Is it safe to lock a bicycle at the top of the cliff? For instance a long cable lock around a tree trunk. I don't have a problem with parking on Vieja and walking, but biking from home would be convenient.

I was living out of town for a few years and haven't been on More Mesa since about 2016. Back then I would bike or walk and would notice an occasional one or two naked bodies down on the beach. It sounds like the attendance in recent times is considerably more than that. 😃

I grew up in the neighborhood now called More Mesa Shores (see Orchid Dr. On map). In the 60s I would walk out on weekends to watch the RC airplanes flying. The RC gliders soaring back and forth on the cliff updrafts were particularly cool. I remember a day when a guy that had a Fokker Eindecker painted red lost control of it and it crashed in the distance. That was probably 1968 or so.

One day in 1976 I was walking on the beach with two fellow UCSB students starting from campus. It was a beautiful day with low tide and we just kept walking. We passed the stairs at the end of Orchid Drive where I always got access as a kid and kept going towards Hope Ranch. We were talking animatedly and not paying a lot of attention to other people but suddenly noticed we were surrounded by many naked people. Dozens I would guess, walking, throwing Frisbees, wading, and swimming. We all had heard it was a nude beach but hadn't thought about how far we had come.

We kept our clothes on and headed back. To this day, even though I grew up nearby, I have never been naked on that beach. I've always been a bit worried about the fact that it's not actually legal. One of these days I'll give it a try. I need to lose my midwest tan (meaning no tan at all except my arms). 😉