A slender beach tucked between two coves in Southern California has an inaccurate name. “Thousand Steps” is a misnomer, but frankly, that’s a good thing.
“It’s always been called ‘Thousand Steps,’” Eric Jessen, a retired chief planner for the Orange County parks department, told SFGATE. “Why? Because it’s a lot of steps — not a thousand, but a lot of steps.”
More accurately, the secluded spot in Laguna Beach has 218 steps, and they have carried Californians to a pristine shore that locals have fought over for more than a century.
Unlike other beaches in Orange County that are more accessible, such as Dana Point, Crystal Cove or Newport Beach, the entrance to Thousand Steps Beach appears so suddenly that if you blink while driving on Highway 1, you’ll miss it — like I did on a recent visit. Also called the Ninth Street Beach, its staircase entrance is marked with just a sign and encased in foliage. But anyone willing to venture down the 218 steps will find a quiet beach that locals once fought to keep secluded. Over 50 years ago, homeowners challenged the state over public access just as the California Coastal Commission was conceived to ensure the state’s beaches remained open to all.
The staircase has lived several lives over the years — losing some steps, being rebuilt and going through renovations along the way. But when a landslide threatened the beach in January, Thousand Steps Beach was forced to close temporarily. As is the case across the Orange County shore, its future is jeopardized by an unbeatable foe that’s underfoot and slowly clawing away at the California coastline.
A trip down a ‘thousand steps’
Reaching Thousand Steps Beach is, at best, an inconvenience, and at worst, dangerous. The beach access point is unassuming, tucked beside gorgeous luxury homes with stunning ocean views.
There is no designated parking. With luck, visitors find a spot on the north side of the street near Ninth Avenue. I was not lucky and had to park much farther away. There is no sidewalk or even a curb for the majority of the walk toward the beach on Highway 1. I was either walking in the bike lane or weaving in and out of the busy highway, especially in places where drivers illegally parked their cars.
Once I arrived at the top of the staircase, I peered down the narrow void shrouded by foliage. As someone who’s a little clumsy, the steep staircase was a bit intimidating. But I rolled up my pants, held onto the railing and watched my step. The stairs may have been only a little over 200 steps, but considering the nearly half a mile from the car, it probably took about a thousand steps to reach the beach.
Once I made it to the sand, hot to the touch that day, I surveyed the crowd. It was predominantly made up of surfers enjoying the waves and young adults soaking up the perfect weather. The beach is about 400 yards long and, unlike others that are made for more recreational activities — because there’s no bike path, pier or bonfire pits — the only things to do at Thousand Steps Beach are enjoy the water and the scenery. It’s more than enough.
Although the beach is public, I noticed small sections were roped off in front of some homes, but California law stipulates homeowners can privatize up to the mean high tide line. I’d later discover it’s a unique case at Thousand Steps Beach.
Unfortunately, I missed one of the most unique elements of Thousand Steps Beach. There are sea caves and tide pools located on the southern end, but I didn’t get a chance to explore them since the tide was too high.
If the stairs on the way down were daunting, the way back up was petrifying. I’m not much of a hiker, but I’ve summited La Piedra del Peñol, a giant rock in Colombia that’s made up of over 700 steps. If I could do that, I could make it back up the 218 steps ahead.
I took two breaks on our way up, and I wasn’t the only one. A passerby said her Pilates classes didn’t prepare her for them. At the top, I saw another woman who was behind us had vomited (although it was unclear if it was due to the stairs).
Breathless and back on the highway, I was eager to learn how the staircase to the secluded beach first appeared and the effort from locals to keep it all to themselves.
A battle for the beach goes public
The staircase to Thousand Steps Beach dates as far back as 1905, according to the Orange County Register. Back then, nearby homeowners claimed a portion of the beach and restricted access to the public.
Jessen, whose family built their home in Laguna Beach 102 years ago, said that people were offered a share in the stairwell after purchasing a house in the Three Palisades subdivision. The beach and staircase were a prized asset that some believed was worth defending against outsiders.
“Over the years, they used to have a guard who would sometimes sit in a folding chair at the top of the stairs and either permit or deny people to go down,” Jessen said.
Eventually, the homeowners who attempted to privatize the beach lost the battle when public beach access became a popular issue in the state.
Californians grew increasingly concerned about their beaches following a major oil spill in Santa Barbara in 1969. A movement to protect the shore and ensure accessibility was born. In 1972, Californians put a coastal conservation initiative on the ballot, which created a commission to preserve the coastal zone. More than half of California voters passed the measure, and the California Coastal Commission was born.
In the same year, the Orange County Board of Supervisors proposed a plan to develop the coastline — including building new steps for Thousand Steps Beach — but homeowners filed a lawsuit. In response, county officials turned to the public and collected nearly 2,000 responses from residents across Orange County to establish how the beach had always been public. The public support helped the county prove that it was within its right to develop a new stairway and access to the beach.
“What we did was something rather clever, but it was a major undertaking,” Jessen said.
The homeowners settled with the county, and Jessen said a compromise allowed owners to claim 20 feet from the bluffs. It’s a slight variation to the California law, which permits homeowners to privatize up to the mean high tide line, and explains why the sand boxes formed by posts and ropes are larger than usual.
The stairs were redeveloped and reopened in the 1980s, and Orange County Parks continuously repairs the staircase, replacing steps as recently as 2021. But a few years later, a natural disaster emphasized the fragility of California beaches when Thousand Steps Beach was forced to close unexpectedly.
The future of California’s coastline
On Jan. 31, a major landslide blew out a private entryway leading to Thousand Steps Beach and closed the beach for debris removal. The city cleanup was swift, and the beach reopened the same day, but a few nearby homes were evacuated.
“This was a significant bluff collapse,” Laguna Beach Fire Chief Niko King told the LA Times following the landslide.
Numerous parts of the California coast are threatened by a battery of atmospheric rivers that turn to landslides, but the Orange County coastline is particularly vulnerable. In 2023, a mudslide suspended service for the Pacific Surfliner that runs on tracks bordering the ocean. Later that year, a portion of a historic mansion slid off a cliff in San Clemente before another dramatic mudslide left some homes teetering on the edge of a cliff.
Matt Schneider, a spokesperson for the city of Laguna Beach, told SFGATE in an email that landslides “occasionally occur as a result of erosional forces and storm events.”
The future of Thousand Step Beach is uncertain as California beaches continue to shrink, which makes a journey down the staircase onto the secluded beach all the more pressing before it could wash away.
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