This summer, evening options along Palos Verdes Drive South include walks, scheduled music and time on a patio. Trail closures affect which coastal routes are available. This guide looks at Ocean Trails and Forrestal Nature Preserve, Terranea's Sound Series, and the Starbucks patio at Golden Cove.
What's closed right now, and since when
The short version: the beach-facing half of the Peninsula's trail network has been off limits for a while, and as of July 2026 it still is. The city's own trail conditions page confirms it in plain terms: the Portuguese Bend Reserve and its trails are closed until further notice, a status AllTrails also flags for hikers checking the Portuguese Bend Landslide Loop, noting the closure as indefinite as of this July.
The Abalone Cove side went dark even earlier. City alerts show that as of July 9, 2024, Abalone Cove Beach, Sacred Cove Beach, and all beach access trails in the Abalone Cove Reserve are closed to the public until further notice due to impacts of accelerated land movement in the Portuguese Bend Landslide complex. A stretch of the Catalina Trail bridge, between Lakeview Trail and East Portal Trail, is closed on its own timeline, separate from the rest.
None of this is a secret to anyone who has tried to plan a walk here in the last two years, but it is easy to underestimate how much of the old map it takes off the table. Rancho Palos Verdes' city manager, describing the damage to LAist earlier this year, put it about as plainly as it can be put: "We don't traverse those areas on a regular basis. We occasionally use drones to look at the damage." Access to nearby park facilities is a separate matter.
The parking lot and the park itself at Abalone Cove have stayed open even while the beach trails did not. City postings confirm parking lots and Abalone Cove Park remain open, on the same hours as always. It is the difference between a park you can still sit in and a trail you can no longer walk down to the water on.
Two walking areas
Two places for an evening walk are the Ocean Trails at Trump National and Forrestal Nature Preserve next to Ladera Linda Community Center.
Both are still actively programmed, not just technically open. Los Serenos de Point Vicente, the city's docent nonprofit that has been running since 1984, lists an August nature walk on its own site along the Ocean Trails, specifically the Lakeview and Catalina segment, one of only two routes in the entire docent program built to be wheelchair accessible. The other accessible route is the Vicente Bluffs walk near the Interpretive Center itself. Everything else on the docent calendar, including the recurring Forrestal Nature Preserve walk that touches on the Peninsula's exposed rock formations and the coastal sage scrub habitat, sits at moderate to strenuous difficulty, the kind of walk you plan for rather than wander into.
Docents can still lead groups to Abalone Cove, Forrestal Preserve and Ladera Linda, and to the Ocean Trails at Trump National. If you are new to the neighborhood and someone mentions a docent hike this season, ask which route it follows.
Two ways the same evening ends
After a walk, options for the rest of the evening include Terranea's Sound Series and the Starbucks patio at Golden Cove.
One version costs $30 and runs on a schedule. Terranea's Sound Series returned this year with live-music nights on Nelson's Sunset Bluff, every Friday and Saturday from June 5 through August 29, gates at 6 p.m., music from 7 to 10. General admission for the public runs $30 before food, drinks, and the standard service charge, though resort guests and children thirteen and under get in free, and a private cabana for eight runs $500. The lineup leans into yacht rock, reggae, country, and 80s throwbacks, the kind of programming built for a crowd that wants a plan for the night rather than an accident.
A Starbucks is located in the Golden Cove Shopping Center, at the corner of Hawthorne and Palos Verdes Drive West, and opened on August 8, 2003, as part of a year-long renovation of the center. Its outdoor patio faces the Pacific directly, with Catalina Island visible on a clear day. Golden Cove itself dates back further than the coffee shop. Developer Jerry Moss announced the seven-acre center in May 1965, and it has held a Trader Joe's since April 2010, with Swan Thai RPV as one of its longstanding restaurant tenants.
The two options differ: Terranea's Sound Series is ticketed and scheduled, while Golden Cove offers a patio. Both sit within a few minutes' drive of trailheads.
A guide to evening options
Checking current trail conditions before setting out can help you choose which of these options fits your evening.
If you are weighing whether the Peninsula fits your own routine, or you just want a conversation with people who spend their own evenings in these two walking areas, the Stearns Lieb Team brings multi-generational local knowledge to every conversation about this stretch of coast. Reach out when you are ready to talk it through.
