Before he jumped into the gaping pit of sand, the man got a running start. Starting from behind the piles of loose sand that lined the hole’s rim, he dashed forward and leapt. He executed his trick, a clean side flip, quickly. As his body tilted back in the air, his sandy hair flopped in his face. When his feet hit the earth, his audience — a crowd of young people armed with shovels and spades — clapped.
This was hardly the most unusual encounter at Saturday’s Hole Party, a gathering of around 250 people. The crowd, a mix of strangers, students, blue collar workers, roller skaters and queer fight night attendees, gathered at Ocean Beach to work towards a shared goal: to dig a really big hole. And later, as the sun began to set, they worked to fill it back in.
Why go through the trouble? “There’s no real reason, but it is a surprisingly good way to bring people together,” Anna Magruder, 29, told SFGATE.
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Magruder, who works in forestry, organized this hole party, as well as twelve previous ones. “When I first started it, I didn’t know if people were gonna go for it,” she continued. “I would ask around and be like, ‘Does this sound stupid?’”
Hole Party participants start digging holes separate holes at Ocean Beach in San Francisco, Calif. on March 28, 2026.
Adam Pardee/Special to SFGATE
Hole Party participants start digging holes at Ocean Beach in San Francisco, Calif. on March 28, 2026.
Adam Pardee/Special to SFGATE
People did go for it. Saturday’s hole was enormous. Hearing “hole,” one pictures a round, circular pit, but the hole was closest in shape to an amoeba, with tendrils reaching this way and that. Some diggers branched out on their own, digging narrow channels in the dense, moist sand. There were smaller, deeper holes within the hole, and there were mounds of sand that stuck up like inverted donut holes. A few dreamers tried to dig a shallow canal to connect the hole to the ocean, even though the tide was going out.
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Joseph Peralta, 29, spent three hours digging what may have been the deepest portion of the hole. It was the width of a manhole, and deep enough to cover a tall man. The hole’s walls went straight down, and at its bottom was a puddle of water. Peralta used a hand shovel, which was about the size of a garden spade. After hours of digging, his body ached. His forehead and neck were covered in sand.
“I wouldn’t mind digging some more, but now there’s a concern about it coming down on me. I’m afraid it’s gonna come down on them too,” Peralta said, pointing to another person standing in the hole, who continued to dig in his stead.
Hole Party participants move sand outward from the giant hole being excavated at Ocean Beach in San Francisco, Calif. on March 28, 2026.
Adam Pardee/Special to SFGATE
This concern is a fair one. In rare instances, sand holes can collapse, suffocating people inside. A study published in the New England Review of Medicine counted 52 such cases between 1997 and 2007, 31 of which were fatal.
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In a phone interview with SFGATE, Dr. Stephen Leatherman, professor at Florida International University, echoed this concern. Leatherman, who is sometimes called “Dr. Beach,” is a shoreline expert, having published research on beach erosion, rip currents, sea level rise and hurricanes.
“We’ve had quite a few people who are suffocated and died tragically — usually children — in these sand holes,” Leatherman said. “So I don’t see why they’re doing that. That seems like a ridiculous thing to be doing.”
On Saturday, at least, nobody encountered any serious trouble. One participant was partially buried, but it was voluntary. Anastacia De La Rosa, 19, sat on the rim of the hole. Her partner, Hunter, piled shovelfuls of sand onto her as he dug, covering her legs and most of her Pierce the Veil T-shirt.
De La Rosa said she heard about the Hole Party earlier in the day, and took Caltrain from Redwood City.
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“This is kind of where I’ve always wanted to be when I die,” she said. “I would like to be laid to rest with the hole amongst the sand, amongst the worms.”
Hole Party participants relax on a dug out bench while they work on digging holes at Ocean Beach in San Francisco, Calif. on March 28, 2026.
Adam Pardee/Special to SFGATE
The party, like the hole, was shapeless. Picnic blankets encircled it, with shovels stuck in the ground like flagpoles. The beachgoers, mostly in their 20s and early 30s, drank beer and rubbed sunscreen into their arms. A lot of people had gauges in their ears.
At the Hole Party, people cheered for side flips. They cheered for a lot of other things, too. They broke into chants of “hole! hole! hole!” whenever a digger hoisted a shovelful of sand and found water underneath. They cheered when a helicopter flew overhead — this also prompted a “hole” chant, with some shovels thrust in the air for good measure. They cheered when a Doberman leapt down the hole’s slopes and sniffed around a wet spot at the bottom, which has been affectionately nicknamed “South Hole Springs.” Sometimes they cheered for no apparent reason.
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Neil O’Neill, a musician and public school teacher, found his way to the hole from the Ocean Beach No Kings protest, where he performed protest songs with his acoustic guitar. By the late afternoon, he was standing on the edge of the hole, strumming his guitar and playing harmonica.Surveying the scene, O’Neill considered playing “Fixing a Hole” by the Beatles but thought better of it.
Hole Party participants dig out a giant circle at Ocean Beach in San Francisco, Calif. on March 28, 2026.
Adam Pardee/Special to SFGATE
I wanted to experience the hole for myself, so I took my shovel and jumped in. The sand at the bottom was moist and loose. It was crowded down there, and I worried I would accidentally hit the young woman to my right with my shovel’s wooden handle.
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After a few scoops of sand, though, I hit a rhythm. I stopped wondering why the others went through the effort to dig; faced with the mechanics of working a shovel, questions of purpose fade from mind. It just felt good.
Hole Party participants dig out a giant circle at Ocean Beach in San Francisco, Calif. on March 28, 2026.
Adam Pardee/Special to SFGATE
Hole Party participants work on digging holes at Ocean Beach in San Francisco, Calif. on March 28, 2026.
Adam Pardee/Special to SFGATE
There seemed to be a loose assembly line at work. Someone closer to the middle of the hole passed sand towards the edge. Another digger shoveled it out of the hole and onto the rim, and someone else scooped that loose sand away before it fell back in. Little by little, the hole grew deeper and wider.
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At one point, someone pulled out a tape measure and extended it across the mouth of the hole. The yellow tape wobbled a few inches from my head; someone on the other side of the hole shouted out loose measurements. This seemed like a fool’s errand, since the hole’s irregular shape made any definitive measurement impossible. But people didn’t seem to mind. They still responded with cheers and chants of “hole.”
Magruder organized the first hole party back in 2022. It started as a private gathering of a handful of friends, all part of the same roller skating group. In subsequent years, the event went public. A recent hole party was a crossover with a queer fight night event; matches took place in the holes. After each hole party, participants shovel all of the sand back into place.
Hole Party participants start digging holes at Ocean Beach in San Francisco, Calif. on March 28, 2026.
Adam Pardee/Special to SFGATE
When my colleague and I ran into Chuck Beaulieu near the edge of the hole, he had just finished smoking a spliff. Unlike the other attendees, Beaulieu, 37, digs for a living.
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“As a gardener, it’s laborious, but I’m probably better at it than anyone here,” he said.
The technique for digging a good hole, Beaulieu explained, depends on its purpose. One ought to dig one way when planting a tree, and another way when breaking up clay. Or when shoveling heaps of sand.
“This hole has no purpose,” he said, pausing for a moment. “Which is half the fun.”
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