When I moved to Washington (state) the fist thing I did was hire someone to build stairs so I could get down to my beach. I found the best guy in the area, waited a year for him to have time and he gave me a plan to build the whole thing for $29K. He wound up taking $2K off because I paid him the second half in cash instead of by check.
The staircase was well engineered. 30 foot pilings sunk into the side of the cliff. It was designed to allow natural falling of mud/soil that happens all the time there. In the event of a major collapsing of the hillside it was designed to have sections break away rather then pull the whole thing down.
Pictures: here
This is well built, worth the wait.