Before you say anything about the content of this article, I hate people who litter. I’ll judge you if I think you’re too lazy to recycle. I hate pollution and the death of our fragile ecosystems and all the rest. But- with that disclaimer out of the way- Glass Beach in Fort Bragg, California is the incredible result of human wastefulness and the resilience of nature. I’ve been trolling around for lesser 
known landscapes to road trip to and explore, and stumbled across this chunk of multicoloured west coast paradise. These days, Glass Beach is a protected part of MacKerricher State Park, but in 1949, it was the site of an unrestricted dump. For 18 years, people drove out to the scenic expanse of ocean cliffs, marveled at the beauty of the natural world and the majesty of the depths, and then threw all their shit in.
Glass Beach, California – The Dump You’ll Want to Visit
Eventually, California realized that dumping automobiles, appliances, toxic substances and razor sharp shards of glass into the water was probably a bad idea, and looked elsewhere for a dumping site. The beaches under the cliffs lay polluted, cluttered and ruined, and were basically treated as a forgotten ‘mistake.’ Despite our obviously brilliant handling of the situation, Mother Earth had a few tricks up her sleeve, and spent the next 30 years tumbling away the jagged edges of our insensitivity and leaving behind brilliant pebbles of polished glass. As the shores grew into glimmering beaches, the state realized that people were visiting to collect the glass and to see the rainbow sands reflecting the sun, and quickly annexed it into a national park. The result? We finished up what nature graciously started, spent a few years cleaning up rusting metal hulks and all sorts of wonderfully dangerous debris (nothing says sandcastle fun like getting tetanus from a lead-filled 50s throwback), and Glass Beach is now a protected treasure that I’m dying to visit. While I can only imagine the sight of the colours of translucent glass turning in the sun and turbulent surf, I’m thinking I might just keep my shoes on.
{ 223 comments… read them below or add one }
I love the bright colours here – makes visiting seem very inviting.
It’s not all that beautiful to me. Just a bunch of trash.
It’s a beautiful garbage dump then perhaps? At least the glass chunks aren’t sharp.
When were you there? We were just there last week (and also 5 years ago). You have to search really hard to find any trash. Last time we found a spark plug. This time we found 3 pieces of metal under 3 inches, one piece of rubber about 2 inches, and a heavy pointed object about 6 inches long that may have been a piece of a staircase balluster. And that was after 8 hours of beach combing. It’s amazing how the whole thing has been cleaned up. On the down side, people have taken most of the glass, so it won’t be long before they have to change the name. There is talk of a “re-seeding” program, but that will take decades to get off the ground.
reseeding… there is something wrong with throwing more glass into the ocean so that more people can look at a colorful glass beach, simply as a result of other people taking the glass from the beach. (We are such a silly, On-Demand society these days).
i don’t see what is wrong with letting this one pass. it was a disgusting thing transformed into a moderate amount of beauty, if you saw it you saw it, game over.. right?
What exactly does “dint” mean? I see it online quite often. Is it a lazy version of “didn’t?” Because if that’s the case, come on. It’s just one extra letter that makes you seem significantly more intelligent. Use it, please.
That said, I agree with you. If you’ve seen the glass beach, congratulations. If you didn’t, that doesn’t mean we need to make another one.
OKAY I have to ask – what is wrong with putting glass into the ocean so that it can be recycled by nature into sand? Before you answer, do you know where glass comes from?
Ok, we know where glass comes from. But, the fact of the matter is it wasn’t only glass that was dumped onto that stretch of land, there was metal, rubber, garbage, you name it. Now, saying we did that again, I don’t think we’d have the same outcome and people may get hurt if we do this again, because people will still go there to see the “glass beach” but be disappointed when its filled with garbage again.
It was there once, by accident. Lets not try and recreate something that should have never happened.
We need to let the ocean ecosystem in that area regenerate into what it is naturally supposed to be. I don’t understand how throwing huge amounts of sharp shards of glass into the ocean seems like a good idea to you, even if it did turn into something kind of cool the first time.
Beauty can be found in landfills even…..there is beauty to a clearly juxtaposed image such as a beach made of glass bottles, or a reef made of tires…..its sad, but thats not about aesthetics, context, or intent. It is what makes it something people need to see, and gives it a sense of power and beauty.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder!! I suppose that you think that the fog rolling off a lazy river on a cool morning is just smog??? Or that the first smile from a newborn baby is just gas? Try looking at the world thru rose colored glasses for a change! You might just see something amazing for once!!!
kim, your the problem in this country. I could sculpt my waste into a dove and have it fly away would that be beautiful to you? Lets make more glass beaches eh? why not nature wont care right.
Glass IS sand in solid form. It is just being recycled and it does look pretty.
to me its beautiful simple aesthetically, but within, its is much more beautiful that a former dump could transform itself into such beauty
This does look entirely cool. For a dump and all…
Until the day we invent something to take us back in time so we can beat the “we just didn’t know better” out of our ancestors, I think that this is an interesting and attractive result, all considered.
There’s also the point that some day in the future, these large pieces will be worn down to fine sand, just like every other rock or silicate on the beach.
