tennessee valley, Wild Ghost Town in the Sky, Wolf Ridge, wolfback ridge
Posted in military | No Comments »
Thursday, June 9th, 2011
Well, here’s an update to this old post from 2008. The big change since then has been the arrival of the Presidio Landmark apartments. Enjoy:
In the foreground we see the Presidio’s now-abandoned Public Health Service Hospital (PHSH), site of the old U.S. Marine Hospital and Defense Language Institute.
On the left further back in Marin is Hill 88, former site of Integrated Fire Control facility SF-88C Wolf Ridge that used to house W31 nuclear warheads and Nike Ajax / Nike Hercules defensive missiles
And on the right up high is the West Peak of Mount Tamalpais, former home of Mill Valley Air Force Station.
Not much going on at these places these days.
Tags: 2011, bay area, california, county, Defense Language Institute, Hill 88, marin, Mill Valley Air Force Station, Mt., Public Health Service Hospital, San Francisco, tam, tamalpais, U.S. Marine Hospital
Posted in buildings, military | No Comments »
Thursday, November 12th, 2009
This is the view from San Francisco over the Golden Gate – can you see the defunct buildings of Hill 88 in front of the East Peak of Mount Tamalpais? Those buildings were the eyes and ears of SF-88, southern Marin’s very own Nike Hercules missile complex.
Click to expand
The actual nuclear warheads and missiles were stored at another facility down the hill – you can visit that place Wednesday through Saturday.
What’s shown in this photo above is the radar station part of the base, on the summit, where they had German shepherd guard dogs, machine guns, the whole magilla until the 1970′s. San Francisco also had a similar setup back in the day using the Presidio and Mount Sutro, but that was the smaller, non-nuclear Nike Ajax system and there’s really nothing left to visit anymore.
But in Marin, you can climb up to the hilltop facility of SF-88 whenever you want - you’ll get nice views and you’ll have a chance to see the graffiti.
Come visit Marin’s Wild Ghost Town in the Sky.
Tags: 88, air force, ajax, army, atomic, base, beach, bombers, bombs, county, ghost town, headlands, hercules, hiking, hill, Hill 88, marin, military, missile, mount, mount tam, nike, nuclear, photo, pics, presidio, rodeo, San Francisco, sf-88, sf-89, sutro, tamalpais, Wild Ghost Town in the Sky
Posted in History | Comments Off
Thursday, April 17th, 2008
In the foreground we see the Presidio’s now-abandoned Public Health Service Hospital (PHSH), site of the old U.S. Marine Hospital and Defense Language Institute.
On the left further back in Marin is Hill 88, former site of Integrated Fire Control facility SF-88C Wolf Ridge that used to house W31 nuclear warheads and Nike Ajax / Nike Hercules defensive missiles
And on the right up high is the West Peak of Mount Tamalpais, former home of Mill Valley Air Force Station.
Not much going on at these places these days.
Tags: Defense Language Institute, Hill 88, marin, Mill Valley Air Force Station, Mt., Public Health Service Hospital, San Francisco, tam, tamalpais, U.S. Marine Hospital
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off
