Pelican Point Beach

I wasn't sure whether to title this post Pelican Point Beach or Miramontes Point, but the beach won out - because this is a blog about beaches more than it is a blog about big hotels perched on the edge of the sea.

AERIAL VIEW

I joined the small crowd of paying guests and riff raff (like me) wandering down to the beach south of the hotel. A stairway leads down to the beach itself - the lower landing was propped up on a small suite of jacks, suggesting that the riprap had settled a couple of feet (big rock often does this in settings like this - making it's use as a foundation dicey).

Note the use of both riff raff and riprap in the preceding paragraph - the terms are occasionally confused.

Maybe on a future visit, I'll walk north around the Point to Three Rocks Beach. I'd like to check out the efforts that have been made to maintain Miramontes Point for posterity.  I could see some of the structure from the top and found you get a better view (but still somewhat mysterious) from the air (Aerial: California Coastal Records Project).

A couple of notes on public access to the shoreline. The small parking lot at the top of the trail to the beach was full, but the woman at the Ritz-Carlton gatehouse pointed me to the sites in the garage reserved for coastal access. These things rarely happen without controversy or requirement (see below), but I definitely appreciate both that California has always taken public access seriously and that the resort is willing to cooperate.

Earlier, just a few miles south, I considered (but decided against) parking on Highway 1 and walking down to Martin's Beach, but wasn't sure of its current legal status. Turns out, just a couple of days earlier, the case had been appealed to the Supreme Court (The Guardian). I look forward to visiting Martin's Beach on a future trip.