Nature is like the honey badger. Nature don’t give a shit.
nature don’t care nature don’t give a shit
You’re my new favorite reader.
correction: honey badgers do give a shit. however, they don’t give a fuck
and are quite nastyass. EW WHAT ARE YOU DOING HONEYBADGER?!
Ancestors didnt know r u kidding me back in the day there was no glass to throw away u refilled ur milk bottles beer bottles and soda there were no PLASTIC everything the waste is now it wasn’t then youneed to read a little deeper there were no boxed and packaged food no fast food cups bags and wrappers no cigarette butts …no not ancestors its called technology. And the need for convenience it is the last 20 to 30the years even appliances. Are through away now…no u can thank the here the now when’s the last 20 time u asked for paper instead of plastic or bought allumin. Cans instead of plastic or glass repaired an electronic instead of throwing it away
:) just saying and I’m. 42 by the way
This is historical imperialism at its finest. Ignorant ancestors. Heh. You’re providing plenty of material for your future analogue to make similar comments.
There is also a glass beach in Hawaii on the island of Kauai, some dispute about who made it .kev.
Volcanos made the glass beaches. when the lava melts the sand, it turns to glass. Glass is a totally natural substance. It is simply melted sand. It is not littering. it will turn back into sand. Sheesh. It isn’tplastic
It is nice to see that something so thoughtless and horrible, ie littering, has been turned into something so pretty and unique!
Wow, this looks like a really amazing place! And who knows what happened to all the chemicals and toxins dumped in with all the glass, but at least Mother Earth can tumble these shards back into sand and show that sometimes beauty truly can come from misfortune.
The released toxins from worn glass is disturbing. Reassurance comes from knowing that sand is a key ingredient to glass production – the sea is recycling itself. Thankfully. Plastic is frightful. Found this through stumbleupon
Perhaps the author should have actually visited the glass beach before writing about it. You don’t need shoes.
Hey Randy- I actually point out I haven’t been there, but mentioning shoes is more my personal humour and a touch of skepticism at wanting to step around in what is essentially ankle deep glass. I’m not pointing out that shoes are required in any way.
However, Fort Bragg’s website does mention that you should consider keeping them on as there are the few occasional pieces of rusty metal scraps (like old spark plugs and that sort of thing) laying around that may have been missed or have washed up since the cleanup.
I suppose I have mixed feelings on this one. I too, like you can not understand people who litter. I just put it down to damn right laziness..and this.. well I agree it is an incredible sight and thankfully a very rare one at that. We are slowly becoming ever so slightly more willing to try and protect our planet, but still have an extremely long way to go. If the adding of more glass to this site has stopped and the damage to wildlife is zero then I don’t suppose there is a harm in promoting it as a site to see, and maybe some money could be made from it to be used in some way to help stop people from littering.
I think it’s an excellent example of how God can take uneven our most thoughtless and stupid mistakes; and with a little time…transform it into something beautiful.
God did this? Its funny how when it was a waste dump it was man made, then when it turned good it was gods intervention. Im sure “god” has better things to do.
Diane, it’s not god btw. It’s nature. Thanks.
Can’t we all just believe our own beliefs and not constantly rag on or correct another?
Jaimie, your comment is the best I have read here yet. Live and let live people, quit trying to nitpick everyone else beliefs. Have some respect for one another.
Josh, God created nature!
That’s right, misti, God did that not long after nature created her.
tehee
misti and jaimie stfu. ppl should be ragged on it challenges their beliefs. I find more people trying to shove god in others faces more then anything else.
Actually, I find that people who don’t believe in God shove it in others’ faces much more than the other way around. Diane made a statement about a God that she personally believes in – notice that she isn’t trying to convince others of her beliefs or ‘rag’ on athiests. More often than not, I find that my athiest friends point fingers about ‘preaching’ and then preach to me about what they think. Just let things be, it’s the Internet.
If you put any opinion( religious or not) in a public forum you are giving people the chance to challenge or agree with your opinion..
if you don’t like that then… Don’t post anything.
Human development is fueled in huge part by the
QUESTIONING OF PREVIOUSLY HELD BELIEFS
Not challenging opinions (of any form) is tantamount to accepting them, and if we all did that then…
We would be living on a Flat world in the Centre of the Universe
and that would be such a waste of the
A) True Beauty of Creation and the Universe
or
B) True Beauty of Gods Creation and the Universe
I think you’re all nuts, it wasn’t God or nature that did this, it was magic glass fairies that are sent here from Fairyland to protect the little, they spend night and day polishing every little piece of glass so as no child or adult gets cut or scraped.
You need to stop with these mythical creations you come with like God and nature and trying to think that this stuff magically happens with a snap of the finger. If you only knew the fairy hours put into each piece of glass you would truly appreciate the true beauty of each piece.
Saying something like “God did this” or Mother nature did this” please, it’s not that simple. Trust me, just ask the next glass fairy you see. I’m sure every one of these little amazing creatures could tell you a story….
You should all be ashamed.
Excellent article! I live in California and I’ve never heard about this place. I found your blog on stumbleupon. We write a travel blog at letsjetset.com and I’m definitely going to put this place on our to do list! Thank you!
cool. can i take some of the glass home with me?
