Cloisters Bike Path and Beach, Morro Bay

San Luis Obispo, CA Print   Leave a comment

Description

Cloisters Bike/Walking Path, also called Cloisters Beach Path, leads from the beach parking lot on Azure Street, past a playground, to Emerald Circle. It is 1.2 miles there and back. This is in the northern residential area of Morro Bay, an eight minute drive from the tourist strip.
The beach, also called Morro Strand State Beach, at Azure Street is lovely, wide and open. You can sit on it and get lost in your thoughts without anyone walking near you, since it is so gigantic! An abundantly sandy path leads through the dunes to the beach. It is quite strenuous to walk through the deep sand here. The dunes are lovely, covered in bouquets of yellow and purple flowers. On the beach, you can find hundreds of sand dollars on lucky days, some sweet and small, fitting in the palm of your hand. The beach can be windy so bring a jacket. On late summer and fall mornings, you can enjoy windstill, sunny weather, and it is bliss. The rest of the year it will be foggy in the morning. There are clean restrooms at the parking lot.
Take the paved bike/walking path several routes throughout Cloisters Park. One leads past a playground, which is windblown but fun. This is a rugged area, for those who are brave about the cold! There are educational plaques along the path that teach you about the wildlife and geography of the area. 
The Cloisters Bike Path is not connected to the beach for most of its duration. The only beach entrances are at Azure Street and at a strand of cypress trees on the north end of Morro Bay High School. You have to watch where you entered the beach or you can get lost. It is very hard to spot the beach entrances in the middle of all the dunes. The dunes are blocked off for most of the way, so you won't be able to get off the beach if you miss your entrance! This happened to me. I ended up at Atascadero Rd, another parking lot for the beach. From there I had to walk through a spooky forest, a strand of cypress trees, which has fencing on both sides- the fencing runs along the dunes as well as beside the high school and you are stuck in the middle! When you get to the north end of the strand of cypress trees, you turn left to get to the beach access point that is on the southern end of the Cloisters Bike Path or right to get back to the Cloisters Bike Path where it runs along Emerald Circle. Very confusing!

Photo Gallery

Cypress trees by the Azure Street parking lot.	Path to the beach.	Patterns in the dunes.
Sand with ocean in distance.	Morro Rock, past the dunes.	Sand dollar!
The bike path, where it ends at the Azure Street parking lot.	Cloisters Park playground!	Baby swings at Cloisters Park playground.
The bike path goes past the playground.	The bike path, with Morro Rock in the distance.

Directions

Cloisters Bike/Walking Path starts in the north at the parking lot at the end of Azure Street, Morro Bay, CA 93442.
To start on the southern end of the bike path, park at 2275 Emerald Cir, Morro Bay, CA 93442. There is a little more path to the south here, where a strand of cypress trees leads to a beach access point, but this is mostly the most south part of the path.

This is an interactive map, you can zoom and move it.

Overall Visitor Rating: Unrated.