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.

California Coastal Trail Point Sierra Nevada

Fifty miles north of San Luis Obispo, the California Coastal Trail bends away from Highway 1 in a westerly direction, following the shoreline around Point Sierra Nevada while the highway turns inland.
I parked in a wide turnout, put Dexter on leash and we followed a worn path through wiry brown grass along the edge of a bluff. The tide was out leaving an abundance of small pools in the rocks below. The gray ocean rolled in slow movement that was soothing and calming. Pelicans glided in shifting formations of kaleidoscopic patterns. The sea breeze carried the smell of sulfur, fish and salt .
We intersected a ranch road and followed it to a beach at the mouth of Arroyo de la Cruz Creek where shorebirds scurried across wet sand. Oystercatchers perched on white-coated La Cruz Rock a short distance offshore. Pelicans floated near the rock, dipping their heads under water and splashing furiously with their wings at the ocean’s surface.
The creek formed a large, freshwater lagoon behind a sand bar and the surface was alive with seagulls.
At low tide we were able to walk across a rocky shelf awash with slippery green sea grass. The next beach was covered with chopped up ribbons of kelp that were slick as wet ice to walk on.
We rounded Point Sierra Nevada on a rocky shelf, watching out for scuttling crabs as they skittered sideways to get out of our path. I skirted a pool of water that was so clear and transparent that I almost stepped into it.
Beyond the headland we walked on a long, sandy beach from which we could see all the way to Ragged Point. The ocean roared ceaselessly in the unprotected bay beside us. At the north end of the beach we wound through a thicket of white-bleached driftwood onto the grassy bluff that rose above the sand.
Dexter was excited to see gopher mounds in the meadow. Every time I stopped to take photographs, he dug frantically as if he could dig up one of the subterranean rodents through a furious will power.
We followed a cow path that was cut so deep and narrow that it was difficult to walk in. Yellow-eyed daisies grew in clumps next to glistening white morning glories. A hawk flapped into the air from behind a brush pile where it had been feasting on a field mouse.
We pushed through brush and chaparral to the edge of Arroyo de los Chinos. The walls of the ravine were steep and thick with poison oak so I didn’t try to cross.
Instead of returning along the beach, we stayed inland and walked across sand dunes toward the mouth of Arroyo de la Cruz, using La Cruz Rock as our guide.
The dunes were embroidered with pink and yellow flowers and pretty to look at, but scalloped hills and depressions made walking an energetic adventure.
I followed Dexter as he found the easiest way down to the beach south of the point and headed straight for the ocean to cool his feet. As I walked south on the sand, he walked a parallel course offshore, up to his belly in cool seawater.
We crossed the sand bar at the mouth of the creek along the edge of a willow grove and passed two places where people have camped. At the end of the beach we ascended the bluff on the ranch road and followed it back to the car.