No. The glass is a part of the beach. It’s protected. If you take it with you, then others will too, and eventually there will be nothing left of the beautiful beach that was there. Take pictures instead please.
It’s actually “frowned” upon and discouraged. But I have researched it and can not find anywhere where State law prohibits removal of trash from the beach, yes it is man made trash, even though it’s beautiful. If it’s gone someday the beach will still be be there, and it will still be beautiful the way it was before it was a dump.
I’ve been there a few times. It’s such a cool place. My uncle always said the blue bits of glass were the most rare and challenged my cousins and I to find as many as we could.
I have collected seaglass in a bunch of provinces and states and I find red is the most scarce. I have mostly Green,White(clear), Blue & Brown. I have found some Orange, Yellow and Purple but only one Red piece. I spoke with a man at a craft fair in CT & he said Black was very rare!! I find alot of joy along the ocean beaches and sea glass is all part of it!
Great, really wanna visit this place.
Thanks Gina, for sharing it.
I visited MacKerricher last year, and I am sad to report that there is virtually no glass on glass beach. Also, there is a significant amount of fresh, sharp glass. It looked like people had been breaking bottles on the beach in an attempt to restore the glass taken by hundreds of tourists and opportunists.
Not really. I grew up in Fort Bragg/Mendocino and only recently graduated high school and moved away. While any of the cool or special glass is pretty much gone, there is still lots and lots of green and clear glass and none of it is sharp. I was just there a few months ago, in fact.
I’ve been there and it is a beautiful example of the ability of humans to not think far enough into the future. it is sad in as many ways as it is beautiful. We’ve found very interesting objects, a piece from a brown Clorox bottle, with just the Clorox logo left and my mom’s personal favorite, a tiny arm from a porcelain doll. I’d like to know when these pictures were taken because when I was there in the mid-90′s, the beach was pretty well picked over. But perhaps the trash of yesteryear continues to come ashore…
Sometimes things take care of themselves. This is a great example how a negative is turned to a positive.
I was born and raised in Fort Bragg, and I miss it terribly. Glass Beach is a beautiful place, very unique and a place people should really consider visiting.
Josh, God and Nature are one and the same.
err no.
Nature is proven to exist, god is not,
they could be one and the same but we do not know this
It amazes me that there are so many environmentalists now that can bash what was done “back in the day.” Where were they then? We didn’t know about ecology and the harm doing that could cause. We just wanted to get rid of our garbage. Better there then on the roadside somewhere in the woods like what’s being done now. I know this for a fact because I see it almost once a month on my drive into town. Now there’s the people who need the reprimend in this modern day. However I applaud the environmentalist’s effort to clean things up.
how beautiful… from something bad, something good. see how jah fixes our crap!
Great post! I lived up in the Seattle area for years, and finding pretty glass is as fun as searching for agates and seashells.
~Tui p.s. Found you from Stumble Upon.
Can’t believe all this plastic hasn’t creped up on shore!
Try visiting Hawaii (the big island) the southernmost point of the United States. The entire shoreline is plastic. Washed in from everywhere. English, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese writing on the piles of fisherman’s floats, water bottles and all things imaginable that are made of plastic. You drive way out of the way attempting to see “The Green Sand Beach” and this is what you stumble upon along the way. It’s disgusting, you don’t even see the sand for the trash.
ever since Nat’l.Geo put a peice on these old dump sites people from all over have come and picked and dug and polluted paths and beaches.It is picked pretty clean these days and some vendors set up tables and sell peices of glass and various other trinkets.makinking it commerical has taken the old hidden joy out of it.
That sucks, I wonder how much glass is left?
I was just at this beach 2 weeks ago and there was still plenty of glass, the paths were clean and well maintained and there was not a single person selling trinkets or setting up vendor tables.
In fact, the beautiful walking paths and trails were lined with rambling wild blackberry bushes and fat and happy squirrels.
I’ve been to glass beach. I didn’t really care for the old glass, but I loved the scenic views and had so much fun taking pictures around glass beach. it’s very beautiful and it is worth going to.
I went there with my parents in 2007! My mom makes jewelry out of sea glass/ shells so she made us go there. It was so worth it though!! And you really can go barefoot!
Apparently there are a couple of beaches; the main one MacKerricher touts as a tourist hotspot seems to be the one people are saying is picked over. From what I’ve been reading in park guides and what not, there are two other beaches that are harder to get to that have been left much more undisturbed. But that might be because one is only accessible by Sea Kayak. What an awesome adventure!
Everything else aside, how did the wildlife/ocean life handle all the years of abuse from humans? Ft. Bragg native(s): are there normally sea lions or seals in the area? If yes, how were they affected by all the toxins and glass bits before the glass was tumbled smooth? How about sea creatures? Do Ft. Bragg natives eat the fish, shell fish from the area? Does kelp grow normally? Star fish?
This is part of our problem: we only think of how humans are affected, not the rest of the eco-system which we are dependent upon.
I am a “Ft. Bragg native”. To answer some of your questions…
“how did the wildlife/ocean life handle all the years of abuse from humans?”– I’m not old enough to remember the times when this area was actully used as a dump, so I don’t know how the wildlife suffered “way back when”. Our little community was quite the thriving fishing port for many many years. The decline in the industry has more to do with government regulations becuase of overfishing than the environmental hazards caused by the dumping that occured at Glass Beach.
