A 3-day road trip culminated in a visit to this rather unique geological site called Glass Beach, located near Fort Bragg, CA. It’s is a small section of the larger beach. If you can’t tell by the name itself, this section is completely filled with smooth buffed sea glass.
Apparently there are 3 small sites in the area, and this one was a small section of the much larger area. When you park and walk the distance to get to the beach, veer to the left. You’ll see it soon enough. To those tourists who complained that the beach was ‘picked over to the point that no real glass was left’ — look for the sections of Glass Beach which are not inside the park.
This area I was in was SO full of small pieces of buffed glass it was truly impressive. If you are one of those folks who likes to collect Sea Glass, this place is DEFINITELY where you want to visit.
Like most of this stretch of the California Coast, it’s pretty rocky. This does make for gorgeous views.
What’s really interesting is the history of this area and the reason for all this glass. Trash dump sites. Apparently there were 3 dumps, dating from 1906 through 1967, and each dump site has an associated section of the beach. One of these is reportedly largely picked clean, so maybe I was at site 2 instead of site 3? It’s not like they are labeled, at least not when I visited.
While I had thought this area unique, I have since learned there are additional ‘glass beaches’ in other places such as Eleele, Hiwaii – formed for the exact same reason. While in the case of Fort Bragg, the large trash was removed but the small glass pieces were left. The ocean surf tumbles them smooth and spits them back up onto the sand as it does any other small rock or bits of shell.
There are several tourist places in which you can purchase jewelry made from the sea glass (I got a lovely small necklace I gave to my mom). Some tourist spots also give out small bits of colored glass, providing the opportunity to toss more glass into the sea for it to process and therefore keep the beach as a favorite tourist spot.
There were the typical coastal birds in abundance, such as this Cormorant hunting for fish.
I spent perhaps an hour hunting around and enjoying the area. While I did collect a few treasures, I merely gathered them together for a photo. While it’s not illegal, they do frown on taking the glass because then future visitors have less and less to actually see. I thoroughly enjoyed the finding of my treasures but I left them on the beach. A few of them looked like milk glass, or at least were solid white (porcelain?). I also found some deep reddish pieces but my favorite was the sky blue/turquoise piece.
All in all, quite a fun trip. The scenery was breath taking, and the richness of this particular site was impressive. I recommend it as a fun excersion!
Until next time, adventure on!
– The Nerd Adventurer
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