California Coastal Trail - Ragged Point

California’s Coastal Trail (CCT), 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. In some places it is still no more than a state of mind, which I found out recently at Ragged Point.
CCT enters San Luis Obispo county using Highway 1 as its throughway until it reaches Ragged Point south of San Carpoforo creek (the topographic Ragged Point, not the Ragged Point Inn).
After parking on a large turnout next to Highway 1, I put Dexter on a leash and we followed a muddy trail through the fence across a meadow of berry bushes and ferns. This is private property and access is limited–the Hearst corporation allows hikers access to the beach, asking that the public stay on established paths; do not camp, build fires or smoke; and keep dogs leashed.
We passed through a row of pine trees and crossed a marine terrace covered with drab coastal scrub punctuated by colorful bursts of wild iris, poppies and open-faced daisies. At the edge of the bluff, we descended a steep trail to a narrow strand of sand and gravel–California’s coastline.
The beach was small and landlocked at both ends. We scrambled to the top of a rocky point and looked down at San Carpoforo creek where it pooled behind a sand bar. On our left, early morning sunshine spotlighted white-churning breakers marching in to shore.
Back on the bluff, we worked our way through thick brush and occasional piles of dead sticks–wood rat nests. I kept thinking that eventually we would intersect CCT and the going would get easier, but I was wrong. I tried to avoid creeping tendrils of poison oak and that meant that we sometimes made long detours, all the while trying to maintain a southerly heading.
When we reached the thin forest of pine trees that parallels the coastline, the ground underneath was clear of brush and walking was a lot easier.
On the south side of the headland, a trail descended to the base of a sea stack at the end of a long beach. Rock formations offshore spit up great plumes of spray as heavy storm swell slammed into them.
The beach was littered with rocks striated with swirls of color that looked like partially mixed paint on an artist’s palette.
A half mile south of the sea stack, we waded across Arroyo Hondo creek. Dexter thought it was great fun but he wasn’t wearing boots and socks and didn’t mind getting his feet wet.
We climbed over a knife-edged ridge and down the other side through boulders to a crescent shaped beach on a cove that was smaller and quieter than the tidal flat we had just crossed.
A tiny waterfall trickled down the cliff face and ran across the beach through a rocky channel it had carved out. Two pairs of raccoon footprints tracked through the wet sand. Cormorants perched on an orange-colored seamount that was mottled with streaks of guano. A snow-white egret flapped by, just above the water, and disappeared over the southern ridge.
The beach ended in a cul-de-sac and I climbed up a poorly defined track to the top of the bluff, clutching at clumps of poison oak to keep from sliding back down in the slick mud.
On top of the terrace, a colorful array of iris, morning glory, California poppies and purple daisies with yellow eyes spread across the green meadow all the way to Point Sierra Nevada.
We walked through the pasture, staying as close to the coastline as we could, to the headland that forms Breaker Point. Rich tide pools lay below the bluff and a nylon rope, wound around a metal stake, snaked down the cliff to the beach.
South of the point, an arroyo filled with poison oak cut across the meadow and blocked our progress. We had gone about as far as I wanted to for the day anyway, so we walked to the highway, following a cow path, and back to the car.

Buckeye Trail

Buckeye Trail 2008
Just north of Ragged Point on Highway 1 sits an abandoned set of buildings, Salmon Creek Ranger Station. A sign next to the corral lists Buckeye Camp at a distance of 3 ½ miles.
Dexter and I headed north from the ranger station paralleling the Pacific Coast Highway but well above it. The first half-mile rose rapidly, steep and badly eroded in spots. We encountered two fences with passageways constructed so as to prevent anything longer or wider than a backpacker from passing through. At the turn of each switchback, we could look back and down at Salmon Creek falls.
The trail leveled out onto a grassy plateau and revealed one of those views unique to the Santa Lucia mountains–the Pacific Ocean filling the horizon.
A bit later, we arrived at a trail fork. Soda Springs Trail descended to the left to Highway One. Buckeye Trail went right.
Following an ever-ascending contour, we wound in and out of canyons. We crossed below a high rock wall in one of the canyons, that had a pencil-thin waterfall running down its face between banks of moss.
As we continued to climb, we entered a grove of oak trees that shaded the trail and covered it with a muffling layer of leaves. The highway was out of sight and out of hearing.
We crossed live water in Soda Spring Creek, with a small pool suitable for a warm dog to cool himself.
The trail became steeper, dank and damp underneath the trees and in some places crossing unstable ground and showing signs of slipping away.
Ninety minutes from the trailhead we left the forest and topped a ridge and looked back to the south. We could see all the way to Point Buchon. Highway One wound like a serpent along the coast. A large grove of redwoods thrust out of the mountainside directly below us. Distinct in the foreground was Point Piedras Blancas and the lighthouse.
We hiked another quarter mile, through an open grove of pine trees, and rounded a headland overlooking the northern coastline. From there we could see all the way to Cape San Martín on the other side of Gorda.
At this point, the trail turned inland. As we crossed another dry creek, we met Phil.
Phil came from San Francisco and sat on a log beside the Buckeye trail playing a guitar. He had hiked in the day before and when it got too dark to continue, he pitched camp. He was getting ready to hit the trail again when we met him. We chatted, wished him good day and pressed on.
Twenty minutes later Dexter and I arrived at Buckeye Camp. A large, open meadow perched at the head of a long valley. A picnic table sat beneath a buckeye tree that was so large that several limbs curved downward and rested on the ground. A spring-fed hose ran into a bathtub and the overflow fed a green-edged stream that meandered northward.
A solitary grove of eucalyptus trees shaded the campsite. We found a warm place in the sunshine to eat our lunch.
As we finished eating, Phil strolled into camp. He looked around. He said he liked the looks of the place. He thought he’d hiked about enough for today and this looked like a good place to pitch camp.
Dexter and I bade him good-bye and hit the trail for home.