“are there normally sea lions or seals in the area? If yes, how were they affected by all the toxins and glass bits before the glass was tumbled smooth?” Yes- we have sea lions and seals. I’m not sure how the sea lions and seals were effected, though they seem to be doing well (just ask any fisherman who has experienced a sea lion snagging a salmon from their line).
“Do Ft. Bragg natives eat the fish, shell fish from the area?” Yes, we do. And some of you might even eat them, too. As I said, we are a fishing community. Many of the fish and shell fish taken off our coast are shipped out of the area. Native are quite happy to eat fresh, locally caught snapper, salmon, abalone, mussles, halibut, dungeness crab, etc.
“Does kelp grow normally?” Yes- it feeds the abalone and sea urchins (urchin roe is shipped to Japan) “Star fish?” Yep- even in tide pools at Glass Beach!
This reminds me of how amazing it was to see then walk on a pure black sand beach on the Big Island of Ha’waii….
This internet always comes up with cool sites to visit. I love it! (This site) and the images. I always loved colored glass, it warms the soul.
great..want to visit this place for sure
It is really wonderful and I wish to visit this beach.
Tariq
I guess it just goes to show how arrogant humans are thinking they can ‘destroy’ nature. Just like the spill in the gulf, nature shows us once again she can take care of herself.
I visited here when I was growing up and every time it was a treat. It’s so much fun to run around seeing all the beautiful rocks that you can collect and all the beautiful colors of the rocks. I wish I could be there now. Such an amazing site to see.
While I hate litterers, I think glass on the beach is kind of funny, because it’s like “back to whence we came”. I wouldn’t mind visiting here. I agree with you, though. I’ll keep my shoes on; cutting your foot is never fun.
Love this place. I would have totally missed last year on my road trip if a local hadn’t told me to stop. Ft Bragg is a cool little town, worth stopping at.
The weirdest thing just happened… I am reading this article about glass beach and Fort Brag and watching 60 minutes,and in a completely unrelated story about Japan and the tsunami, they keep mentioning Fort Brag. 10-2-11 at 7:10 P.M. Serendipity strikes again.
I was watching the same show but caught it right at the end of the tsunami part, I missed the Fort Brag. Speaking of 60 minutes, that guy that climbed all those mountains without any ropes was pretty crazy and cool.
This is a brilliant story. I had no idea this existed.
Fort Bragg is the California town that has a Japanese sister city just profiled on ABC News. — Now that we’re so much smarter than that long ago trash dumping — and we’ve done away with our glass, we only have plastic bottles! Scary…
one state’s trash, the rest of the world’s treasure
Love the photos! Seems like a beach I might be wary of scooping up a handful of “sand” though. But definitely would love to check it out! Those colours are wild!
Luckily nature helped out with this mistake. Now if she will do something about the oil spills!
I llike these stone…
Cool. Have just been reading another article on collecting wave washed antique glass and those collectors probably need to know about this beach.
Nice post! I wanted to share it via Twitter with over 60.000 followers, but I can’t find a tweet button.
You could always just post the link!! Do it! This post deserves to be seen by everybody! Places like this are rare. Mother Nature fixing the problems we created!
OMG, I was in Ft. Bragg last January and didn’t know about this place. Too bad. Looks cool
Wow. Absolutely gorgeous. How interesting, too. Thanks for sharing. I used, many years ago, to be able to collect bits of polished glass like that on Shell Beach in La Jolla, California, to decorate my little terrariums. But since laws are now in place and enforced outlawing glass bottles on the beaches, the polished glass bits are no more. I love how nature is designed to impact dangerous things and make them beautiful sometimes.
Glass beach looks nothing like this anymore. The locals go down early in the morning and collect whatever small amounts of glass still wash up. Ft. Bragg is still a beautiful place to visit, though!
Thank you for pointing this out.
Ft. Bragg is 6 hours drive south of me, so I don’t get to go down there often. Last year I went down and there wasn’t one piece of glass to be seen. It isn’t just picked over now, its gone.
It also irritates me that a travel blog was written by someone who’s never been there. Just wow!
We’ve been having a pretty great back and forth conversation in the comments here about parts of the beach still having glass. Many people say the main beach has no glass, some have gone to different parts and found glass. Either way, people are talking about their experiences and their enjoyment of the area, and are interested in the positive results of just another mistake in our history as humans.
Taking some of your own language, it irritates me that you make a snippy comment when you clearly came to a men’s blog, not a travel blog. I’ve never been to the beach, but rather repeatedly mention it’s something I’d like to see. It’s an interesting and wonderful story about somewhere near to you that deserves to be shared. Just wow!
Oh my God. Incredible. I can’t imagine or I never imagined that debris and rubble can turn into a beauty, something like this in Fort Bragg California. This beach is really worth a visit. I wish I can get to this place one of these days.
It’s nice something terrible could be turned into something so interesting
It amazes me that there are so many environmentalists now that can bash what was done “back in the day.” Where were they then?
Wow, it is absolutely beautiful. It is so important to visit places like these at some point in your life. It’s definitely on the bucket list. I love traveling to places all over the world and finding great deals to get there!
