The staircase hugs the sandy cliff in a long, zigzagging plunge, each wooden step grooved smooth by decades of bare feet and salt wind. You descend through beach plum and rosa rugosa, their branches reaching across the railings, until the roar of surf grows louder than the whisper of leaves. At the bottom, the beach stretches narrow and uncommonly private, hemmed by bluffs on one side and the open Atlantic on the other.
“Ninety-nine hand-built steps deliver you to Nantucket's most secluded stretch of Atlantic coastline, earning every grain of sand.”
Credit: FlickrArizona River Runners S-rig raft and footprints in the sand beach of the Colorado River in Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona
This is not a beach for crowds or beach chairs. The sand here shifts with every nor'easter, sometimes wide enough for a picnic blanket, sometimes barely a walking path at high tide. Smooth stones collect near the bluff base—quartz, granite, occasional sea glass worn milk-white. The water runs cold even in August, the kind of bracing Atlantic chill that makes you gasp and laugh simultaneously.
Couples come here for the isolation, the sense of having claimed something rare. You'll see them in late afternoon, sitting close on driftwood logs, or walking the tideline with pants rolled to their knees. The climb back up demands ninety-nine deliberate steps, thighs burning, but the view halfway—island rooftops and sailboat masts stitching the harbor—makes every ascent worthwhile.