Anacapa Island

Fourteen miles west of Ventura Harbor, Anacapa Island rose from heaving waters like the peg end of a thole pin–straight up-and-down cliffs with no place to dock. Timing the ocean’s surge in the tiny landing cove, our captain placed the nose of his boat against the rock and rammed the engines forward at full thrust.
Crew people shouted at us to hurry, one at a time, over the bow onto the flooding steps of a rusty ladder and up to safety, a platform constructed on a rocky ledge just above the tops of the breaking waves. Mrs. Davis thought this was all quite thrilling.
After a moment to catch our breath, we climbed a combination of ladder rungs and concrete steps to the top, a grassy plain that makes up the surface of the island.
Our voyage from Ventura Harbor took just over an hour and we arrived at 10:30 a.m., escorted by a pod of dolphins surfing in the bow wake.
Atop the island, we walked past noisy throngs of nesting seagulls to the headquarters building and met Dave Begun, a volunteer naturalist, part of a group of 30 who assist the park service.
Dave briefed us on Anacapa’s natural history, beginning with the intriguing observation that the Channel islands are so important as nesting habitat that "There would be virtually no sea birds in Southern California if it were not for these islands."
East island, where we landed, consists of about 100 acres and is the breeding site for 10,000 Western gulls. They come in March and stay until September. The female lays 2-3 eggs and the chicks hatch in May. Within six weeks they're the same size as their parents but they are a different color–a dirty brown–until they reach full plumage in about four years.
Most of Channel Islands National Park is under water. Two major ocean streams meet here and generate more diversity of sea animals in Santa Barbara channel than anywhere else in the world. The confluence of cold and warm currents causes a churning and stirring up of nutrients that enriches the water with food for birds and sea animals. Blue and humpback whales feed in the channel all summer long. A total of 28 species of whales and dolphins inhabit the area and Dave told us that we were liable to see a whale at any time.
Anacapa has no trees and most of the island is covered by non-native plant species. In a mistake that compounded itself, the Coast Guard brought rabbits to the island in the 1930s. After the rabbits ate the vegetation, ice plant was brought in to control erosion. We have now discovered that ice plant poisons the soil by injecting salt from the air so it is being systematically eradicated.
Buena High School students from Ventura come to the island to pull out non-native plants as part of an ongoing science project. They dry the ice plant and spread it on trails for dust control.
Anacapa’s most famous plant, Coreopsis, normally blooms from mid-March to mid-April. We missed it this year, however. Early rain the previous October was followed by a spell of warm weather that fooled the six-foot plants. They bloomed and peaked in February and went dormant early. When they are in full bloom, the golden glow is visible from the mainland.
Dave ended his tour at Inspiration Point, the west end of the island which has views of Middle and Western Anacapa.
Gail and I walked around the north perimeter and back to the campground in the middle of the island where we had a picnic at one of the tables, serenaded by several hundred hungry gulls.
When it was time to leave, we boarded the boat much as we had disembarked in the morning–closely following crew instructions and timing our scrambles over the bow to the flow of waves crashing into the cliff.
A pair of humpback whales escorted us partway back to Ventura Harbor, breaching and blowing and sounding as the sun set behind them. We felt as if we received more than our money’s worth for the day’s trip.