Very beautiful! That is a great opening picture as well. I’ve never heard of this place before reading this article, but now I really want to to go.
sooo if nature can just do that…with a bunch of trash does it matter if we litter??
I actually just visited glass beach in July, my sister got married in Mendocino! It was awesome! Although I must say it is sad to see people come and collect bags and bags of glass to make crafts and jewelry out of. I think it is okay to take a few pieces but try to leave it there for people to explore for years to come! And you don’t have to keep your shoes on!
I find it rather shocking how ignorant the authorities were to use this place as a wast dump. I always thought folk from CA were smart, but they have just proved me wrong.
i love this. brilliant reminder that nature will always prevail. as much destruction as we may do to the world, it will always last long after the human race is gone
I judge people who don’t recycle too.
My friends totally nerded out here and collected as much glass as they could while I took photos.
Glass beach is/ was amazing. We used to go there very very often as children last time I was there was probably about 7 years ago. I have heard from some that there is no glass left and others that it’s still great. I haven’t been back in a very long time though! Most of the people who have said there is nothing left, are people who are not local and probably don’t know where glass beach is. It’s in a strange spot so it can be difficult to find. Although it was created out of idiocy, it’s seriously beautiful,
There is a similar beach near Port Townsend, Washington. It is known by locals as Glass Beach. It too, was previously used as the town dump for many years. There is not nearly the amounts of sea glass shown as in Fort Bragg, California but still attracts those looking for sea glass in the Pacific Northwest.
don’t worry, your hate is unnoticed and will not change a thing.
Amazing,This is a brilliant.I want to visit this place for sure…
Loved it when we visited it although we didn’t see as much glass as this, maybe in the wrong spot. Sad it was a result of so many people dumping trash though!
So weird!!!! I was on Stumble Upon this morning and came across your post. I live in Colorado but my husband is on a motorcycle trip in California right now. I had no idea where he was because I hadn’t talked to him since yesterday morning but texted him he should check out this place. He just happened to be getting breakfast in Fort Bragg!!! So he went and checked it out after, said it was awesome. Thanks Gina!
There is a glass beach in St. Lucia as well. Locals can take you there, but its near the old french capital of Soufriere. If you ever wanted to go out there you could stay at Pelican House, and our local guide can take you.
I used to collect coloured stones from a beach in Sidmouth, England but there I had to search for them. Beautiful pictures.
Oh , I will be there , its heaven for me .
Love from the Netherlands ?Rini?
The photographs used in the post are absolutely beautiful.
Uh, I had no idea this existed! Great that they managed to make up for bad decisions of the past and turned it into something beautiful!
This place is beautiful with or without the glass (trash). It is actually on my life list to go back there: http://www.kellytirman.com/life-list/
Last time I didn’t take any pictures and I didn’t collect any glass.
Although I’ve never been there, I think it’s amazing how Mother Nature tries to correct our mistakes. A friend of mine saw this post & left a very appropriate comment….”A beautiful place to collect a mermaids’ tears”
I live right by there. Though i’ve only been there once, it was beautiful.
Very interesting. I had never heard of this place before.
Amazing find…I live in Northern California but have never heard of this place before. It will definitely be a stop on my next road trip to the border. The lesson here may be “don’t mess with Mother Nature”….she will turn junk into jewels! Thanks for the interesting article. Great job.
Gosh this place is pretty and unique. I’m going to check with my CA friends and see if anyone’s ever been there before.
this place is so lovely, wish i can visit it as well
When I moved to California 10 years ago, this is one of the first places I ever visited! So unique and the glass is so smooth!
Hey… I grew up here. Just down the coast in Mendocino. Fort Bragg is 10 miles north. Glass Beach is beautiful for sure.
This is amazing! I had no idea anything like this existed. Just just landed in the top 3 for spots I MUST visit in the next 2 years. Everytime I visit the Caribbean, I love collecting some of the smoothed glass from the beaches. I have a big glass jar full of various colors, shapes, and sizes. There’s just something beautiful about the glass and the uniqueness of each piece and the way the sun hits the jar and illuminates. I’ve gotta see this beach! Thanks for sharing!
This is truly a beautiful thing.
A great story – amazing what we do to the environment. The photos are also excellent
This is terrible and needs to be cleaned……….
It has been cleaned and its constantly combed over by people who walk the beach, so it really isn’t that “terrible”. w
I can understand the metal debris being a problem but aside from that. People have to be pretty ridiculous to argue with the fact of it actually being trash. Glass is made of sand and it isn’t at all pollution to form it. It’s actually a pretty clean process. It just takes heat to melt and not that much and we aren’t talking about Diamonds. That all being said, I simply think of the fact that nature always finds a way and what was once part of the environment is simply being recycled.
Its wonderful thanks for sharing such nice article
What a wonderful story!
Seriously!! I would wait ha hundred more years before visiting. Surely there are three-headed monster crabs lurking in the “sand” down there. And I’m one hundred percent sure I’m not gonna eat them.
Reminds me of when I was a kid summering in Canada on Lake Erie
I went here when I was 10; it is really gorgeous, but while I was in the water a wave took me tumbling back to shore, and a shard of not-so-smooth glass cut my head. I still have a scar there, and my hair is considerably thinner there in comparison to the rest of my really-thickly-haired head.
