Visiting the Pacific Grove Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary

Each fall and winter, thousands of western monarch butterflies arrive in Pacific Grove to wait out the cold months, clustering in the trees of the Monarch Grove Sanctuary. The sanctuary is about 15 minutes from Sand Dollar Inn, across Monterey and up through Pacific Grove.

The butterflies are usually present from about October to February. On cool mornings they hang in tight clusters that look like dead leaves, and when the sun warms the grove they open their wings and float between the branches. Numbers change a lot from year to year, so check the latest count before you go.

Tips

• Visit on a sunny, mild day, late morning to early afternoon, when the monarchs are most active.
• Bring binoculars. The clusters are often high in the trees.
• The Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History posts counts and visitor information during the season.

pgmuseum.org

Photo: Monarch Butterflies Overwintering in Pacific Grove, California (31524122682) by Joanna Gilkeson/USFWS (Pacific Southwest Region), via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain: U.S. federal government work (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) - public domain in the U.S. (17 U.S.C. 105). Resized; website renditions may be cropped and converted in format.