Walking the La Jolla Coast With Holiday Guests? What's New, What's Still Fenced, and What Closes Dec. 15

"It's so useful to have a break in your day and be able to sit down at a picnic table and see this view," Alexandra Corsi told the La Jolla Light in the San Diego Union-Tribune after the second Scripps Park picnic grove opened on Oct. 23. Corsi organized the project and is a member of La Jolla Parks & Beaches. Getting it built took nearly three years from the first permit request. Donors, a service club and a volunteer board paid for it, and the city's part was issuing a right-of-entry permit.

That pattern shapes the whole mile from La Jolla Cove to the Children's Pool this season. Most of what is newly fixed along Coast Boulevard was funded privately, one project at a time. The places you can't go are set by marine mammal rules, and they aren't going to change in time for anyone's Thanksgiving guests. If you're planning a holiday walk along this stretch, you'll be working around both.

Start at the new grove, and know what it took

The first Scripps Park picnic grove opened in December 2022. It moved tables, improved access for people with disabilities, replaced a dying tree and laid down a paving material called GraniteCrete. It also added a plaque honoring Selma Malk, a longtime resident of La Jolla's La Valencia Hotel, whose family provided early funding. The second grove follows the same design, with GraniteCrete underfoot, one relocated table, one new table and a new barbecue.

The timeline shows how this kind of coastal work actually gets done:

1. January 2024: Volunteers started the process to get a right-of-entry permit from the city.
2. January 2025: The permit was signed, good until January 2026 with an option for a six-month extension.
3. 2025 into 2026: Donors had committed to cover only half of construction. Corsi went to the Kiwanis Club of La Jolla for a $10,000 grant, another $10,000 came from La Jolla Parks & Beaches, and donors came back with more. Then a new city planner was assigned and the extension wasn't properly secured, so volunteers had to restart the permit review.
4. Sept. 14, 2026: Construction began.
5. Oct. 23, 2026: The grove opened to the public.

Corsi credited Brian Malk, Ann Lipschitz, La Jolla Parks & Beaches president Ann Dynes, secretary Tim Seery, the Kiwanis Club, Jim Neri of Neri Landscape Architects and Alan Cronin of Geared For Growth Landscaping. For a holiday visit, the grove is a good place to start. You get a table and an ocean view, and it's a short walk from everything else on this route.

The fence above Goldfish Point is being rebuilt one section at a time

Walk north from the grove toward the Cove and you'll pass the aging white wooden fence that runs from Goldfish Point to La Jolla Cove. A group of Scouts is restoring it under the La Jolla Coastal Conservancy, led by an Eagle Scout candidate. They finished a prototype section first, replacing failing wood and adding marine-grade stainless-steel bird protection wire.

OluKai La Jolla provided the first funding. The Conservancy's October update, reported by lajolla.ca, put the remaining gap at about $13,000 and set a goal of finishing by the end of the year. The Kiwanis Club of La Jolla has since offered $8,000 to close the gap. Through December, the fence may be partly old boards and partly new ones.

The La Jolla Coastal Conservancy is a nonprofit that partners with the city of San Diego to carry out privately funded improvements and maintenance along the shoreline, from Coast Walk Trail south to Whale View Point. Its approach is to give private groups a single standing way to do repairs on city land under a right-of-entry permit, so each project doesn't have to start from scratch. The picnic grove spent years caught in that kind of from-scratch process.

At the Cove, the limits are federal

On Oct. 22, San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria, City Council President Joe LaCava, California Coastal Commission Executive Director Kate Huckelbridge and Congressman Scott Peters sent a letter to NOAA Fisheries, the Union-Tribune reported, asking for a federal "enforcement presence" at La Jolla Cove. The letter also asks that the city be given "greater enforcement capabilities" to keep people away from the sea lions that rest on shore there.

Sea lions are protected under the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act, which makes it illegal to harass, harm, pursue or feed them, and only NOAA agents can enforce it. The letter states the limit plainly:

"City park rangers do not have jurisdiction to enforce the (MMPA) and can only refer potential harassment cases to NOAA."

