My Trip to California, Post 4: Glass Beach

After failing to find beach access on our walk south from our loft in Fort Bragg that morning, we walked the other direction in the afternoon.

On the map it looked like the nearest beach access, at Glass Beach, was about a mile and a half north on the bike trail. We were not quite yet to the official beach when it began to look like we could almost scramble down to the shore. We stood looking at a steep and eroded dirt trail, and contemplated our choice of footwear – flip flops for both of us. It was only a short distance down, but steep and dirty and slippery in flip flops.

We had almost decided not to bother scrambling down and just go on to the main beach when a woman, standing nearby picking wild blackberries, overheard us debating and urged us to go ahead and go down to this cove.

“It’s the best,” she told us. “There’s nothing at Glass Beach. You have to go here. It’s worth it.” I didn’t know what she was talking about nothing being at Glass Beach and remained skeptical. But she insisted; it’s worth it, it’s easy, just do it, you have to.

Finally I realized that she was telling us that the beach glass was better here than on Glass Beach. We were not looking for beach glass, but earlier that same day I had bought a small book about beach glass collecting as a gift for my friend Tracey, who I would be visiting in a few days. I hadn’t read the book, but I looked at it long enough to decide to buy it, so I had a vague idea. Broken glass gets tumbled in the waves and polished into glass pebbles, and deposited onto certain beaches depending on the currents. Apparently Fort Bragg is famous for beach glass. I also had a vague memory of John and I looking for glass on Glass Beach some years ago and not finding anything.

Laura and I decided to check the little cove out. When we got down to the beach, I was absolutely astounded. Here are the photos I took when randomly pointing the camera downwards. The entire cove was like this:

I couldn’t believe it. All those white stones, plus the green, amber and blue, were all beach glass! I had never seen anything like it in my life. The whole beach was like that! That’s all polished glass!

I had no idea which pieces to pick up. There were so many! I picked up a few random ones of various colors. Laura found one with writing still on it, which apparently is “better.”

It was everywhere.

I tried to pick up some blue because it seemed more rare.

It was particularly beautiful when wet.

These are all just random shots taken pointing at the ground.

Truly beautiful trash. Everywhere!

It was close to low tide, as you can see from the exposed anemones.

There were a few other people down there, who seemed to know what they were doing. But I was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of polished glass.

This is Laura, listening to the tinkling sound of the glass in the water.

Laura took a video of the sound of the glass in the gentle waves in the cove.

And here are two videos she took of hermit crabs. It’s sweet how she is talking softly to them as she takes the video. Makes me laugh!

I just wandered around in a daze, taking pictures of the ground.

We had a long walk back and were getting hungry, so we didn’t stay long. The path down to the cove doesn’t look like much at all from the beach. It’s just a slight bluff.

Here is Laura clambering back out.

I went a slightly different route, less climbing and more slip-and-slide. I held onto blackberry vines to haul myself out. She is a better climber than me.

What a well-kept secret! I’m amazed that the kind local woman picking blackberries told two obvious tourists wandering around in flip flops about that cove. That beach was amazing and now I want to go back!

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