Discovering the Hidden Pleasures of North County : Escapes: Beyond the tourist attractions lies a trove of unusual places to hike, eat, sip local wines and even gaze at the stars.

They are, after all, part of the reason people come to Southern California in the first place--those sweeping ocean views along Old U.S. 101 outside Del Mar and Solana Beach, where the waves break like liquid armies coming ashore.

And even before they arrive--whether from wintry locales like Buffalo, N.Y., or as close as Orange County--they no doubt have heard about some of North San Diego County’s famous spots.

The Wild Animal Park. The bass fishing at Lake Hodges. The mission at San Luis Rey. The high desert.

Still other great places might not make the tourist guides, but are favored hangouts of North County residents: places like Oceanside Harbor, Moonlight Beach in Encinitas, even Dudley’s Bakery in Santa Ysabel.

As a resident of North County, no doubt you have your own favorite places. Perhaps you like the way the silvery full moon sits on the horizon as you drive east on La Costa Avenue just after sunset.

Or you’ve discovered the spicy chicken wings and the funky decor at the 101 Diner in downtown Encinitas. Or you like the well-worn seats at the La Paloma theater.

After all, knowing the area’s secret treasures is what separates North County people from the tourists and the people down under in San Diego.

Most people are familiar with the Reuben H. Fleet Space Theater in Balboa Park, for example, but did you know that the planetarium at Palomar College in San Marcos offers free astronomy shows?

What about the five local wineries operating in North County? A shop in Encinitas where you can buy newspapers from around the world? Or the little trout-fishing pond on the Palomar Mountain that, if you went there on a weekday, you’d probably find no one there but you and the fish?

Here is a selection of choice finds culled by The Times and found in North County:

Wildlife Near Pauma Valley

One of the best places to spot wildlife is the Wilderness Gardens Preserve on California 76--a place where wildflowers grow and animals such as bobcats, mule deer, mountain lions and an endangered creature called a ring-tailed cat roam free from iron bars, cages or electric fences.

The ring-tailed cat, which has a fox’s head, a cat’s body and a raccoon’s tail, can be seen prowling for more than 165 species of birds, many of which use the area as a stopover during migrations from as far north as Canada.

The wilderness gardens are part nature preserve, part hiking territory and part history museum, said Gregg Jensen, the ranger who lives on the 610-acre county park located in the San Luis Rey River Valley, about 10 miles east of Interstate 15.

For 10,000 years, the park served as a hospital to the Luiseno Indians. Everything they needed to concoct their herbal medicines grew wild in the valley. Even today, 2,243-foot-high Pala Peak, the point of reference that towers above the park, is considered a sacred Indian place.

The white man has left his mark as well, Jensen said. An old stagecoach trail still snakes through the underbrush along the river. In the 1850s, the first grist mill in Southern California was built on the property; it may soon be designated a state historical site.

Los Angeles publisher Manchester Boddy founded the Wilderness Gardens in the 1950s, planting more than 30 varieties of camellias among the oaks and sycamores. He also installed an irrigation system with a series of five man-made ponds to nurture his plants.

The state bought the property after Boddy’s death and has allowed it to revert to a wild state, offering guided bird walks through May as well as general walks year-round. Officials hope to refurbish the mill and reopen the elaborate pond system, much of which has run dry.

The park is a peaceful place for day hikes, but overnight camping is restricted to organized groups such as the Boy Scouts or 4-H Clubs. The park is open from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday through Monday.

“This place is still wild; everything here is protected except us, the human beings,” Jensen said.

To get there, take Interstate 15 north to California 76, then head east 10 miles. The park is located on the right, just before Pauma Valley. For more information, call Friends of Wilderness Gardens Preserve at 726-0056 during the evenings.

A Night at the Oceanside Drive-In

In 1990, it’s probably the most nostalgic Saturday-night thing a family in North County can do.

