COMING SOON: A stunning Northern California beach with soaring sandstone cliffs and bluffs with panoramic ocean views. Enjoy wildlife viewing at a Snowy Plover nesting ground. Hunt for historic remnants of a 19th-century structure called Gordon’s Chute.
By Majken Talbot
A Phoenix Rising from the Ashes: Tunitas Creek Beach Reborn
Cruising south on Highway One past Half Moon Bay, it's easy to miss this world-class beach. Tunitas Creek Beach is the shining new star in the constellation of the 24 San Mateo County parks. Just two and half miles north of the town of San Gregorio, Tunitas Creek Beach is a mile-long stretch of sand sheltered by striking 100-foot tall sandstone cliffs. The beach supports a variety of ecosystems, from coastal dunes and shrubs to a dense forest of Monterey pine and Monterey cypress. Tunitas Creek feeds into the property's northern end, creating a freshwater marsh ecosystem that supports a diversity of native wildlife from Steelhead trout to the California Red-Legged frog and the San Francisco Garter snake.
In 2017, Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST) helped raise more than $10 million to purchase the 58-acre property and create a flagship public park. Park construction promises numerous amenities and exciting improvements to the site. Slated to open in “ late 2024,” San Mateo County Parks will manage the property and maintain park services.
Community Input Drives 21st Century Park Design
San Mateo County Parks, POST, and the California State Coastal Conservancy gathered community input from more than 1,300 surveys. The data was used to guide the design of the new park.
The site consists of three terraces. The first level will provide 65 parking spaces and a scenic overlook. An ADA-accessible pathway gently winds 1,800 feet down the bluff face to a second terrace with public restrooms, picnic tables, and a ranger station. There will also be a small, tiered amphitheater to support visitor and educational programs. A 400-foot-long road will be improved to provide safe access to the beach. The planned site improvements also include a 2-mile loop trail for hikers.
The design seeks to balance the public's recreational needs while protecting at-risk species and restoring fragile ecosystems. Part of the northern beach will be fenced off to protect the nesting ground for Western Snowy Plover. These small, white shore birds are threatened because they lay their eggs in the sand during the height of the beach season (March – September). Their speckled eggs are hard to discern and easily trampled. The noise and activity of beachgoers, dogs, bikes, and offroad vehicles can frighten away the nesting birds. The park plans to construct a boardwalk, which will lead past the breeding ground so visitors can view the birds without disrupting their nesting time. The park hopes these efforts will encourage Snowy Plovers to return to the beach once more and increase the numbers of this bird, which has been listed as Federally threatened due to loss of habitat.
A Tragedy of the Commons — a Sad Tale of Beach Misuse and Abuse
Without any garbage, bathroom services, or ranger patrols, the popular beach fell victim to the tragedy of the commons. Years of wild partying run amok trashed this stunning beach and decimated the Snowy Plovers' nesting ground. Since 2015, the beach became the site of overnight raves with amplified music and crowded Fourth of July celebrations, including fireworks leaving behind mountains of trash and debris. One party left enough trash on the beach to fill 15 garbage bags. The Mercury News minced no words when it described the state of the beach as "looking like a stadium parking lot after a drunken tailgate party." By 2017, the situation had grown so out of control that the County Board of Supervisors had to ban overnight parking on Tunitas Creek Road and shut down the park at dusk. Beachgoers who violated the restrictions were slapped with misdemeanor charges.
Natural Features and Geology
The beach's signature feature is the towering sandstone bluffs, part of the Purisima Formation, a sedimentary marine layer deposited about five million years ago. The rock contains the fossils of various marine organisms that lived in this ancient shallow sea. The layer was gradually pushed up by the geologic activity of both the San Andreas and the local San Gregorio fault lines. This same geologic uplift is responsible for the formation of the Santa Cruz Mountains.
A six-mile-long perennial creek flows down from King's Mountain in that very mountain range and enters the ocean at Tunitas Creek Beach. This rich riparian ecosystem once teemed with Coho Salmon. Efforts to protect the creek's 300-acre watershed began in 2015 when POST executed an agricultural conservation easement with the cooperation of Potrero Nuevo Farm (PNF). The farm employs sustainable and organic farming techniques to ensure harmful chemicals never enter the creek.
