Motorists driving along the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) in Southern California are now treated to a dazzling view of the largest sculpture in The Golden State, a 600 foot-long artificial bluff carved to resemble the real thing. San Clemente and Dana Point city officials refer to the sculpted cliff as a "bluffscape," because it fools passers-by into believing that nature, not man, created the attraction along this popular scenic coastal drive.

The new bluffscape signals the much-anticipated reopening of a vital coastal link on Pacific Coast Highway that was closed by the La Ventana landslide. When more than 44,000 tons of dirt and debris fell on PCH two years ago, traffic was forbidden and coastal businesses' good fortunes were wiped out. In order to get things moving again, the City of Dana Point's Department of Public Works and Engineering Services determined to restructure and spruce up the prominent coastal cliff. Boulderscape, the San Juan Capistrano firm that created the 26,000 square foot bluff facade, sprayed concrete onto the "natural" bluff and added molds of real bluff facing to create a dusty, ancient illusion.

Landscape Architects and civil engineers Nolte and Associates of Irvine, CA, the major coordinators and designers of the entire bluff, took control of the restoration and revegetation of the damaged slope. Poppies, creeping salt bush, coastal buckwheat, blue-eyed grass, California barley and other native flora will soon sprout and carpet the rocky precipice.

As a result of the prominent rock work, Boulderscape also plans to participate in the upcoming San Clemente Slide project that will feature the work of the San Juan Capistrano-based Landscape Architectural firm of Richard Price and Associates. This future project, currently in the bidding stages, will rescue the existing Colony Cove Condos that are precariously perched over a 100 foot-tall slope. The back sides of the houses, situated perpendicular to the face of the 1,000 foot-long bank, are ready to slide; planners have done research to add plastic matting in conjunction with the rock to secure a fifty-five feet high retaining wall. Native planting will be added to landscape the entire soil area, creating a luscious palette that will preserve the "bluff." Describing the project as similar to the work on PCH but on a grander scale and with more complications, Price is indeed honored to be "part of the team working on the leading aesthetic landscape solution" to this very unstable landslide situation.