Refugio State Beach, which has been closed for months after storm damage, is expected to reopen later this summer. 

El Capitán State Beach and Gaviota State Park were also damaged in February storms but managed to reopen by April.

Dena Bellman, superintendent of the Channel Coast District of State Parks, told Noozhawk that there was debris on the beaches and in the creeks, as well as many downed trees. At Refugio, that meant several iconic palm trees falling or being removed for safety reasons. 

Refugio has been closed much longer because of a sinkhole that opened underneath the entrance road and admission kiosk, Bellman said.  

However, as of a couple weeks ago, Bellman says State Parks is “in a place where we feel like there is good progress.”

“We don’t have an exact date… everything looks right now like it will be this summer, and that’s what we in our minds are planning for. I believe we’re gonna get there very soon, but we could also hit an issue,” Bellman said.

“We have a lot of work to do to get Refugio ready for folks again and we’re starting on all of that work to see it come together and be open for folks.”

State Parks officials plan to release exact reopening dates on its website and social media pages as soon as construction gets closer to completion, she said.

El Capitán Entrance Improvement Project

El Capitán will be closing to vehicles for at least nine months, starting around November, for changes to the park entrance.

“There haven’t been any improvements on access to that park in decades,” Bellman said. 

“We need to widen the entry road so that it can handle modern traffic and vehicles and things we need such as trash removal.

“Because of the environmental impacts of widening it further … we decided to implement a more accessible trail which then can manage all of the pedestrian traffic coming in and out of the park,” she added.

Bellman went on to explain that out of the three parks on the Gaviota Coast of southern Santa Barbara County, El Capitán receives higher amounts of pedestrian traffic due to the campgrounds on the other side of the highway.

With this new trail, the park aims to create a safer path for those pedestrians to access the beach. 

The project will also replace the road leading into the park — which Bellman shares is really just a culvert, or a tunnel channeling water — with a span bridge. 

“What we’ve seen is that through larger storms … it can’t handle it and it causes a diversion in the creek,” she said.

“We want to get that back into its more normal alignment with the creek so that it will flow in its more natural way and it won’t cause impacts before and after the culvert which cause erosion to the creek.”

The hope is, according to Bellman, that the bridge work can get started at the end of the year and continue into 2025, for a total of about nine months.

Construction has already started on the new paths, which should allow some park access during the roadwork.

“Obviously when we’re doing the road, the road will be closed. And that means no access to the campground or access to the beach with vehicles,” said Bellman. 

“Our whole point in trying to get this trail done beforehand is so that we can provide access so there are ways to get in there. That is something that will be fluid throughout the project.”

Maps of park entrance points are available online, and State Parks will let the public know about park access throughout different phases of the project.