Tunitas Creek Beach reborn as Don Horsley Park: The new beach park has been renamed in honor of Don Horsley. As San Mateo County Sheriff and District 3 County Supervisor, Don Horsley dedicated a lifetime of service to San Mateo County, but arguably his greatest legacy shall be the restoration of Tunitas Creek Beach. Every wild place needs a champion. A project this ambitious requires years of patience and persistence to engage stakeholders, raise public awareness, raise funds, plan, design, and construct it. It requires a rare brand of pragmatic optimism with a good dose of humility. Individuals like Don Horsley show us what can be done when we put our minds and hearts to it.
90S MUSIC FANS WILL SWOON TO HEAR—The only modern residence built on the beach was formerly owned by heartthrob crooner Chris Isaak. The long-since abandoned and dilapidated residence was torn down by the park service to make room for park improvements. Kudos to the singer, though, for selling it to POST instead of to private real estate developers!
PLAY "I SPY" WITH THE KIDDOS—Have fun trying to spot the eyebolts of the old 19th-century Gordon's Chute embedded in the cliff face. Hunt for the remnants of the old Ocean Shore Railway trestle. Walk the boardwalk and count the number of Snow Plovers. Search for fossilized shells on the cliffs.
THE PLEASURE POINT NIGHT FIGHTERS WOULD REMIND YOU TO: Pack Your Trash! Plastic litter lingers up to 500-1000 years. A moment's inconvenience for a beach visitor can turn into centuries of ocean pollution. Please deposit your trash and recycling in the receptacles located in the mid-bluff area!
The Trails
The alluring beach sits 100 feet below Highway 1, which makes it notoriously difficult to access. Over the years, countless hikers have resorted to recklessly shimmying down the steep slope, which has resulted in erosive scarring and degradation of the cliff face. The park project intends to replace these treacherous footpaths with well-maintained trails that can provide safe access to the beach.
A loop trail (see map, page 7) will provide an easy, two mile hike to the beach with rest stops and overlooks to soak in the panoramic views. Eventually, this trail will connect to the Ohlone Portolá Heritage Trail.
The Ohlone-Portolá Heritage Trail is designed to retrace the footsteps of the Portola Expedition of 1769. Once completed, the ninety-mile-long trail will celebrate the culture of the Ohlone people, who were instrumental in supporting the expedition's success. At the time of the expedition, roughly two thousand Ohlone lived in what is today San Mateo County.
A Curious History of Failed Projects and Lost Expeditions
In 1769, a weary, scurvy-riddled expedition of Spaniards, thwarted by heavy rain, made camp at Tunitas Beach. They had journeyed hundreds of miles up from Baja, California, and back again. They were lost. Originally, the Portolá expedition had set out to locate the Monterey Bay. However, in a strange twist of fate, they missed their mark and stumbled upon the San Francisco Bay instead. The rest, as they say, is history.
Along the way, the Spaniards discovered a coast populated with thriving indigenous communities. At Tunitas Creek Beach, they encountered the Cotegen—a local triblet of the Ohlone people—who had a seasonal village at the site. Though the expedition failed its original purpose, it laid the groundwork for the later colonization and settlement of California by the Spanish Empire.
In the 1870s, wealthy landowner and farmer Alexander Gordon constructed an enormous wooden chute to help load agricultural goods into clipper ships moored at the beach. The heavy burlap sacks that slid down the long chute sometimes caught fire due to friction. Nicknamed Gordon's Chute, the precarious structure remained in operation for a few short years before being smashed to smithereens by ocean waves. While the bulk of this engineering marvel is gone, some of the original eyebolts remain embedded in the cliffside.
In the early 1900s, the beach served as the southernmost terminal of the short-lived Ocean Shore Railway. The railway corporation's ambitions to build a line from San Francisco to Santa Cruz were cut short by the 1906 Earthquake. Although portions of the post-quake devastation (Devil's Slide) were rebuilt, it never fully recovered, and the rail company went bankrupt in 1920. Visitors can spot trestle remnants from the old railway at the overlook of the Tunitas Creek beach boardwalk.
Learn more at the official Don Horsley Park at Tunitas Creek Beach website.
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