Historical photos show sand-covered Great Highway and Sunset

Good history info chrispy! Sand all the way to 25th ave, and I saw a pier under the cliff house,wowzers

great series of photos. i trip out on old school SF photography.

next time I am out at ###### looking East at GG park, and all the amazing houses / civilization that has been built up there, i am going to imagine seeing massive sand dunes all the way up to clement st!!

I never understood why they haven't just built a five foot wall next to the freeway to keep the sand off. Or at the very least come up with some sort of solution to prevent the road from closing. It's literally the only stretch of road I've ever encountered along the entire west coast that continually closes because of sand blowing onto the road.

@Milton, besides the lack of esthetics and view killer that such a wall would bring, it wouldn't work. Witness all the sand that already piles up behind the wall from GG Park to the Cliff house. The sand becomes airborn and can travel many blocks inland. It would have to be a 50 ft. high 'Great Wall Of SF' before it would do any good. Are you refering to the Great Highway as a "freeway"? The road closes frequently because practically the whole western half of SF is built on sand dunes...can't really think of a west coast place that is comparable.

If the whole western half of San Francisco was built on a sand dune, why then does only the part right on the beach have issues with sand? How did places like Golden Gate Park turn into a lush park, by getting rid of the sand? It seems there should be some sort of solution instead of continually closing down the road, either by building a wall (five feet wouldn't block any views) or getting rid of a lot of the sand.

Okay Milton, let's just cover everything in concrete... that should do the trick.

Instead of turdball responses to Latarian (who has a legitimate
question), why don't we consider some engineering solutions to the problem. Latarian brings up a good point regarding the conversion of the Sunset into an urban paradise.

http://foundsf.org/index.php?title=The_San_Francisco_Sand_Dunes

Latarian, Golden Gate Park is lush because a lot of hard work and genius planting helped stabilize the dunes starting in the late 1800s. A ton of water and compost has been added to nourish the sand/soils over the years. Check the history of it sometime it's pretty fascinating how William Hammond and John Mclaren transformed that area. They didn't get rid of the sand, just enhanced it. Check out my avatar and you can see how the outer lands were before we paved over the sand. The reason the beach has problems with the sand is because it is loose. I would prefer to not pave that though.

engineering solutions always come at a cost, both monetarily and often as unintended environmental side effects. Financially, for the City, it's probably cheaper to just throw a couple of D-9 Caterpillars and some sweepers at it a few times a year than to pay the gazillions needed for construction...and then there's always the little issue of a design passing EPA scrutiny. Yeh, what a big bummer, huh? We can go to the moon but we can't keep a little sand off the road....and your solution, capra, is?

Give me a couple positive thumbs and maybe I'll tell you, turd. By the way, your name is very fitting.

curious why everyone is getting up on turds case on this one; he is factually correct. The reason sand blows across the road is because the road was built on sand. geologically speaking, those dunes are the result of hundreds of thousands of years of sand placement, which occurred during the last ice age. If you can imagine the water of ocean beach being way out to the edge of the farallon islands, some 30 miles away, that would be the old coastline, approximately 15 thousand years ago. Those dunes have been built up during the previous ice age when the sacramento river came pouring through a lush, green valley that we now know as the san francisco bay, depositing sand at the old coastline, which was then blown back towards the current san francisco. the sand dunes are probably at least several hundred feet thick if not more; that is one reason why "removing a lot of sand" would not work. besides; the sand blowing on the highway is not really a problem at all; we only perceive it that way because in our typical human arrogance, we assumed that the world now is the way it always has been, and that it should bend to our will. if we were to look at this more as a lesson, we would readily see that instead of expecting a natural system to adapt to our wants and needs, that it would make better sense for us to adapt to the natural system. in this case, either putting the road on piers (which would be ridiculous) or simply abandoning it and pulling it back to a stabilized bank edge would be the most sensible solution. with the oncoming of sea level rise, this is likely to become imperative. well, cheers everyone.

Okay, capra, have at it, there's your vote.

Why so harsh for a couple of VERY benign comments?

I would think that the current sands on OB are younger and most likely the sediment resulting from strip mining. The reason it's so screwy is that it's not looked at for what is: a massive alluvial plain from the Bay which is fed by the rivers. With all the dams in place now I'm not sure if it's a net positive still, but it seems like it, since they still have to dredge. There was an actual dune system in place before, now we've got just a sliver of it left, that's why we end up with dunes moving inland with predominately onshore winds. Simon explains it pretty well. Those were emerging coalescing embryo dunes on ######...

