Bluff Crack Opens Below Ritz-Carlton Above Salt Creek Trail

A crack has opened along the coastal bluff below The Ritz-Carlton, Laguna Niguel in Dana Point, California, above the Salt Creek Point trail, according to FOX 11 Los Angeles and Surfer. Local videographer Craig Whetter of Breaking Even TV filmed the fracture in mid-November 2026, and the split overlooks Salt Creek Beach, below the resort and above a trail used daily by beachgoers, walkers and surfers.

What the video can't establish is the part that decides the risk. Surfer noted the footage alone doesn't show how deep the crack runs, whether it's widening, or whether any structure is threatened, and no official geological assessment of this fracture has been confirmed. FOX 11 said it reached out to the Laguna Niguel Department of Parks and Recreation to ask whether crews are monitoring the crack and hadn't heard back.

The timing is the concern. The National Weather Service forecast several rounds of rain and gusty winds moving into Orange County starting Friday, November 13, 2026, as Pacific storms approach, and forecasters warned of king tides from November 22 through November 27 that bring unusually high water against the base of coastal bluffs. Rain loosens bluff faces from above while high surf undercuts them from below, and this crack sits in a bluff exposed to both.

Residents who use the trail are reading it as a safety problem now, not a geology question later. Dana Point resident Joe Longobardo told FOX 11 he worries about the safety of kids and families around the area, and Troy McDonald pointed to the limited space along the pedestrian path below the cliff, where a slide wouldn't leave room to move. Houston Diener said the combination of weather and coastal erosion is already changing daily routines.

The fissure is the second on this stretch of coast in two months. In October 2026, a crack roughly 360 feet long and 2 feet wide opened beneath Pacific Coast Highway near El Morro at Crystal Cove State Park, just up the coast, and Caltrans crews are still working to stabilize that slope, according to FOX 11 and the New York Post. The Laguna Niguel crack is smaller and earlier, and whether it stays that way is what a monitoring answer would settle.

The resort above the crack is itself in a transition. Surfer reported that The Ritz-Carlton, Laguna Niguel was recently sold to KSL Capital Partners, so the blufftop property has a new owner at the moment its bluff needs an assessment. That doesn't change the geology, but it does decide whose engineering budget answers the question the video raised and the city hasn't yet.