California Coastal Trail San Simeon Point

William Hearst and his family left us more than a castle. Across Highway 1 from the Visitors’ Center, sitting on San Simeon Bay, is William R. Hearst Memorial State Beach. This was given to the people of California by the Hearst estate in 1951.
Park hours are sunrise to sunset. Day use and parking are free. A 1000 foot pier projects into the bay, providing a nice promenade for fishing or sightseeing. California Kayak Company offers kayak tours and rentals. A picnic area has tables, barbecues and an open air shower. This is a convenient starting point for a hike around San Simeon Point.
Dogs must be kept on a six foot leash inside the park. I explained this to Dexter and told him it was just until we left the park area. I don’t know how much Dexter understands when I explain things to him, but we did give him the Readers Digest Dog IQ test once. He scored Very Smart.
At the north end of the beach, past Sebastian’s General Store, a trail leads up the bluff into a eucalyptus grove. A barbed wire fence separates a narrow pathway along the bluff’s edge from the Hearst property inland. The fence soon disappears and the trail continues along the periphery of San Simeon Point.
Within a few minutes, we entered a grove of pine trees in a grassy meadow. Their branches, hung with tufts of Spanish moss, grew in random patterns. Vines of poison oak wrapped around the trunks and reached upward toward the sunlight. Interspersed among the pines were elderly eucalyptus trees surrounded by slender shoots of offspring. The ground beneath was open and park-like. It reminded me of Point Lobos. To the left, across the tops of berry bushes, we had views across the water to Point Estero and Point Buchon.
Dexter barked to warn me that we had company. Three black Angus bulls were hanging back in the shadows of the trees and giving us wary stares. I called Dexter to my side and we kept walking.
At the tip of the point, a trail led down to a rocky ledge just above the water line. North Entrance Rock, just offshore, provided a resting perch for en route cormorants. A tiny beach, accessible only by the adventurous, was bounded on the south by an archway cut through the rocky bluff.
We walked around to the north side of the point. Steep trails led down to rocky tidepools. Another isolated beach was more accessible but also more exposed to the cold, onshore wind. We slipped and slid down the slope. There was a short jump to the coarse, wet sand. The tidepools had your standard stuff–crabs, mussels, anemones. Since the sand was wet and the tide was out, I guessed that the beach might go underwater a couple of times a day.
Continuing north, we had our first views of Piedras Blancas Lighthouse. I sniffed the air–salt and iodine, no hint yet of elephant seals. A fishing boat pitched and rolled offshore.
Most of the beach on the north side of the point is made up of striated sandstone, bent and buckled by tectonic forces so that the layers lie almost vertical.
The trail wound through low brush parallel to the cliff. At times it was forced by stiff juniper branches right to the edge of the precipice. That didn’t bother Dexter as much as it did me. At other times, it tunneled through the juniper limbs, forcing me down to dog-level in order to pass underneath.
Finally the coastal trail gave up and turned inland. It continued north through a grove of cypress trees, cutting between parallel rows like a bridle trail. At the edge of the trees, we followed the pathway onto a large, open coastal plateau. We could see the lighthouse ahead of us and cars passing by on Highway 1. We continued north, angling toward the coastline, through fragrant, flowering bushes and busy insects.
Twenty minutes of walking brought us to the south end of Windy Cove. A long stretch of sandy beach rolled north to distant, white dunes. Dexter led me to the end of a small creek where it pooled and sank into the sand. He needed to get a drink of water and soak his feet.
We had a nice view from the creek’s edge of Mr. Hearst’s twin towers on the far ridgeline. We also had closeup views of several dozen Angus bulls who were enjoying the forage around us. Dexter and I both thought this was a good time to walk back to San Simeon and see what we could rustle up for lunch.

