Laguna Beach: Off the Clock

Sometimes the mountains can wait. After a stretch of big objectives, the plan was simple: fly into San Diego, point the car north up the coast, and turn the brain completely off for a week.

July 27 to 31, 2026

I arrived just in time to catch some serious surf and swells rolling in from a hurricane system offshore. San Diego was already churning. I linked up with a good friend and we made our way up the Pacific Coast Highway to Orange County, arriving right at golden hour.

Laguna Beach at golden hour. Worth the drive up the coast.

We played tourist in the best way, hitting as many beaches as we could before the sun dropped. The light that week was ridiculous.

The sun goes down differently down here.

End of the day on the sand.

Casa Loma

We stayed at Casa Loma Beach Hotel, a boutique spot right on the water. Clean rooms, a balcony overlooking the beach, and a swimming pool that turned out to be more essential than expected. The swells that week were well above normal. On some stretches they were slamming directly into the seawall. The pool was clutch.

The cliffside real estate in Laguna is something else.

Hurricane swell doing its thing. Not a week for casual swimming.

Marine layer rolling in at night, coast still glowing underneath it.

The Tidepools

Low tide opened up the tidepools and we spent a solid chunk of time just wandering the rocks. Laguna’s pools are dense. Every puddle had something going on.

Chitons. Eyes made of stone, teeth harder than steel, and 500 million years of scraping algae off these exact rocks. Locals only.

Gooseneck barnacles packed into the surf zone. People once swore these hatched into geese. They’re actually crustaceans, cousins to the crab, and a delicacy in Spain.

A whole neighborhood in one pool. Anemones, limpets, snails.

Those anemones are clones, and where two colonies meet they fight it out tentacle to tentacle. Every square inch of that rock is occupied.

A pod of dolphins made a pass along the surf line, maybe 15 of them, running the break north and then back south. One launched clean out of the water. No summit required for that one.

A pod of maybe 15 cruising the surf line. One launched clean. Best wildlife sighting of the trip.

The Felt

After some top tier Chilean sea bass and scallops at Nick’s, we found our way to the local pool bar. What followed was four consecutive wins, which did not go over well with the regulars. They recruited their best player and his friend, both of whom apparently play every night. It was entertaining to watch them scramble to get us off the table. We didn’t hold the table forever, but we made them work for it. A successful night on the felt.

Chilean sea bass at Nick’s. Did not disappoint. A lot better than a gas station pastry.

Good company, great food. The right way to do a beach trip.

The Surf

The hurricane swell ran all week. The surfers made the most of it.

Peak beach day. Surfers out past the break waiting on the next set.

The lineup was firing all week. Some of the best waves I’ve watched.

Ocean and rock doing what they do.

Onward

The trip wrapped up fast, as good trips tend to. We made our way back down to San Diego and I flew home with a brain full of beach and ocean and enough Southern California sun to get me through the rest of the PNW summer. Back to Washington, full of stoke, ready for more mountains.

Onward.

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