Holy hell. Either people didn’t listen to momma when she said “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” or they weren’t taught it.
So narcissistic of the writer. If you beive in the techtonic plate theory, any all all garbage will be destroyed and purified by the core of the earth. What self centered little shits think it’s all about their shirt life span. The Planet as they like to call it lives in geological time and has to no deference to man or any other creatures. It wasn’t garbage that made dinosaurs extict If you really believed in Darwin then you would already know that and stop with the petty lecturing of others.
There is actually a similar phenomenon on a much smaller scale in my hometown of pepperell, MA. the Jeff Smith trail runs through the woods in a location that used to be a bottling area, being located on a natural spring. Whenever the bottling co. left, they flushed all their glass bottles down the creek that the spring fed. Now decades later the whole riverbed is lined with different colors of old glass, worn down enough to walk through. All sorts of different size and color bottle pieces are still there, sometimes ill manage to fish out whole unbroken bottles, can be pretty neat.
I am a student in Soil Sciences and Watershed Management at Humboldt State University who has visited Glass Beach many times and has volunteered with the sea glass replenishment project. Replenishing with glass and pottery actually enhances the marine environment. Glass is made from sand and is colored with minerals. As the glass dissolves in the water, it releases the silica from the sand and the minerals used to color it. The same is true of Terra Cotta shards from pottery to fine china. These minerals form the basis of the food chain so each piece of glass or pottery is literally a mineral supplement that forms the very basis of the food chain. Marine biologists now study the marine environment in Fort Bragg because it is healthier than the surrounding area. Fort Bragg has 48 varieties of the Chiton snail, for instance, which is more than anywhere else in California. The glass also acts as a benign way to actually stabilize beaches. In an era of poor coastal planning and development and increased erosion rates, replenishing this glass beach can be a benefit ecologically, economically, and literally, physically.
Agree with your disclaimer, but yea this place looks amazing. I so want to visit. If only mother nature could pretty up the super funds in NJ like this! Great post.
Nature is hardly ‘fragile’. Nature is probably the most powerful force man knows. Don’t underestimate it. Second of all, after reading the first paragraph of this, I became uninterested, thanks to your horrible attitude. This beach is proof that no matter what man does, nature can take our mistakes and turn them into something beautiful. Man itself cannot stop nature.
An interesting take on what I wrote, I’d say. If I could understand what my “horrible attitude” was, I would better be able to address your claims. Were you to read further, you would realize that I say exactly what you’re telling me I didn’t; my post is about how fantastic it is that with time, the planet has reclaimed this beach and nullified our harmful insensitivity. Nature is both fragile and strong- we’re extremely capable of completely destroying parts of nature, and nature is even more capable of completely destroying us.
Wow. Just, wow. It’s incredible how resilient nature is… this is now on my bucket list! Thanks for sharing.
What a great blog post! Awesome images, and nice writing too. I’ll have to get my family up there sometime to see Glass Beach for ourselves. It’d be nice to drive all the way up from our home in San Diego, taking the 101 just North of LA.
I want to go home and then go up to Fort Bragg and just up to the Red-Woods. Thank You for the beautiful pictures!!!
Great pictures, very cool place!
Stumbled across this…would love to see it one day…
Way cool but I’d be afraid to walk on it. Coincidentally, I think I saw a similar article on TravelExplosion.com before.
Beautiful pictures and a beautiful beach. The colors are spectacular.
I just love those glass colours. As a jeweller who works with recycled glass and metals I can appreciate the hardwork of nature creating beauty out of the “glass junk”.
Sorry state of affairs that we have become such terrible polluters, but I have to say – the photos of the junkyard glass are incredible! To think how mother nature can take away all the sharp edges and make something so pretty – glad she is more clever than us!!! Very cool beach to visit. I saw something similar in Antigua – thankfully, the beach there was not due to human pollution, but rather a natural phenomenon – a shell beach.
This beach no longer looks much like this. Strangely enough, so many people have been taking the glass for so many years that there are virtually no large pieces left and Glass Beach is now part of a conservation area in order that the remaining glass will be “protected”.
I don’t know if it’s true, but I’ve heard rumours from people in the area that the main, easily accessible beach is fairly picked over. However, there are apparently one or two that are mostly accessible with a bit of a hike, or by kayak/canoe, that have been left fairly unmolested. Do you live around there, or did you just visit recently? I’d be curious to find out.
I’ve been dying to visit there as well! so cool!
Thanks for sharing this with the world. I grew up in Fort Bragg where this beach is located. It use to be one of my favorite place. Beautiful glass everywhere.
amazing but sad at the same time
Love to be in that beach someday… The colors are so inviting…
Wow so beautiful Glass beach, so beautiful colors. I like very much these pictures. Thanks. Great work
These pics are ANCIENT! Glass beach hasn’t looked like that in AGES. The glass like you see in the pictures has been gone for decades. You will be SO sad and disappointing if you take your family there. Much better beaches in the area! Just drive south about 10 miles to the little town of Mendicino! You will be glad you did.
