The gliderport is where paragliders and hang gliders take to the air, 300 feet above the beach below. Model airplanes fly here, as do birds of prey as part of falconry classes you can join.
Or you can grab a picnic table and watch them take off, land and jockey in the wind while you snack on something from the Cliffhanger Café (nothing more than $11.25).
If you’d rather explore on land, you can try the steep, short travel to Black’s Beach. If you do, you’ll be joining many surfers (who prize its waves, especially when the swell grows in winter) and also many nudists (who have been showing up here for decades, despite local ordinances forbidding it).
The main trail, moderately challenging, is just over half a mile, about 1,000 steps, with a 320-foot change in elevation. (At the trailhead is a city sign saying “Unstable cliffs. Stay back. No public access.” Every day, hundreds of people ignore it.)
The route is a mishmash of potholed blacktop, yielding to irregular steps of boards and dirt, with the occasional old tire thrown in. Some think it’s harder going down than going up. Either way, if your knees are sound, go slow and you’ll probably be fine.
Once you get to the beach, the rule of thumb used to be nudists north and surfers south, but don’t count on that. Last time there, I saw plenty of nudists, north and south, all men, immediately on reaching the bottom of the trail.
If you’re eager to see the beach but daunted by the trail, at low tide, you can also reach Black’s Beach by walking 3 miles north from La Jolla Shores or 2 miles south from Torrey Pines State Beach. At high tide, you can’t.)
