Point Dume State Beach, Protected beach area in Malibu, US

Point Dume State Beach protects a 56-meter-high bluff of sand dunes and cliffs at Malibu, where a sheer gray-brown rock face rises from a sandy beach. The rock's rounded top carries patches of dark green vegetation, and the mass drops to jagged outcrops on its right. A wooden sign with a tan panel and a circular California seal marks the natural area.

The Chumash people inhabited this coastal region for thousands of years, establishing temporary camps along the bluffs where they gathered marine resources. The area was later named after Spanish missionary Francisco Dumetz, and it came under state protection in the 20th century when the ecological and scenic importance of this peninsula was recognized.

Point Dume's Westward Beach has served as a filming location for decades, appearing in The Big Lebowski's beach party scene and in the Planet of the Apes series. The 1974 horror film Messiah of Evil was set and shot on location here. The name comes from Padre Francisco Dumetz, misspelled on George Vancouver's 1793 map.

Two parking areas are available: a small free lot on top near Dume Drive and a larger paid lot at Westward Beach. The climb to the clifftop viewpoint takes around 10 to 15 minutes and follows an unpaved trail with uneven steps.

The 900-ton steam-schooner California of the California Whaling Company anchored about a mile offshore in Paradise Cove in the mid-1930s, processing gray whales caught by its two killer boats, the Hawk and Port Saunders. Reporter Emerson Gaze noted over fifty whales taken by late January 1936.