Abalone Cove Trail

Abalone Cove offers the hiker a fine sampling of the pleasures of the PV shoreline: tidepools, sandy beaches and dramatic 180-foot high bluffs laced with trails. The excellent vistas from the top of the bluffs include Sacred (Smugglers) Cove and Inspiration Point, Catalina Island and the wide blue Pacific, and inland to the Portuguese Bend landslide zone.

Mile-long Abalone Cove Shoreline Park boasts two beaches—East Beach, a sandy beach at the east end of the cove and Upper Beach, an artificially raised rocky and sandy beach created in the 1930s for a resort hotel, whose former clubhouse now serves as a lifeguard facility. An ecological reserve protects the rich tidepools and offshore kelp beds.

The hike: From the parking lot, head east (up-coast) across the picnic area to a wide path that leads to the park service road. Fork left on this road and ascend a narrow path that parallels Palos Verdes Drive South.

You reach—and hike briefly up—another park service road to a trail junction. Bear left to begin a clockwise exploration of Portuguese Point. After looping around and savoring the views (watch for dolphins surfacing just outside the surf zone), you’ll return to the trail junction and this time take the west fork. The path leads down to the shoreline below the point and connects to a coastal trail that you’ll follow a half-mile up-coast along Abalone Cove.  At Upper Beach and the lifeguard station, ascend the park road to a junction with a footpath that climbs through the coastal scrub back to the trailhead.