Walking Sunset Cliffs
Sunset Cliffs is a two mile stretch of sandstone bluff on the ocean side of Point Loma. The walk is flat, the views are the whole point, and the edge is more fragile than it looks.
What the walk actually is
Sunset Cliffs Boulevard follows the ocean side of Point Loma for about two miles, from the Ocean Beach end toward Point Loma Nazarene University. There is no gate and no trailhead. Most people pick a stretch of the boulevard, park where there is room, and walk the sidewalk or dirt shoulder along the rim.
The walking is flat, and the grade barely changes end to end, which makes it an easy hour or two even for someone who does not hike much. The bluff is what makes it worth the trip: sandstone dropping fifty to eighty feet to a reef, sea caves and arches cut into the base, and open water to the horizon. On a clear day the Coronado Islands show to the south.
The edge is not a viewpoint
This is the part worth taking seriously. The bluff is sandstone, and sandstone undercuts. Water works into the joints, winter swells pound the base, and rain loosens the crust on top. Blocks fall, sometimes in the middle of the night and sometimes on a dry afternoon. Several deaths here have involved people standing on the outer crust, on a ledge or carved path that looked solid.
Stay back from the rim, and stay off any carved path along the lip. Those paths are not official and nobody maintains them. The safest good view is from the sidewalk, ten or fifteen feet back.
Luscomb's Point and the Ladera Street stairs
Luscomb's Point is the classic viewpoint, the rounded nose of rock where the boulevard bends. It is also the busiest spot at sunset, and the pullout fills early. The stairway at Ladera Street drops toward the water and is the usual way down for surfers and for anyone heading to the rocks at low tide.
The stairs are steep and can be slick with salt and spray. The reef below is exposed only at a low tide, and that shallow reef is not a swimming spot. On a big west swell, sneaker waves reach well up the rock, past where the water looked like it stopped.
Birds, caves, and the water
In daylight the bluff is really a bird walk. Brandt's and double-crested cormorants stack up on the outer rocks. Brown pelicans glide the cliff line in loose formation, and ospreys work the water offshore. Black oystercatchers pick along the lower rocks, and winter brings the usual coastal mix of gulls and grebes.
Sea caves and arches are cut into the base of the bluff, visible from the water and from the low rocks at a negative tide. They are not a walking destination. The rock directly above them is the weakest on the cliff, because that is where the surf has been removing material for decades.
Timing, parking, and what to bring
The hour before sunset gives the best light, and the morning gives the best company: fewer people, softer air, and the north end tide pools on a falling low. Weekend evenings mean a slow crawl for parking along the boulevard, and walking in from Ocean Beach avoids it.
Parking is short stretches of street and a handful of small pullouts, and the arrangement shifts with seasons, storm damage, and construction. Fees, closures, and any shuttle around Point Loma come from the agencies that run them: the City of San Diego, California State Parks, and Cabrillo National Monument for the road beyond the park entrance.
- Bring a layer. Marine air keeps the coast cool through the day and turns cold and damp within minutes of the sun going down.
- Check a tide chart before a low tide visit. The reef and the north end pools only work near the low.
- Keep dogs leashed and away from the rim.
- Stay off the ice plant. It holds the soil that is holding the bluff.
- Treat the boulevard as a residential street, because that is what it is. Driveways are driveways.
The walk takes an hour if you move and longer if you stop, which is the point of it. Come for the light, stay for the birds, and give the edge more room than it looks like it needs.