NOAA Fisheries told the La Jolla Light it will "respond through the appropriate channels." In October, LaCava said he expected the request for more federal presence to be declined. He said the city's next hope is for NOAA to deputize city park rangers so they can issue citations.

Just past the Cove, Point La Jolla and Boomer Beach stay closed this winter. The San Diego City Council changed their closure from seasonal to year-round on Sept. 18, 2023, and the city then received a Coastal Development Permit amendment to put the year-round closure in place. If a guest remembers walking out there in the fall years ago, the city's Point La Jolla page explains what changed. This post is general information, not legal advice. For the details of these wildlife and closure rules, go to the linked city and federal sources.

Coast Boulevard's stairs: one funded and scheduled, one still waiting for money

Heading south on Coast Boulevard, the beach-access stairs at Whale View Point in the 400 block were scheduled for repair from Oct. 14 through Oct. 28. While the work was underway, visitors were directed to the stairs near the Surf Shack across from 333 Coast Blvd. The plan was to clear sand, smooth the surface with slurry and attach precast concrete pavers made offsite, chosen to look similar to the original steps without matching them exactly.

Ellen Browning Scripps paid to build the original stairway in the 1920s. Project volunteer Bob Evans, a former president of La Jolla Parks & Beaches, told the Union-Tribune, "I don't think there has been any maintenance or repair in the last 100 years." The stairs are part of the La Jolla Park Coastal Historic District, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in spring 2024. The district also includes La Jolla Cove, the Children's Pool, the Casa de Mañana retirement community and the Red Roost and Red Rest cottages.

You'll see more of the same work nearby. The Conservancy and the city's Shoreline Parks team added post-and-chain barriers north along Coast Boulevard to mark walking paths and keep foot traffic off sensitive areas. A San Diego County Neighborhood Reinvestment Program grant paid for it. Proceeds from the BirdStock music festival offered $20,000 to help repaint a coastal belvedere, the gazebo-style lookout, and the exterior of the Whale View Point surf shack. The Conservancy scheduled the belvedere painting for later this fall.

The South Casa Beach stairs near the Children's Pool lifeguard tower have a much longer wait. Storms damaged their base in early 2024, and the city chained the stairway off. Conservancy chair Brenda Fake said the project has a city-approved design but no funding yet. One anonymous donor has pledged up to $100,000, and she cited an estimate of $5 million based on other projects. The Whale View stairs and the chained South Casa stairs are a few minutes' walk apart, and the project that found its money is the one that reached a construction date.

Dec. 15 changes the south end of the walk

The Children's Pool marks the end of this route, and its calendar is fixed. The city's lifeguard page says public access to Children's Pool Beach closes every year during harbor seal pupping season, from Dec. 15 through May 15. If guests want to go down onto that beach, plan it for the weeks before Dec. 15. After that date, the full walk ends at the seawall above the beach.

Fitting the walk around the rest of the holiday calendar

These dates in the Village and nearby can help you time a visit:

• Sunday, Nov. 22, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.: La Jolla Village's Holiday Open House. The merchants' association lists more than 30 participating businesses, free family activities, carolers and a Kids Zone. Details are on La Jolla by the Sea.
• Sunday, Dec. 6: The 70th La Jolla Christmas Parade & Holiday Festival starts at Kline and Girard and ends at the La Jolla Recreation Center, at Draper and Prospect. New this year are a Village Christmas Market for local makers and businesses and a live music and performing arts program called Sounds by the Sea. Under the no-parking map, cars on the listed staging streets get towed after 8:30 a.m., and cars on the listed route streets, including Girard, Prospect and Draper, get towed after 11:30 a.m. Check ljparade.com for the start time before you go.
• Dec. 15: Children's Pool Beach closes until May 15.
• If your walk continues north into La Jolla Shores: Shio La Jolla, at 2259 Avenida de la Playa in the former Sandpiper Restaurant space, had its grand opening Oct. 24. Laureate Park is fenced off because of sewer-main damage, and it is expected to stay closed into early 2027.

If you live near the coast and want to know how projects like the Whale View stairs and the Scripps Park groves fit into the long-term picture for your street, I'm glad to talk it through. Reach out to Adrienne Mineiro. Let's connect, and if it would help, I can put together a free home valuation that takes the coast right outside your door into account.