Sculptured Beach

Distances: From the Limantour Beach parking lot: 5.4 miles (8.6 km) roundtrip, easy From the Laguna Trailhead: 6.6 miles (10.6 km) roundtrip, easy/moderate From the Coast Trailhead: 8.6 miles (13.8 km) roundtrip, easy An easy to moderate walk through coastal scrub and grassland offers some breath-taking ocean views and leads to the rocky shoreline of Sculptured Beach , where one can look for intertidal organisms when the tide is very low. Visit our tidepooling for more information and please follow Leave No Trace 's Tips for Tide Pooling . Consult a tide chart and local weather forecasts before setting out on your trip; venturing on to Sculptured Beach during hazardous surf conditions ora high tide can result in becoming trapped against the coastal bluffs. Visit the park's Beach Safety page for more information. Some of this area was burned in 2020, when lightning strikes in the Woodward Valley started what became the 2020 Woodward Fire . There arevault toilets and potable water available at Coast Campground. Sculptured Beach and the Laguna Trail, the Fire Lane Trail,and the Coast Trail southeast of Coast Campground arewithin the Phillip Burton Wilderness . Please practice Leave No Trace principles. The routes described below pass through or by Coast Campground , where you can refill your water bottle at one of the campgrounds water faucets, or use the vault toilets. Closest Trailheads to Sculptured Beach Limantour Beach . There are two parking lots at Limantour Beach: The main parking lot is located on the right as one descends Limantour Road toward the beach. It has a gravel surface and has space for a couple hundred vehicles. A small paved parking lot is locatedat the end of a spur road that leads east from Limantour Road just before one reaches the main lot. This parking lot only has 16 parking spaces. If you arrive early enough to park in one of these spaces (or are lucky to find a space later in the day), the hike to and from Sculptured Beach will be ~0.8 km (1.3 km) shorter roundtrip. Laguna Trailhead Coast Trailhead Directions to Sculptured Beach There are dozens of hiking routes that lead to Sculptured Beach. Even from the three closest trailheads (routes from which are described below), there are six or more different combinations of hiking on trails or walking on the beach that will get one to and from Sculptured Beach. This is due to how the Coast Trail runs parallel to the beach with three locations at which one can descend from the trail to the beach. Please note: Storms in early 2023 caused significant damage to the Sculptured Beach Trail and the routeis no longer a trailthat the park will recognize or maintain. Please refrain from using it. Beach Access Trails that connect with the Coast Trail Coast Trail's Limantour Beach Access Trail: This short connector trail is ~0.6 miles (0.9 km) from the small paved lot or ~1 mile (1.6 km) from the main parking lot at Limantour Beach. Or, if hiking from the Coast Trailhead, follow the Coast Trail for 1.9 miles (3 km). Or, if coming from Coast Campground, follow the Coast Trail west for 1.1 miles (1.8 km) or walk west on the beach for 0.8 miles (1.3 km). Look for a lone large pine tree growing on the edge of a low bluff. Just west of the tree is a 100-foot-long (30-meter-long) sandy path leading from the beach to Coast Trail. Coast Campground's Santa Maria Beach Access Trail: The second location to connect between the beach and the Coast Trail is at the Coast Campground. From the Coast Trail, a 600-foot-long (180-meter-long) dirt path branches off of the Coast Trail to the north of site 8, passing to the left of some hitching rails and, further along the path, to the right of a lone eucalyptus tree. This path descend along the east side of a creek that flows down to Santa Maria Beach. From the beach, this path isn't as obvious, especially if one is walking along the water's edge. Pay attention to the height of the bluffs. To the west of this beach access, the bluffs ar...