San Clemente Beach Trail Reopens Friday at Mariposa Point

The stretch from El Portal to Linda Lane returns after a $93 million wall went up to shield the coastal rail line.

A landslide off the bluff at Mariposa Point in San Clemente dumped dirt on the railroad tracks and destroyed the city's beach trail bridge. On Friday, walkers officially get that stretch of the San Clemente Beach Trail back.

The Orange County Transportation Authority is finishing a roughly $93 million rail protection project there and will hold a ribbon-cutting Friday morning to reopen the trail, according to OCTA's Tuesday release. LAist reported that parts of the trail had been closed for the last two years.

Which stretch. The reopened section runs alongside a new catchment wall, nearly 1,400 feet long, built on the bluff side of the tracks from the El Portal beach access to Linda Lane, according to OCTA's project page. The wall is there to stop rocks, dirt and debris from the bluff before they reach the rails. The rebuilt trail runs beside it.

When. The official opening is Friday morning's ribbon-cutting. The agency said the path could open sooner, once crews finish the last details and take down the construction fencing. So if the fence is still up when you get there, the trail isn't open yet.

What it cost. About $24 million of the $93 million went to the trail itself, mostly from state and federal money, OCTA said. Work started in September 2025. Before that came a quicker fix. After the January 2024 slide, which OCTA said came from private property above the tracks, the agency and Metrolink built a 200-foot wall that got regular passenger trains running again in March 2024.

The trail came back as part of a rail project because the rail line is what's at stake. The corridor through San Clemente carries Metrolink and Amtrak Pacific Surfliner trains, plus freight and military shipments. Bluff failures, erosion and beach loss have stopped trains there several times since 2021, according to OCTA.

What isn't finished. Mariposa Point is one site out of several. In September, OCTA's board put the corridor under an emergency declaration to speed up contracts for more protection. Its plans elsewhere in San Clemente include shoring up riprap and as much as 690,000 cubic yards of new sand to cushion the tracks from waves. LAist pointed out that the trail returns just as Southern California gets ready for heavy rain and record-high surf, and both San Clemente and Laguna Beach issued local emergency proclamations over coastal erosion this year.

Before you drive down. OCTA sends weekly email updates on this project, and the sign-up link is on its Area 3 construction page. If you sign up, you'll know about work on this stretch before you've parked.

Source: LAist, retrieved October 8, 2026. Other sources: octa.net, octa.net (2).