Scotchmans Cove, Crystal Cove State Park — Attraction in Newport Beach

Fifty years ago, tragedy struck my circle of high school friends. My girlfriend’s brother fell from a cliff while camping at the beach. His death shook us all, but even more so her family, who never knew exactly where it had happened. The police report mentioned Scotchman’s Cove, but that name was nowhere to be found on any map. Over the years, mystery and sorrow blurred together.

Last month, at our high school reunion, I met my old girlfriend again after half a century. Time had carved its lines on us, but memory made her instantly familiar. As we caught up, I finally asked the question that had lingered in my mind for decades: Where exactly had her brother been camping that night?

She shook her head gently. Her family was gone now, and no one had ever known for sure. The place, it seemed, had vanished into legend.

But I knew. I’d walked these beaches most of my life, and I knew where Scotchman’s Cove lay tucked into the bluffs of Crystal Cove. So on the following Monday, we shared breakfast at the Beachcomber, and afterward I led her down the beach to the hidden cove.

The three of us—two old friends and another classmate—stood there at the foot of the sandstone bluffs, waves curling behind us in the morning light. We called out her brother’s name. To beachgoers passing by, we must have looked like eccentrics, yelling at the cliffs. But for us, it was something sacred.

We weren’t just remembering him. We were delivering him home. After fifty years, his spirit was acknowledged in the very place where his story ended.

It felt like a circle had closed—three old people, calling into the wind, finding a measure of peace...

Scotchmans cove, I can remember when we named it, right around 1957 or 58 . The old Scottish gentleman from Corona del Mar would pipe his bag pipes on the bluffs overlooking the cove, and so we called the place Scotchmans Cove. This old gentleman use to pipe his bags on the bluffs, where the New irvine terrace was to be built. And when they started clearing ground for construction he headed to the bluffs above the Royal Reef to pipe his bags, and what beautiful sounds he could pipe. The Royal Reef is another story altogether, at that time it was loaded with lobsters, abalone sand bass, it was a divers paridice, wish I could go back and do it...

Scotchmans Cove is a place to be avoided at all costs! Especially during the winter season. There was almost nobody there. The beaches are full of ocean flotsam. Driftwood, Seashells, Many varieties of Seaweed and Kelp, a plethora of Seabirds, Terribly slippery Stratified Sedimentary Rock that has been shaped over untold amounts of time into mind numbing, bizarre shapes and textures teeming with Oceanic Vermin. Not to mention the arduous hike through Hummingbird infested wildflowers while the wind assaults you with Ocean Scented Breezes carrying the sound of crashing surf. STAY HOME!...