Glass is made from sand. It’s totally inert and harmless once smooth and in small chunks. Instead of wasting landfill space or wasting energy recycling it, we should dump it in the ocean.
And it gets even prettier when there’s an oil spill and the water gets an iridescent sheen of rainbow colours on it!
On our Greek island of Paros there are several beaches on which one can comb for sea glass. Plus there are many sea glass hobbyists from around the world. So I am putting together a sea glass workshop to bring them together.
Cheers
My wife always looks for coloured glass on beaches -she absolutely loves them – imagine her face when I showed her this article! Thanks very, very interesting. However we certainly shouldn’t dump anything in the sea!
Fort Bragg is not in California; it’s in North Carolina and it’s well inland.
I’m sure there is a Fort Bragg in NC but this ain’t the one…
This is refreshingly well written.
Gold star!
Ha, I grew up here. It doesn’t look anything like a dump anymore. I love that place!
Wow, this looks great, would love to visit this place
That is awesome! I am going to need to work on planning a trip there. Nature really is amazing in its resiliency.
Just came across this on StumbleUpon. Pretty amazing!
I love seaglass. Wished I lived closer to California so that my son and I could go see Glass Beach.
Love this post. I live here in Fort Bragg and I’m a sea glass addict. I have to laugh at a current shitty committee that is trying hard to keep people from collecting the trash. It is trash, bottom line. Seeding? No, don’t ever throw anything in the ocean, you are littering. Lesson learned. Now, go get the trash-turned-treasure because it’s pure joy to collect. It is legal to collect on the part of Glass Beach that is LOADED with sea glass on the City’s side of the beach. You will get some dirty looks if you bring a shovel and a bucket, but you wouldn’t do that. Especially because the good glass is on the top!
It’ll just turn to sand, so if you really want to preserve it, take it home!
Also, I don’t think we are going to someday stop our kids’ kids from picking up all our plastic to put in their art projects. Or…?
If you are one those that “seeds” the glass, you should be arrested for littering. It’s disgusting to throw anything into the ocean.
Thanks for giving us some closure! Everyone’s been freaking out claiming that there’s nothing left because we’re all HORRIBLE MONSTERS. I was certain there were large parts of the beach that still held some glass and could remind us that sometimes our mistakes can mean very little in the face of mother nature’s heavy handed nurturing.
Will love to visit the Glass Beach….the natures way of recycling and converting waste in to tiny marvels ……
Wooooowwww!!! This is amazing!! Thanks for sharing!
I grew up in Fort Bragg. True, it was the town dump for many years. True, people did bad things in the past as they still do now. What is in the past is past us.
The irony of glass beach in Fort Bragg is simple. Humans made the wase problem there. Then humans saw that there was a novelty to going to glass beach and collecting glass and the odd bit of rusted whatever and in turn, made crafts with them. Now it is frowned upon to pick glass there. The biggest complaint in FB about Glass beach, it is running out of glass. OH MY GOD! You mean the earth has made man clean itself and now it is a bad thing? That is the irony there in FB. The enviros want the environment clean, but are now complaining that this once blight is getting too clean.
I have spent much time there in the “heyday” of glass picking and the best treasure that I have found there was a 1918 standing liberty silver half dollar that still has the rusty sand deposits on it that I chipped from a piece of bluff with my pocket knife. That was in the late 80′s.
Nice informative article. I really like the photo at the top Gina!
Weather it is pleasing to your eye is not significant. We have learned that it is our responsibility to impact nature as little as possible. Now, that we are aware, it would be an even bigger sin to do it again.
With that said, I would like to visit while it is still there. The colorful pictures are pleasing to my eyes.
Nice post! and beautiful picture as well. I’ve never heard of this place before reading this article, really wanna visit this place. Thanks for the post.
Amazing site! Wish someday I could pay a visit… thanks for sharing the beautiful experience.
It`s a nature piece of art , I hope one day I have the opportunity to visit it. thank`s for the sharing this experience .
Very nice photos, even the source means something else. The nature seems to be more intelligent than humans are. I can invite you in Romania, where the nature is still wild. Not for many years, unfortunately…
Nature truly has her ways to inspire us. I hope that someday, I would get to visit this place.
I love this-we had the same situation in a lake in upstate NY, except the beach glass isn’t as concentrated in one place-you can find it nearly the entire shore of the south end of the lake
I believe I visited glass beach and there was hardly any glass left because it was picked up bye tourist. It was pretty sad but perhaps I was just not in a very lush section of glass beach in fortbragg.
My mother love glassbeach, I will send her your url. Thanks for this post.
I just visited Glass Beach last month but not at Fort Bragg. There is one in Kauai and the story is similar. It was a dump before it was a beautiful beach.
Wow, what an amazing place! Your photos are gorgeous–thanks for sharing about this place!
A nice post. Like everything, given time nature will reclaim its own.
I like it, seems very natural to me.
Haha! Love it!! If nature can turn toxic waste into this thing of beauty (to me, anyway!!) it just shows us how impermanent our tracks on the earth will be. And that’s worth a look!!
Wow! Sustainability is such an important issue for man… yet the Earth adapts quicker than we do to recycle our waste… lessons for us all!
