The steep and steep path to Beacon’s Beach reopened on Thursday for the fourth weekend in July after repairs required by a recent landslide.
Local police closed the dirt road and paved parking lot 85 meters above sea level after the May 2 collapse, which damaged the route and left cracks in the slope.
At the end of the eight-week closure, the city and the Scripps Oceanographic Institution monitored the stability of the slope and collected data to decide whether it would be safe to repair the route and reopen it.
“The city’s geotechnical engineer determined that the bluff is stabilizing,” Encinitas officials said in a news release this week. The council will continue to work with Scripps, the State Parks Department and the California Coastal Commission to see signs of another slip.
A contractor began repairs last week and completed the final cleaning on Wednesday morning. The cost to the council, including staff time and temporary barriers, was about $ 50,000, excluding the work and equipment done by Scripps, Public Information Officer Julie Taber said Thursday afternoon.
Tricia Sundell descends the stairs to Beacon’s Beach in Encinitas on Thursday, June 30, 2022, the first day the trail reopened.
(Bill Wechter / San Diego Union Tribune)
“The route remained in the same configuration and the route did not change,” Taber said. “Extra steps were added … because part of the path went down almost 2 feet.”
Four small retaining walls were also added, some damaged stairs were replaced and the path was leveled again, he said.
Long-term plans call for the parking lot to be moved back from the shore as soon as possible, so that parked cars do not pass through in an earthquake or as a result of constant wear and tear, according to the council’s website. Non-native invasive vegetation will be removed, and native species will be planted to help stabilize the slope.
The access point to the 900-block cliff on Neptune Avenue, near the end of Leucadia Boulevard, began as a pedestrian path more than 50 years ago. A better road was built in the early 1980s after a major landslide, Taber said.
The high pedestrian traffic area, a popular place for surfing in the neighborhood, adds to the erosion on the steep slope.
A surfer, one of the first of the day, uses the ladders that descend to Beacon’s Beach in Encinitas on Thursday, June 30, 2022, the first day the route was reopened.
(Bill Wechter / San Diego Union Tribune)
In 2018, the council proposed building a wooden staircase that supports concrete columns for the beach, a project that would cost about $ 3.5 million. However, the City Planning Commission rejected the idea, saying the design was unsuitable for the site.
The State Department of Parks and Recreation in 2009 rejected a proposal to slow erosion by building a sea wall at the base of the tide, saying the structure would be in line with environmental policies.
Like many of the beaches around Carlsbad, it is owned by Beacon’s state and is officially known as Leucadia State Beach. The council maintains access to the beach in accordance with an agreement with the state.
The beach is said to have taken its name from an aeronautical lighthouse mounted on a ocean-facing lighthouse in the late 1930s. Over the years, an unnecessary apostrophe was added.
Leucadian residents and former editor of Doug Fiske Surfer Magazine investigated the subject and found maps and a surf guide to “Beacon Beach” listed as “Beacon Beach” in 1963, according to a story published in San Diego Reader.
