Sunset Cliffs Natural ParkSan Diego, CA

Visibility is an estimate — wind, rain, tide & water alerts.

Getting in

Shore access, stairs down to the water

Getting through the gate

No entry fee and no posted pedestrian curfew for the park itself. Sunset viewing or wedding use of the Ladera, Osprey or Luscomb Point overlooks requires a city permit and is capped at 50 people.

Parking

Small lots at each of the park's three overlooks (Ladera Street, Osprey Street and Luscomb Point at Hill Street) plus street parking along Sunset Cliffs Boulevard; none of the three has restrooms. The city closes the Ladera Street lot to vehicles from 11 p.m. to 4 a.m. and its other Sunset Cliffs lots from 2 a.m. to 4 a.m., year-round.

Protection

The City of San Diego dedicated Sunset Cliffs Natural Park in 1983. Its 50-acre hillside section is a designated multiple-species conservation area linked to the adjacent Point Loma Ecological Reserve.

On site

parking lot

Watch for

The sandstone bluffs are chronically unstable. A 2018 collapse below the Ladera Street stairs led the city to close them and later spend $1.8 million on an emergency bluff stabilization project; a San Diego State seismologist, quoted in OB Rag's coverage at the time, called the failure domino-like, one section giving way and setting up the next, Jumping from the bluffs into the ocean is illegal and posted as such at spots like Pappy's Point, between Osprey and Froude streets. It persists as a viral trend that has injured jumpers, and San Diego police and lifeguards have stepped up enforcement and patrols there, OB Rag's running count of deaths and serious injuries at Sunset Cliffs totaled 24 deaths and 49 serious injuries from 2005 through 2018. Its more completely tracked recent years average 11 a year, and the publisher calls the totals likely low

Checked 2026-08-26. Sources: City of San Diego: Sunset Cliffs Natural Park, City of San Diego: nighttime park curfews and closures, San Diego Reader, via OB Rag: the Ladera Street stairs and Garbage Beach, OB Rag: 2018 Ladera stairs closure after cliff collapse, OB Rag: emergency Ladera Street bluff stabilization, OB Rag: deaths and dangers survey, 2005 through 2018, KPBS: police increase enforcement after cliff jumper injuries, OB Rag: the named Sunset Cliffs surf breaks.