California Coastal Trail San Simeon to Pico Point

California’s Coastal Trail, established in 1976, is a work-in-progress, made up of a variety of segment types–sometimes a footpath, sometimes a highway shoulder, occasionally long sections of pristine, sandy beach such as the three-mile stretch north of Cambria between San Simeon pier and Pico Point.
I parked at the first vista point north of Pico Creek and let Dexter out to sniff his surroundings. Before we even left the parking lot, a gang of squirrels began working together to torment the dog. One of them whistled to catch his attention, then they began a round robin of sequential whistling that had him running in circles trying futilely to catch up with the sound.
I called him to come, put him on leash and we headed for the edge of the bluff to make our way down to the water. We found no boardwalk, no stairs, no steps–just a worn path sluicing through rough dirt with rock handholds. It’s times like these that I love gravity.
When we landed on the beach, kelp-covered boulders jutted out of the sand around us, making me feel small. Brown daubs of mud nests dotted the rocky cliff and swallows swarmed like angry bees. A saltwaterfall trickled through brushy vegetation rooted in the rocky cliff and a blanket of orange nasturtiums crawled down a sloping shoulder.
The tide was out, a foot and a half below normal level, and we had lots of room to walk on wet, firm sand. Fog swirled and the sun was a faint, white disk.
Carpets of yellow, blue and orange flowers flowed over the undulating edge of the bluff.
Green, hairy plants that you normally see waving lazily at the bottom of the sea sprawled across the beach and strands of kelp lay embedded in the sand, looking like morning hair. Starfish and anemones lay exposed on the sides of rocks that would be under water in another six hours.
I spotted a leopard-marked seal dozing on a rock not far from shore and took a photograph. When I angled toward him for a closer shot, he sat up and watched me until I backed off.
North of Little Pico Creek, rising water forced us to climb onto a rocky ledge. We walked around tide pools and across mussel beds and threaded through purple and gold starfish until we were able to descend and resume walking on the sand. The fog disappeared and sunlight illuminated pools of water with startling clarity.
As we rounded a point of land, within sight of the pier, I saw a colony of seals sunbathing on an offshore rock. When I stopped to take photos, several of them slid into the water and watched me, heads rising and falling with the roll of the swell.
The waves in the lee of San Simeon Point seemed docile and subdued as they rolled quietly onto the beach. We stopped for a doggy drink at an unnamed creek that was dammed behind a sand bar into a stagnant-looking pool.
A hundred yards from the Hearst Beach parking lot, we passed a set of steps that led upward to a rusty chain link fence. I watched a solitary bicyclist amble the length of the pier in his helmet and bright jersey.
On the way back to Pico Point, we found a shelter that someone had constructed of driftwood. It lay close to the foot of the bluff above the water line and looked as if it had room for two sleeping bags inside.
Fog returned as we approached our starting point. We climbed up the bluff trail, Dexter a bit more easily than I, and settled into the car for the drive home.

California Coastal Trail Piedras Blancas

It’s easy to park at the old Piedras Blancas Motel and walk along the coastline in either direction, north to Point Sierra Nevada and Arroyo de la Cruz, or south to the lighthouse.
Cappuccino Cove coffee shop and the motel are a ghost town now, no longer serving pastries, lodging or gasoline to passing tourists. The former owners’ residence is deserted and signs are posted warning visitors that the facilities are closed for renovation.
Trust for Public Land owns the property at present but plans to transfer it to State Parks next year. It will probably become a visitors center, park headquarters and a campground, all part of the new section of San Simeon State Park that extends from Cambria to Ragged Point.
I put Dexter, my dog, on his leash and we walked to the edge of the bluff where a cable runs along the edge to protect people from the dangers of erosion. The ocean is nibbling away at land’s edge in a dramatic way at this location. One of the motel units is in danger and winter storms sometimes send waves breaking over Highway 1 nearby.
We followed an old RV camping road around a small headland down to the beach at the mouth of Arroyo del Corral where a small creek enters the sea.
Sand bars have dammed the creek and created small lagoons where harbor and elephant seals swim during the springtime. Snowy plover habitat is marked off limits in the middle of the beach.
Dexter and I followed a narrow shingle of sand south of the creek between the vertical bluff wall and the surf line. I had timed our hike for early morning low tide but it was getting late and waves were reaching farther inland as we walked.
We raced between waves around a point to the next beach and walked out on a rock that, even though it was 10 feet above water level, had fresh tide pools on top. Beneath our feet, seawater coursed through a narrow fissure, a small channel that compressed and amplified the force of the water and the sound that it made.
Dexter was not enthusiastic about walking out to the very end of the rock and tugged at me to return to the beach, barking in case I missed the message. I’m not the surest-footed gazelle in the herd so that didn’t hurt my feelings and we went back.
I found a small arroyo that provided a way for us to climb away from the rising tide to the ice plant on top of the bluff.
We followed the old route of Highway 1 to the next beach, past a reed-covered creek and a water tank. Waves boomed onto the half-mile stretch of deserted sand which, during birthing season, is covered with hundreds of elephant seals.
Dexter and I climbed up the bluff to the ice plant meadow and walked across the peninsula along the barbed wire fence that marks the Bureau of Land Management boundary.
Pods of elephant seals dozed on the beaches south of the lighthouse, making them off-limits to hikers, so we turned back, heading diagonally across the point toward the Hearst water tank. I found a faint trail through the ice plant that Dexter liked better than bouncing across the springy vegetation.
Back at the coastline we stayed in the dunes above the beach and watched surfers make their way from cars parked on the highway to the water. We passed a driftwood shelter sitting above the water line and watched a blue heron flap lazily across the dunes.
When we reached the car, I wished the coffee shop were still open and serving creamy cappuccinos and hot lattés, but a wish won’t buy you a cup of coffee, so we loaded up and drove away.