by Matthew Jaffe, Sunset senior writer

Global warming and rising sea levels notwithstanding, they’re not making any new oceanfront property. So when a new stretch of coast opens to the public, such as the Point Buchon Trail in San Luis Obispo County,  that’s big news. (For this and other secret beaches, check out July’s Sunset.)

Growing up in Chicago, the California coast had an almost mythical quality for me and in my 20+ years out here, I’ve managed to hit just about every reasonably accessible stretch between the border and San Francisco—plus four of the Channel Islands and Santa Catalina. Thanks to my cub reporter days at the Lompoc Record, I was even able to get out on many sections of the 30-mile-long Vandenberg Air Force Base coast.

But there remained one sizable gap in my curriculum beachae. For years, I’d hike the Bluff Trail at Montana de Oro State Park, edging along its coves, before reaching what always seemed to be the world’s ugliest fence and beyond it, grazing cows who clearly had no appreciation of the coastal views somewhere past their snouts. This was Pacific Gas & Electric land, part of the Diablo Canyon Power Plant facility, and off limits for decades.

But now with the opening of the trail, a roughly 2-mile stretch of this coastline with spectacular sea stacks and formations, can be explored from Thursdays through Sundays.

Go to the end of the road at Montana de Oro, and there’s a kiosk where you sign in for access. After crossing golden grasslands (still sprinkled with poppies as recently as of a couple weeks ago), you reach the first beach and from there the views of the coastline just get better and better on the roughly 4-mile roundtrip.

Sure, you'll still find a few reminders that this isn’t parkland and you’re asked to be back to the kiosk by 4:30, thus limiting what I imagine would be amazing sunset shots.

But for now I was just thrilled to get out there. Because this stretch of coast ranks with the very best that California has to offer

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