Load the kids into the station wagon, drive to Oceanside and grab a spot at the Valley 4 Drive-in on California 76. It’s the place with the parking humps that angle your car up toward one of the four huge and sometimes blurry 215-by-40-foot screens.

It’s the place with the tinny-sounding metal speakers you unhook from the poles and attach to your car window; it has not only a candy and popcorn concession but a full grill to make hamburgers, hot dogs and industrial-strength nachos. It’s the place where the double and even triple feature became regular family fare. But you’d better hurry, because the drive-in is an endangered species.

Drive-ins have always been special to Judson L. Burks Sr. He started working at the Oceanside drive-in in the early ‘60s. Three decades later, he’s still at it.

It’s the one business, he says, that’s always been oriented toward the family, the place you could always take the kids--as long as you rolled up the windows so the baby’s screams didn’t bother the people in the next car.

Today, said Burks--who now serves as part-time manager as well as projectionist and repairman at the Valley 4--drive-ins are still a pretty good deal.

“You don’t have to worry about people crawling over you, or talking in back of you, or sitting in front of you, or spilling popcorn down your back, or rattling packages in your ear. You can watch a movie in privacy and still get the family out.”

The first drive-in apparently was founded in Camden, N. J., in 1933 when Richard Hollingshead put a screen on top of his car to show his family and friends outdoor movies.

By 1955, there were 4,600 outdoor screens, and going to the drive-in had become the high school date. But times have not been kind to the drive-in. By 1989, their number had dropped to less than 1,500 nationwide.

North County once had five drive-ins from Del Mar to Oceanside. Now just the Valley 4 remains, general manager Lyle Scharnow said.

The Valley 4 opened in 1963 with one big screen, 18 acres of parking for 1,800 cars and a full playground for the kids. The owners eventually added three more screens and at one time had to delay the start of the movies because the crowds were so big.

Now the crowds stay home to watch videos. Or they go to the mall multiplex. Or they don’t watch movies at all. And places like the Valley 4 are dying off.

In fact, a local developer has made an offer on the property, which might be sold within the next year, taking with it a small part of North County’s past.

“Now that land is too valuable for a drive-in,” Scharnow said, “they’re turning them into shopping centers.”

But as far as Jud Burks is concerned, it’s still a family’s best bet for its buck.

The first show starts at 7 p.m. through April, 8:30 during the summer. Prices are $4 for adults and $2.50 for senior citizens and kids 12 to 16. Children younger than 12 are free. To get there, take Interstate 5 north to Mission Avenue. Head east a few miles until you see the drive-in on the left.

Cliff Diving in Carlsbad

One of the best local dives in North County is exactly that--an 85-foot plunge from a rocky cleft into the cool, murky waters of Box Canyon in suburban La Costa.

For more than a generation, the cliffs at Box Canyon have presented a queasy and dangerous challenge to hundreds of teen-age thrill seekers and, surprisingly, their parents.

In the late 1950s and early ‘60s, jumpers had to maneuver a little-traveled dirt road from Rancho Santa Fe Drive to reach the cliffs, which were mostly known to the hunters and fishermen who traipsed about the then-undeveloped North County.

Today, condominiums and million-dollar homes abut the canyon’s steep walls. Strangely enough, the country challenge worthy of a Mark Twain character now sits in the genteel heart of the suburbia that has grown up around it.

The canyon, which marks the serpentine path of San Marcos Creek through Carlsbad to Batiquitos Lagoon and the ocean, hasn’t changed much over the years--except for the graffiti painted on its walls by teens anxious to leave proof of their presence.

Over the years, Box Canyon’s reputation has traveled by word of mouth. On summer weekends, regulars say, scores of would-be Greg Louganises gather there.

The atmosphere may be more developed, jumpers say, but the raw danger is still there. The county has other steep dives into water holes--including Black’s Canyon in Ramona and the Clam in La Jolla--but no place has higher cliffs or more potential perils than Box Canyon, jumpers say.