There is nothing you can do to mitigate this problem. On the Outer Banks people lose million dollars homes each year because they are rich enough and dumb enough to build close to the ocean. Should we have to bail them out with our taxes so they can keep a view of the beach?? I think not. The ocean and shore are a dynamic and ever changing environment. SF can try to do whatever they want but the sand and wind don't sleep/stop especially this spring. There are some places that humans just shouldn't build and if they are going to it should be a structure with landscaping that matches the environment. Concrete and pavement just make the situation worse. Anyway, good luck to all the residents of The Sunset. This issue is not going away anytime soon and I doubt SF is gonna do anything other than hope for a miracle.

Harsh? On the contrary, maybe you're being a bit sensitive ;)
As for engineering costs, I find it funny how no one mentions cost when it comes to the massive and grandiose "Ocean Beach Master Plan" that the city is trying to push. If that project can be a reality, a simple structure to mitigate the sand issue is very do-able. You probably would have doubted that the Golden Gate Bridge could be built. Of course, that bridge was built in a different time with less government restrictions and bureaucratic red tape. Now, would it still be WORTH it to build some sort of structure to limit the sand accumulation on the Great Hwy? It would likely be obstructive to the view, and it would probably be more costly than periodically clearing the roadway. That being said, the most immediate question is - why is the Highway closed for days on end? It could easily be plowed within an hour and immediately re-opened to traffic. Ask your SF city beauracracy - the DPW - about that. I'm certain you won't get any answers. It must be nice for these guys' paychecks though, to have a construction job last for a few days - racking up the "man hours".

Building something to stop the sand is a stupid idea. Homes were never meant to be built that close to the ocean. It's a risk you take when you build a home in a dynamic and changing environment. Ask anyone who has lived near the Outer Banks, NC. Should the government also subsidize protecting every home in the US that was built in a flood plain too?? What about the people that live in tornado alley. Maybe we should reinforce all those structures/homes too? People should look at ways to live with the planet not conquer it and if you are going to build your house or business on a cliff, flood plain, or beach don't complain when nature comes calling.

Can we just get some of the potholes filled in? Then build the Great Wall of the Sunset (with some extra bike parking on top for the greenies)?

Also, I think the sand clogged the sewer over by the Park. It's smelled like crap over there the last couple of days.

hell yeah! We can all start hording supplies for the inevitable apocalypse and hide out in bunkers! The lineups will be empty!

"That being said, the most immediate question is - why is the Highway closed for days on end? It could easily be plowed within an hour and immediately re-opened to traffic. Ask your SF city beauracracy - the DPW - about that. I'm certain you won't get any answers. It must be nice for these guys' paychecks though, to have a construction job last for a few days - racking up the "man hours"."

Well said, that is the true problem with both the area and government. Delaying for profit.

They are taking forever. Im guessing they don't plow very often because the plow catches cracks in the road surface and already filled in potholes that have too much asphalt, creating even more potholes. Same thing happens in cold climates where they plow for snow like Tahoe. The potholes would require a new road and they don't want to pay for that just yet. Or ever.

The onshores have been blowing hard for almost 2 weeks now. As a SF res and taxpayer, I'm glad they're not out there shoveling sand like a "team Sisyphus". It's no different than plowing snow. Operations must cease when totally inundated. If you have to drive, there are alternate routes. Pick one. The waves have been crap, but if you must do an on-site surf check, just pretend you're crossing the desert a la Endless Summer (you can forget about the "scoring" part, though. heh heh) . I harbor the same feeling about folks who live near the beach or dunes and complain about sand as I do about folks who live in the mountains and complain about the snow...although I suspect precious few of those "concerned" with the blowing sand actually live in the City much less near The Great Highway.

@newt: I give you my solemn word as a gentleman and a practicing geologist that the majority of the sand at ocean beach was most certainly not derived from placer mining in the mid to late 1800's (though certainly a lot of silt and heavy metals were washed into the bay that way) and that the dunes were created as i described them. I know this to be true because i am handsome, smart, funny, and absolutely correct in almost every instance, with only the rarest of exceptions. thank you very much.

Is it really that much of an inconvenience to drive 48th then La P1aya and park the car and walk 50 yards to look at the windblown surf (yes, I still like to look at it when it's blown out)? I like when the road closes down (other than it coincides with shitty surf). It keeps people away, it reminds me what kind of environment we live (and surf) in, and I like the new dune formations (but that may be enhanced by minor flashbacks). Basically, it's a little dose of wild nature in an urban environment... you don't get that in Newport Beach. But hey, call me a tree hugger.

They are always saying that there's no room for the re-introduction of the grizzly into california. I think they should try to put a couple in the GGNRA. Keep it wild and natural. Maybe a couple of wolves to control the coyotes as well. Try to cobble together a wildlife corridor down to Pacifica so they can feast on the red-legged frogs.

+1 squid....oh, and, TREE HUGGER.

Coyote-human coexistence urged as animals migrate:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/06/02/BA211OPJ4S.D...