Description: The beaches of the now Glass Beach in Fort Bragg have always served as garbage dumps. From 1906 to 1967, three beaches were completely filled with waste. After 1967 the landfills began to be cleaned up to avoid further damage to the environment. However, the discarded glass was broken, crushed and crunched by the waves and the water forms the small colorful glass shards you now can discover at Glass Beach. 

The Glass Beach designated on the signs at the parking lot may not be entered at the moment (fall 2019), because the access is eroded. However, since there were dumps all along the beach strip, you can find the colorful pieces of glass on the beach almost everywhere in the area.

Our rating: We were looking forward to visiting Glass Beach, but we had imagined it to be a bit more spectacular. The glass pieces were all very small. You had to really search to find some that were bigger than a fingernail. Most of them were white and didn't really stand out among the pebbles. The reason for this is probably the many people who come here. At peak times there are over 1000 people/day. Since most of them collect the glass pieces, the numbers decrease from year to year, so that the Glass Beach will probably not exist any more someday.

All in all, it was a nice sunset excursion. Because of the history, it is interesting to see the stained glass on the beach. However, we would not drive a huge detour for it.