The thrills begin before a diver can even see the precipice. Jumpers must descend a steep twisted trail to the several diving spots that are 40, 60 and 85 feet above a black pool--a pool some teens claim has no bottom.

Veteran jumpers say an air of mystery surrounds Box Canyon’s waters. Some tell of the teen-age girl who died during a jump and of her dejected boyfriend who drove his Volkswagen Beetle over the canyon’s wall. The car, they claim, still sits at the bottom of the water hole.

Indeed, Carlsbad police say there has been at least one diving death at the spot. Several injured jumpers have been flown to safety by helicopter.

The canyon has been designated open space, and state law protects the city from any liability for what goes on there. The word at Box Canyon is to jump at your own risk. As regulars can tell you, it’s sometimes more fun to play it safe and just watch.

To get to the canyon, take I-5 to the La Costa Avenue exit. Head east on La Costa Avenue, past El Camino Real to Cadencia Street. Turn left and head to the intersection of Piragua Venado and Cadencia. Park along Cadencia. The trail to the canyon starts there to the west of the street.

A Real Diner in Vista

Like most of its North County neighbors, Vista has endured jarring changes since the late 1940s. But you wouldn’t know it by stepping inside Allen’s Alley Cafe.

The breakfast and lunch diner, located on a back street in downtown Vista, has stubbornly clung to those down-home touches that established it as the place to chow down in Vista almost half a century ago: home-cooked meals at reasonable prices and waitresses who can remember your first name as well as what you ordered the last time you came in.

Ask anyone in Vista where to go for your best breakfast deal and chances are Allen’s will be high on the list. It’s probably the last bastion of the way things used to be in North County, a living museum that also serves a pretty decent ham and eggs breakfast.

Allen’s is also the place to see a healthy cross-section of North County life styles. On any weekday, the half dozen tables and 12 counter stools are filled by local bankers and insurance salesmen--as well as lawyers and judges from the nearby Vista law offices--who rub elbows with farmers and truck drivers and people just passing through.

During a recent noon hour, for example, a businessman in a crisply pressed gray suit sat back to back with a man with blue jeans and steel-toed boots, whose ponytail sprouted out of his balding head and crept down the back of his neck.

Many of the customers who belly up to Allen’s counter have done so for 25 years or more. “This is the place,” said Al Chamberlain. “I’ve been coming here on and off since 1953, and the place hasn’t changed much since then.

“That’s why I like it. The pie is always fresh and homemade. And the waitresses smile when they serve it to you.”

Customers at Allen’s don’t like change. Once, when the restaurant got a new clock above the counter, the regulars complained that it was too new, that they liked the old one better.

So now both clocks hang together, the old one with a cardboard label announcing that its face tells San Marcos time--because everyone at Allen’s knows that San Marcos is two minutes behind old Vista.

Charlie Harb and his parents, Fred and Alicia, have run the place for the past five years. There have been lots of owners since Grant Allen opened the place in the early 1960s.

Grant Allen, who ran the restaurant for a decade before selling it and moving to Idaho, said he named it after a radio show. The show, Allen’s Alley, was hosted by comedian Fred Allen--no relation, but one of the restaurateur’s favorite performers.

The subsequent owners have kept the name, as well as other Allen’s traditions: homemade food made from scratch served at yesterday’s prices.

“Our customers wouldn’t let us do it any other way,” Harb said.

The diner, at 124 Hanes Place, is open from 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays and 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday. The place is visible from Broadway in downtown Vista.

Mother Nature by the Freeway

It’s perhaps North County’s biggest natural secret: a pristine canyon hiking trail that starts within a horn’s blow of San Diego’s busiest freeway confluence, the I-5 and I-805 interchange.

That’s right. Within earshot of the blaring car radios, the migraine-inducing traffic jams and the automobile rat race lies the trail to another time.

