Crystal Cove State Park

EXPERIENCE DESCRIPTION

Crystal Cove State Park runs along the coast just north of Laguna Beach, where the blufftop trails drop down to a series of sandy coves and tidepool shelves that expose sea urchins, anemones, and small fish at low tide. The fog sits on the water most mornings, burning off as the sun rises over the hills, and the beach in this early window is quiet and cold and entirely unlike anything further south. The Historic District at the park's center, 46 vintage 1930s and 40s cottages clustered around a creek mouth, gives the place a layered quality that most state parks in Orange County don't have.

OPERATOR STORY

Crystal Cove State Park has been managed by California State Parks since 1979, when the state purchased the land from the Irvine Company to preserve one of the last remaining undeveloped stretches of Orange County coastline. The 2,791-acre park includes the Crystal Cove Historic District, a federally listed enclave of 46 rustic cottages built as a private seaside colony in the 1930s and 1940s and restored through a decades-long partnership between California State Parks and the Crystal Cove Conservancy.