Ask anyone who lives on the Peninsula what's happening with the trails right now and you'll get some version of the same answer: closed, all of it, because of the landslide. That answer is understandable. It's also wrong in a way that matters if you're deciding where to take a Saturday morning walk this September.

The city's own trail closure list names four reserves affected by the land movement: Portuguese Bend, Abalone Cove, Filiorum, and Forrestal. Combined, they account for roughly eight miles of closed trail. That's a real loss, and if your regular loop happened to run through the Portuguese Bend Landslide Loop or the Palos Verdes Bluffs Trail, you already know it. But the Palos Verdes Nature Preserve spans 15 reserves across roughly 1,500 acres, and several of the largest ones aren't on that closure list at all. They never stopped running public programs. The story locals have been telling each other is a story about the whole Preserve. The actual map is a story about a defined ring around one slide complex.

What's Actually Closed

The closures cluster around the ancient landslide complex on the south side of the city, and each one has a specific, documented reason. The Portuguese Bend Landslide Loop and the Palos Verdes Bluffs Trail, both within Portuguese Bend Reserve, have carried long-term closure notices since July 2026, with the city citing open fissures and rockfall risk. A section of the Catalina Trail and its bridge, between Lakeview Trail and East Portal Trail, has been closed indefinitely due to what the city classifies as a geologic hazard. In Abalone Cove Reserve, the beach itself, Sacred Cove Beach, and the beach access trails have been closed since July 2024 because of accelerated movement, though Abalone Cove Park's upland grounds remain open during normal hours, one hour before sunrise to one hour after sunset, with the parking lot running 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

None of this is cosmetic. SoCalGas suspended gas service to the Portuguese Bend community, Cal Water has moved some pipelines above ground in the most affected neighborhoods, and Southern California Edison has floated de-energizing sections of the grid there for safety. Those are utility decisions tied to the active slide zone, not the broader Preserve, and they explain why the closures around Portuguese Bend and Abalone Cove aren't going to lift on any predictable timeline.

The Slide Is Slowing, Even With a Wetter Winter

Here's the part of the story that doesn't get repeated as often. At the August 4, 2026 City Council briefing, the city reported that survey data from early July showed the landslide complex moving 60 percent slower than it was one year earlier, despite a slightly above-average rainy season. That's a meaningful reversal of the pattern everyone expects: more rain usually means more movement, and this year it didn't.

The specifics back it up. Areas still active within the landslide boundary averaged 1.1 inches of movement per week, a 15 percent decrease since May. The Abalone Cove Landslide decelerated 15.8 percent to 1.4 inches per week. The Portuguese Bend Landslide itself decelerated 13.9 percent to 0.94 inches per week. Klondike Canyon, a separate slide within the same complex, showed no measurable movement at all. Much of the credit goes to the city's deep dewatering wells at the toe of the Portuguese Bend slide, which have pulled more than half a billion gallons of groundwater out of the hillside since fall 2024, with output climbing further after two wells that had sheared off from ground movement were re-drilled.

None of that reopens a trail tomorrow. But it changes the frame from "an emergency that's getting worse" to "an emergency the city is measurably winning against," which matters if you're trying to guess whether this closure map looks the same next spring.

The Reserve, Reserve by Reserve

The pattern is geographic, not preserve-wide. Ocean Trails sits along the coast near Trump National Golf Club, well removed from the ancient landslide complex to the south. San Ramon Reserve runs along the opposite side of the city on Palos Verdes Drive East. Alta Vicente, 22 acres near Point Vicente, sits outside the slide boundary too. None of the three appears on the city's list of four affected reserves, and the Conservancy hosted a volunteer restoration day at Alta Vicente earlier this year without interruption.

The Calendar Nobody's Canceling

If the Preserve were actually shut down, the Palos Verdes Peninsula Land Conservancy wouldn't still be running programs inside it. Back in February, the Conservancy led a guided nature walk inside Forrestal Reserve itself, one of the four reserves carrying closures, exploring the cliffs of a former basalt quarry on a segment of trail the land movement hadn't touched. That's the clearest evidence the closures are drawn trail by trail, not reserve by reserve.

The Conservancy's calendar keeps building into fall, even if some of it plays out at Land Conservancy sites elsewhere on the Peninsula. A Nature Education Docent Orientation is scheduled for Thursday, September 10, from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m., training the next round of volunteers who lead public walks across the Conservancy's holdings. On Saturday, September 26, from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., the Conservancy is marking National Public Lands Day with a volunteer session at the White Point Nature Preserve's native plant demonstration garden in San Pedro, with check-in starting at 9 a.m. and activities for kids built in alongside the weeding and seed prep.

These aren't one-off events. Guided walks led by naturalists and by Los Serenos de Point Vicente docents, through a standing partnership with the city, run most months across the Conservancy's reserves. If you've never taken one, September is a reasonable month to start. They're free, they don't require you to already know which trailhead to find, and the ones held on Rancho Palos Verdes reserves like Ocean Trails and Alta Vicente sit entirely outside the closures described above.

Planning a Weekend Around the Real Map

The most useful habit for anyone hiking or walking dogs on the Peninsula right now is checking the city's trail conditions page before heading out, since individual segments inside Forrestal and Abalone Cove can shift status without much notice. The city's land movement updates page gets refreshed after each Council briefing, which is the closest thing to a primary source you'll find. If you'd rather not track it yourself, a guided PVPLC walk solves the problem by design. Someone else has already confirmed the route is open, and you'll likely see a corner of Alta Vicente or San Ramon you hadn't found on your own.

For a household weighing whether the Peninsula still delivers on the outdoor living that drew them here in the first place, the honest answer is that it mostly does, just not everywhere it used to. Eight miles of closed trail out of a 1,500-acre network is a real loss for the residents whose regular loop ran through Portuguese Bend. It's not the story of a Preserve that's stopped functioning.

If you're weighing what a home in this part of the Peninsula actually offers day to day, from trail access to the pace of life around it, our Rancho Palos Verdes neighborhood guide breaks down how the coastal and hilltop pockets of the city differ. And if you're ready to talk through what any of this means for a property you own or one you're considering, Kristin Warrick is happy to schedule an appointment and walk through it with you directly.