The 8-mile-long trail through Los Penasquitos Canyon Preserve covers more than 2,000 acres, from industrial Sorrento Valley to Mira Mesa, along stretches of expansive canyon floor as well as more wooded terrain.

The hiker with a blanket and lunch can pick his picnic environment--sunny meadow, oak-shaded flatland or sycamore-shaded stream, as well as two Mexican adobes built in the early 1800s.

There’s even a 15-foot terraced waterfall running through a rocky gorge at the halfway point--a favorite spot for harried workers to meditate in peace after a long day’s labor, said P. J. Piburn, a volunteer ranger who lives at the trail head at the east end of the preserve at Mercy and Black Mountain roads.

Heading east from Sorrento Valley, the trail first hugs the south wall of Los Penasquitos Canyon, a steep, chaparral-covered hillside. Soon the freeway is a memory as the trail winds into a dense cover of live oaks.

Hikers can see elderberry trees and wildflowers such as wild radish, mustard and California poppies, as well as many non-native plants such as eucalyptus, fan palms and fennel.

“It’s kind of ironic that between the Golden Triangle and Interstate 15 there lies such a pristine place with deer and rabbits and coyotes, and birds of prey such as owls and hawks,” Piburn said. “But it’s there.”

Jerry Schad, author of “Afoot and Afield in San Diego County,” says the preserve at Los Penasquitos--Spanish for “the little cliffs”--is one of the last pristine North County riparian environments that hasn’t been ruined by the hand of man or the backhoe of a bulldozer.

But it won’t stay that way forever, Schad says. Already on the east side of the canyon walk, houses have begun to loom on the rim near Black Mountain Road. And trail bikers often run roughshod over the windy road.

Piburn says that hundreds of people sometimes traverse the trails on weekends--which are open not only to hikers but to bicycles and horses.

According to Schad, the relatively flat trail is the perfect spring and summer evening getaway from the stress of the nearby city. From either end, evening hikers can reach the midpoint waterfall by sunset, then return by the light of the moon.

To get to the preserve’s west entrance, head south on I-5 to the Sorrento Valley Road exit. Take the frontage road south about a mile, underneath the towering freeway overpass, to Sorrento Valley Boulevard. Go left and take the road to the dead end. The trail head is nearby.

To get to the east entrance, take I-15 south to Mercy Road. Head east to Black Mountain Road, where the entrance sits in front of you.

World News in Encinitas

If you’re anxious for news from your home town, and your home town isn’t North County, head to Front Page News in downtown Encinitas.

The newsstand sells hundreds of magazines from at home and abroad as well as more than three dozen out-of-town newspapers--such as the Plain Dealer from Cleveland, The Bee from Modesto, the New Orleans Times Picayune and the Globe and Mail from Toronto.

Other dailies hail from Albuquerque, Dallas, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Las Vegas, Minneapolis and British Columbia.

The newspapers also arrive from more than 12 countries on four continents, with headlines from as far away as Sydney, Australia; Dublin, Ireland; the Middle East, and Great Britain.

Read in The Observer from London about toxic waste dumps throughout England. Read in The Irish Times about the rugby player who was fined 8,000 pounds by a judge for breaking a competitor’s jaw. And feast your eyes on the evaluation of the love habits of the French, in a story headlined “Sex and the French: Lascivious Lovers or Insecure Loners?”

People buy out-of-town newspapers for all kinds of reasons, according to owner Bonnie Bechtold. Maybe they’re planning a move to a new city, or have recently relocated to San Diego and still feel a bit homesick.

They might be businessmen temporarily dispatched here from a faraway company. Or maybe, she said, they’re just people who want to read about the minutia--from housing costs to the weekend theater bill--of a foreign place they’ll probably never visit on their own.

“I love to get the European view of things that go on in this country. They’re all so very funny,” store worker Judy Kiefer said. “And the British write some hilarious obits, like the one about the guy who was a drunk and womanizer. We wouldn’t dare write some of those things in this country.”

