A Walk on the Beaches of Aptos

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I’ve always enjoyed going on a nice walk, and Aptos is a wonderful place to go for a stroll. For those looking to seriously exert themselves, there’s always the lovely Forest of Nisene Marks State Park, which has miles and miles of hiking trails through this 10,000+ acre forested beauty. However, many folks instead choose to go for a walk on the beaches of Aptos.

There’s no shortage of great beaches for walking in Aptos. The other day, I wanted to go on a walk, and I thought I would start at New Brighton Beach, then make my way down to Pot Belly Beach, and then Seacliff Beach, before cruising up the Aptos Beach Gate path before eventually making my way back home.

Aside from just exercise, I had another objective. I wanted to go to a place I hadn’t been to in years – maybe a couple of decades, actually. Back in my college days, when I was living up on the bluff above the Cement Boat, my friends and I would go to the beach now and again to hang out. One of our favorite spots to go was this really cool ravine, which is at the southern end of Pot Belly Beach.

I thought it would be a great place to take my kids sometime. Since I hadn’t been in a while, I decided to take a moment to reconnoiter, since I was in the neighborhood. Back in the day, my friends and I would wander quite far up the ravine, but on this trip, the creek was so high that getting up into the ravine would have involved getting wetter than I was planning on.

So I didn’t make it up the ravine, alas, but I took a few pictures and I’ve made a note to come back soon, with the kids. As I was standing there looking at my phone, I happened to notice that the ravine is actually the end of Borregas Creek Gulch – which, coincidentally, was also the original border of Aptos Rancho, back in the 1840s. Small world!

The ravine itself is very cool, with sandstone cliff walls climbing dozens of feet above the creek bed. It’s really cool to look at all the sea shells embedded into the walls of the ravine, and I can’t wait to go back with my kids to explore and talk about our local Aptos geology.