Ooo! I’d like to go there! When I was a girl I looked for glasses like these on the beach and collected them. Thanks, it’s very interesting!
too bad that isn’t working on plastic. Beautiful job.
I love the beautiful colors of the glass on the beach. Interesting article and great pictures.
Couldn’t agree with you more, hate people littering, so ignorant!! Colours are beautiful in pics!!
I love that people have finally found this treasure! I grew up going to glass beach every year as a kid and it was wonderful. These days there is very little blue glass to be found, but the beauty is everlasting.
I am abit confuse, it this a nature glass beach or men-made?
It’s from people.
I have seen something like this before in Israel. After independence day the beaches are scattered with broken beer bottles and a few weeks later when you go to the beach the waters have cleaned off the sharp edges. Even though it is trash and its a terrible thing, there is still some beauty to it. Very interesting article.
A cool way how nature is recycling junk. Just Awesome!
That’s definitely a unique beach in the world, but still I prefer looking to a beach and see a sandy natural color instead of this crazy recycling show.
The glass looks a lot like pretty rocks….I’m lost.
Now even more reason to visit California, number 1 on our bucket list for the USA, this is definitely a must visit!
Mother Nature is astonishing. I love the texture and the beauty of sea glass. Thank you for sharing.
That beach looked like the photo in the 60′s when I was a child. I still have glass from back then. Now it looks nothing like that. And yes there are a few hidden places that have a few bigger pieces but the years those too have disappeared. That picture certainly was not in recent years. I would be willing to bet new comers will be greatly disappointed.
Great article Gina!
I still enjoy visiting Fort Bragg but it certainly has been picked over. But of course, on any given day you can still find some wonderful gems.
I do wish I knew the place when it was still “undiscovered.” I’ve been told about being able to leave there with a bucket full of rare, colorful sea glass.
Fortunately, there are still “glass beaches” out there to be discovered.
I never leave home without a plastic baggy…
I love these glasses..
I own the Sea Glass Museum in Fort Bragg. I haven’t read all the comments and posts, but I would like to note that the marine environment in Fort Bragg is now much healthier than the surrounding areas because of the glass and pottery shards. This is because each color comes from a different mineral (even clear glass is clarified with minerals) and as the glass and pottery dissolves it releases those minerals and that is the basis of the food chain.
The glass pebbles also create air pockets that provide habitat for shrimps, worms, isopods, insects and micro flora and micro fauna that also reinforce the food chain here. Fort Bragg has 48 variety of chiton snails, more than anywhere else in California and the other species are more plentiful and healthy as well.
If the glass level here is not maintained, there will be a big die back in the marine environment that will affect all species, including the sea bird rookery and the harbor seal population.
As collecting can not be banned or stopped, due to Art. 10 of the state constitution, replenishment of the glass is the only alternative. This is the ultimate in recycling and is cheaper and much more environmentally friendly than putting it in a landfill. Glass is made from sand that came from beaches and is no more than large pieces of mineral enriched sand.
Please visit the Sea Glass Museum for more information.
Thanks for stopping by Cass, that was very informative. I hadn’t even considered that the minerals from the glass would be useful to the sea life.
Thanks, Chad. We are trying hard to educate people on this issue. I would like to add that Gina’s photos are recent and that although the park area is largely depleted, it is only the third of 3 town dump sites and we have the highest concentration of sea glass in the world. Site #2 is fairly easily accessible by foot and Fort Bragg is the Mecca for sea glass artists and enthusiasts. Site #1, or “Treasure Cove” is still only accessible by water. Collecting is perfectly legal at Sites #1 & 2, but we ask people to be selective in what they take.
In 2008 marine biologists dove the sea caves behind the old Georgia Pacific mill site and were amazed at the striking array of life here. Their comments and photos can be found at http://www.fortbraggmillsite.com/fortbraggmillsite/index2.cfm?module=scientistsnotebook.
Whether you are a diver/snorkeler or sea glass enthusiast, Fort Bragg is a great place to visit.
Cass
I’ve heard about this beach several times. Next time i’m in Cali i’ll have to visit. I’m sure at sunrise there would be awesome photo opportunities. Thanks for sharing.
Love the blog, kind regards, Si
At least it´s colorful. Nice glass sand, beach looks lovely.
wow….very nice article.
“Ohh, I hate littering, but look at the beauty it created!” I hate self-righteous, self-indulgent people who don’t want their cake but will eat it anyway.
nice its very well…
I grew up an hour outside of Fort Bragg. My father would take me to this beach every other weekend as a child. While I really appreciate the beautiful photo’s you took here, I don’t appreciate the apparent negativeness throughout this article. It just hit close to home.
Beautiful indeed. However, I agree with keeping the shoes on, after all, the colored pebbles are still made of glass.
I had never heard of this beach. Thanks for drawing people’s attention to it. It certainly is an unusual beach!
wow the beads are beautiful. I guess it’s not a bad “dump” then. Would love to visit there. Thanks for sharing!!!
Elsa
Waow! it is the perfect beach for me. So many nice colors. Love it. Thanks
sure makes the beach more interesting and colorful, recycle from bottles and glass…
Will definitely make a trip to see Glass Beach, it’s amazing to see the changes that can be made with some colorful glass.