No visit to Santa Cruz is complete without a walk along West Cliff Drive. It’s home to several of Santa Cruz’s iconic landmarks, houses the heart of Santa Cruz surf culture at Steamer Lane and is a great place to see the local marine life. We highlight a few of the stops below, but all twenty one stories can be found in the mobile app and many can be read in blog form at the bottom of this page.
The lighthouses at Lighthouse Point have come and gone and moved around. Do you know how many there have been?
Locals call it the blow hole. It is the last remaining vestige of a wave motor built in the 1890’s.
Natural Bridges State Beach is so named because it used to have three bridges. Now there is just one arch.
Don’t miss the crazy “toilet bowl” formations lurking within the local rocks.
Read the stories below: blog-style!
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Cover photo © Elise Wormuth. Natural Bridges State Beach is almost as famous for its monarch butterflies as it is for its natural rock arch. For decades t ...
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When it was a bustling port city of the mid-18th century, Santa Cruz exported many goods: agricultural products, lumber, leather, and lime. Initially, goo ...
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Most of the ice plant you see in California is all the same species: Highway ice plant (Carpobrotus edulis). As the common name indicates, it has been wid ...
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In 2009, Surfer Magazine named Santa Cruz, California as the best surfing town and extolled Steamer Lane as a "world class right-hand reef-point." But do ...
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Natural Bridges State Beach derives its name from three beautiful natural bridges that were present in the early 1900s. Today, only the middle one remains ...
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Thanks to Archer Koch of MultiRotorCam.com, we are updating this story with his great aerial video of the wave motor pumping it out in February, 2015. Alo ...
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The Purisima Formation is the rock type that shapes the landscape characteristics of the central and southern Santa Cruz coast. It is present from the int ...
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There are a lot of parks and open space in our lives that we often take for granted. Many times that gorgeous place where you can enjoy nature, and maybe ...
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In the early 1900s, the area from Lighthouse Point to Bay Street was often called Millionaire's Row because of its many fine mansions. Most of the mansion ...
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If you live along or visit the west coast of California you have likely seen various types of structures designed to stop the coastline from eroding. Two ...
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Geology, the lighthouse, World War II and surfing history are all woven into the story of Lighthouse Point. The Geology Lighthouse Point is composed of a ...
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The two tree types you mostly see along West Cliff Drive are the Monterey cypress (Cupressus macrocarpa) and the Monterey pine (Pinus radiata). Both are o ...
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Along Santa cruz's popular West Cliff Drive are some really unique features known by geo-geeks as “toilet bowls”. They are a clue to what the modern-day s ...
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Lighthouse Point in Santa Cruz, California, is surrounded by world class surf spots and amazing views. It's named for the lighthouse built to commemorate ...
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It was in Santa Cruz, in the 1950s and '60s, that Jack O'Neill developed the modern surfing wetsuit, which helped open surfing in cold-water locations aro ...
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The lighthouse at Lighthouse Point in Santa Cruz, is an icon to locals and visitors alike. It is rich with history of the lighthouse keepers who raised fa ...
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Today, the Swift Street Courtyard area, in combination with the adjoining businesses off of Ingalls Street, has become a nexus for locals who like fresh l ...
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https://youtu.be/Vod-vZMgUgk Part of Lighthouse Field State Beach, this beach just west of Lighthouse Point, is a favorite for locals. The west end of the ...
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In the late 1800s you could take a street car to Santa Cruz's West Cliff Drive and then gamble, dance and stay in a hotel—all right there! The station was ...
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Santa Cruz's cultural identity and economic well being are tied up with tourism and surfing in the beautiful Monterey Bay. Monterey Bay is an important ma ...
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Welcome to what locals call the “stinky beach.” Located near the end of Almar Avenue, the smell varies depending on the day. Coincidentally, the City of S ...
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In the late 1800s you could take a street car to West Cliff Drive and then gamble, dance and stay in a hotel all right there! The top photo is a postcard ...
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The city of Santa Cruz just launched an anti-dog poop campaign and started with West Cliff Drive where there are currently six of these lovely signs poste ...
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The sediments at the top of this cliff face along West Cliff Drive are generally referred to as recent from a geological perspective. They are from the Qu ...
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Brandt's cormorants (Phalacrocorax penicillatus) are back on the sea cliff just west of Natural Bridges State Beach in Santa Cruz. They started using this ...
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Cover photo by Brocken Inaglory From the 1850s to the mid-1960s, Santa Cruzans wanted their town to be a center of industry and economic activity. Promoti ...
