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A sculpted whale curves beneath a sand replica of the Golden Gate Bridge, framed by carved swirls, at the 44th Sandcastle Classic on Ocean Beach in San Francisco, California.
Thousands of people gathered on the city’s Pacific coast on Saturday, October 24, to build sculptures inspired by the theme “Bay Area Vibes.”†
Ocean Beach, a wide stretch of Pacific shoreline on the western edge of San Francisco, fills with visitors as surf rolls toward the sand.
Families, walkers and spectators spread across the beach as the annual competition, now in its 44th year, draws thousands of people.
Teams set up their sites with the basics: two blue plastic pools of water, a cluster of orange buckets, a spray bottle and shovels.
Moist sand holds its shape far better than dry sand, and the supplies stay close at hand as mounds begin to rise behind them.
A young participant in a white team T-shirt swings a shovelful of sand away from a growing mound.
Builders pile and pack sand into large bases before any carving begins, and children work alongside adults on the teams.
From above, a team in matching white T-shirts crowds around a sculpture still taking form.
Builders kneel, lean and reach across the sand to shape a rounded body with long, branching arms, while buckets, shovels and a blue pool sit at the edges of the work area.
Team Chonkzilla builds a layered landscape of steep peaks, stepped walls and a winding path of rounded bumps, with a painted team sign rising above the site.
Teammates and passersby gather along one side as the ocean glints in the distance.
A large sand bear sits upright beside a sprawling, rounded form, holding a circular object against its chest. Small cones of sand dot the surrounding area, and lettering is carved into the beach along the bottom edge as spectators lean in to look.
A smooth-bodied seal rests across a plot etched with ripples, with two starfish carved at the upper edge and a sand hand reaching in from the side.
A small spiral mound sits at the left, and visitors circle the edges to study the details.
An octopus stretches its arms across a stepped, tower-like structure, while a crab sits in one corner and another animal rests in the opposite one. The name “Karl” is carved into the sand at left, and stars are etched across the surface as visitors crowd the edges.
Seals of different sizes lie together across an oval plot, their flippers and faces shaped in fine detail. Behind them, rows of small sand balls trail beside a mound topped with a tower, and carved letters run along the bottom edge of the site.
Rings of raked sand ripple outward from a circular castle with winding channels, blocky buildings and a domed peak at its center. Curved, scale-textured walls and dark hollows frame the design, and a sea creature with radiating arms sits near the upper edge.
Team Claude Squad shapes a long alligator inside a square plot outlined with yellow string, its back covered in rows of pressed, scale-like bumps.
A banner for the 2026 Leap Sandcastle Classic stands behind the site, with buckets, watering cans and tools around the edges.
Team Sandy Eagles pairs a section of the Golden Gate Bridge with a large seal balancing a colorful beach ball on its head. A round emblem sits at left and a carved face on a mound at right, while a team banner and a blue tub of tools mark the site.
A relief of the Golden Gate Bridge fills an oval frame of sand, ringed by textured, scale-like shapes.
Work like this serves a larger purpose: money raised through the event supports arts and architecture education for more than 8,500 public school students in the San Francisco Bay Area.
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