For the most part, the papers cannot be had for a quarter. Transport costs and middlemen drive up the cost of one Australian newspaper to $8.75

But most regular customers, Bechtold says, feel it’s a better deal than the price of a plane ticket.

Front Page News is located at 566 First St. in Encinitas. The hours are 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday; 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, and 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday.

Hungarian Goulash in the Backcountry

Take a steaming dish of home-made Hungarian goulash, add a backcountry atmosphere with a rough and ready clientele and finish it off with a spritely owner whose laugh can rattle the salt and pepper shakers, and what do you get?

You get Maggie’s Place, a rural bacon and eggs institution along California 79 in Dodge Valley in the far northeast corner of San Diego County.

The locals like to say that Maggie’s is the last stop you make before you go any place to get somewhere else. It’s an oasis on the back road to Julian, a friendly outpost with a bar that stays open each night as long as people are having fun and as long as Maggie feels like keeping it open.

Magda Jankovich, a Hungarian immigrant who came to this country 25 years ago, has run the diner by herself for the last five years. For Maggie, the diner is home. She sleeps in a bed on one of the back storage rooms and gets up with the chickens each morning to make sure the first pot of coffee is on by 6:30 a.m.

Out in the backcountry, customers roll into Maggie’s at strange intervals throughout the day, looking for such specials as Maggie’s cabbage rolls, her spicy goulash made with just the right amount of pepper, onions and paprika as well as her homemade pizza.

And they come from all across the North County for a dose of Maggie’s humor, her one-liners, her mothering instincts and, of course, the laugh that can make newcomers wonder if a kitchen fire has set off the smoke alarm.

Maggie’s is the kind of restaurant that makes customers forget why they became so fascinated by city life in the first place. Her three pet dogs lounge on the front stoop of the diner, where regulars are more likely to don cowboy hats and leather motorcycle pants than a shirt and tie.

Whether you’re a city slicker or country bumpkin, Maggie has only two rules for her diner and back bar: Watch your language and, whatever you do, don’t you dare step behind the bar or counter.

That’s Maggie’s turf.

To get there, take I-15 north to California 79 and head south on it about 27 miles. Maggie’s Place is on the left.

Star Show in San Marcos

Ever wonder what the sky over Southern California looked like in the year 1790, or which constellations might have captivated the Egyptians when they looked up into the heavens 5,000 years ago?

There’s a way to relive the wonder and mystery of the night skies as they’ve been seen from earth since the beginning of time--the nebulae, planets, double-stars and star clusters. And it’s free.

On the first Wednesday of each month during the school semester, Palomar College offers astronomy lectures at its campus planetarium in San Marcos.

So what better motivation is there to get up off the couch, turn off that rerun of “Night Court” and take a skyward glance into the past and future?

“I can show people what the sky looks like from any place on the planet at any time in its history,” said James Pesavento, director of the 25-year-old planetarium.

All he has to do is turn off the lights, allow the audience to sit back in 76 comfortable chairs and focus on the huge white dome while he maneuvers the planetarium’s star projector to mimic the night skies.

With the increased public interest in astronomy, the college has sponsored lectures that explain current celestial happenings, Pesavento said. For example, in response to NASA’s launch of the new 90-inch telescope in March, the planetarium will feature an April 4 program entitled “The New Generation of Telescopes.”

In May, in the final lecture of the spring semester series, the planetarium will present “Big Bang: The Creation of the Universe.” The doors open at 6:30 p.m. and donations are accepted. T-shirts and sweat shirts featuring the planetarium are available for a donation.

The college offered free public shows at the planetarium when the planetarium opened in 1964, but funding cuts forced an end to the program in the late 1970s. It only recently started up again, Pesavento said, and fills up each week.

And for the really star-struck, the university offers a $5, one-credit evening class entitled “Contemporary Space Science” which includes planetarium lectures and field trips to the Palomar and Laguna observatories.

