Cloisters Beach Path, Morro Bay

Cloisters Beach Path is a paved path, plus wooden boardwalk, through the dunes filled with sage brush and flowers. The path is 0.7 miles, and you can walk longer if you connect up with Embarcadero. The handy thing about the path is that it is more sheltered than the beach, so on windy days you can opt for it instead of the beach. 

Start at the beach parking lot on Azure Street, In spring there are amazing flowers at this parking lot! The path takes you past Cloisters Playground and Park, and behind some nice houses on Emerald Circle. At this point, the path ends.
There are educational plaques along the path that teach you about the wildlife and geography of the area. 
This is a rugged area- for those who are brave about the cold! Wear a puffer jacket with a hood, plus a beanie that covers your ears. In winter, the cold air can make your ears and cheeks painful.
If you wish, you can make a three mile walk (six miles round trip) by connecting with Embarcadero/Harborwalk. But this involves a connector that isn't the greatest. First you take a loose dirt path through a spooky cypress tree tunnel. The spooky forest area has fencing on both sides, which makes you stuck inside it. The fencing runs along the high school on one side and the dunes on the other. Bring a friend if you walk this part! Then you go through an open field of dunes. Turn right on Atascadero Road/Embarcadero and follow the sidewalk. The beach is on one side and the sewer plant, unfortunately, is on the other. A bridge takes you over the creek. A path will then take you to Harborwalk on the estuary at Morro Bay, where you will see sea otters! This is Coleman Park. If you go right you can walk to Morro Rock, where you can watch surfers. If you go left, you take a sidewalk past taffy stores and fish and chips cafes, through Morro Bay town and its trinket stores, and finally to Tidelands Park, a delightful playground on the water. 
The beach at the Azure Street parking lot, Cloisters Beach, is lovely, wide and open. Before your walk, you can sit on it and get lost in your thoughts without anyone walking near you, since it is so gigantic! North of the parking lot is a little hill/dune with narrow winding sand paths, benches, and the most amazing flowers at the end of April.
There are clean restrooms at the parking lot on Azure Street. 
There is also a long bike path that runs two miles, from Azure Street, along Coral Ave, all the way to 1227 Main Street. It is less scenic, as it follows the highway.
Note: Beware the Beach Access sign on the Cloisters Beach Path. There is actually no beach access there because the dunes are blocked off! The only beach access is from Azure Street and Atascadero Rd.
The Cloisters area used to be called Atascadero Beach. The founder of Atascadero town, E. G. Lewis, organized the construction of Highway 41, in 1915, to make it possible to go from Atascadero, a utopian colony he created for the work of his women's suffrage organization, to Morro Bay in only two hours in a Model T Ford. It used to take all day, via the Cuesta Grade. You would have to head west on Highway 41 in the morning, and then return in the afternoon, since the road was so narrow that cars could only travel one way. Tiny lots of land in the Cloisters Beach area were sold so that Atascadero Colony settlers could escape the inland heat at seaside cottages. The parcels were sold for $450-$1000, and it was required that the cottage built cost no less than $250. In the 1980s, the State of California changed the name from Atascadero Beach to The Cloisters.

Directions

The north end of Cloisters Beach Path is at 150 Azure Street, Morro Bay, CA 93442. There is a parking lot and clean restrooms.
You can also enter the path from Cloisters Playground (Cloisters Community Park), or access points in the neighborhood at Indigo Circle and Emerald Circle.

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