The college offers two shows each first Wednesday of the month during the school semester. Since the shows fill fast, the college prefers reservations by calling 744-1150 or 727-7529, ext. 2512.

To get to the college, take California 78 to Rancho Santa Fe Road and head north two blocks. Go right on Mission Avenue and take it half a mile until you see the college on the left. Ask the security guard for directions to the planetarium.

Wine Tasting in Escondido

Back in the early years of the Depression, George Ferrara played one big wine-growing hunch in the North County.

The Escondido resident gambled on the chance that President Herbert Hoover would soon end Prohibition--and began growing grapes for wine on his 1,000-acre farm.

Fifty-eight years later, that gamble is still paying off. Ever since Prohibition ended in 1933, George Ferrara and his descendants have nurtured the business they say has established them as the oldest active grape-growing wine family in San Diego County.

Their business, the Ferrara Winery in Escondido, is one of five remaining wineries in once grape-rich San Diego County--which at one time boasted more than 35 active wineries, the family says.

(The other active wineries are the Bernardo Winery on Paseo Del Verano Norte in Rancho Bernardo, the Thomas Jaeger winery on San Pasqual Road in Escondido and the Mike Menghini winery in Julian. The Deer Park winery vineyards on Champagne Boulevard in Escondido manufactures wine in Napa Valley, but might begin producing wine here later this year.)

Today, the Ferrara Winery is run by George’s son, Gasper, his wife, Vera and the couple’s 35-year-old son Gasper--who represents the family’s third generation of wine-makers.

Both Gasper and his son grew up on the winery, which in 1972 was designated by the state as a historical point of interest. While the once-expansive fields have been reduced to three acres, the family still produces 29 different types of wine, including 10 varieties with San Diego County-grown grapes. (Other grapes come from Pauma Valley and elsewhere in the state.)

Most Ferrara winery visitors are surprised they don’t have to travel to Napa Valley or even Temecula to see California wine made the time-tested way in a relaxed country atmosphere, 65-year-old Gasper Sr. says.

“When people think wine, they think Napa Valley,” he said. “They don’t realize that the state’s wine-growing tradition began right here in Southern California.”

The winery is open between 9 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. Monday through Friday and between 10 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. on weekends. There is a self-guided tour of the wine-making process but groups of 15 or more can prearrange a personal escort.

From I-15, take the 9th Avenue exit and head east, turn right on Upas Street and go to 15th Avenue, then turn right and go one block to the winery.

The winery is located amid a housing development that has grown up on the slopes where vineyards once stood. The winery’s location has surprised some first-time visitors, Gasper Sr. says.

“People always ask: ‘What possessed you to put a winery in the middle of a residential area?’ They don’t realize that we were here first.”

Fishing on Palomar Mountain

For years, inland fishermen in the North County have enjoyed a secluded water hole where they can catch a decent-sized trout and teach their son or daughter the art of the sport over a picnic lunch--all while absorbing the view of an open meadow and green forest.

Anglers in the know fish at Doane Pond, a 2 1/2-acre spring-fed pool in Palomar Mountain State Park.

There, they can catch a trout or catfish, see a deer dart through Doane Valley or walk along some of the park’s 14 miles of self-guided nature trails that offer views of the big cone firs, spruce trees and ponderosa pines that thrive more than 5,000 feet above sea level. The pond also offers youngsters a prime spot for catching frogs.

“In Southern California, this is probably the closest thing we have to the plant species, wildlife and change of seasons of the Sierra Nevadas much farther north,” said ranger Martha Black.

The man-made pond--named after George Doane, the original settler who once grazed pigs and cattle on the land where the state park now sits--was created in the early 1930s when rangers dammed up a spring-fed stream.

The pond is stocked with trout through June by the California Department of Fish and Game. But the best fishing, rangers say, is in the winter and spring, before the water temperature rises and the trout die off.

“The secret to Doane Pond is knowing when to come,” Black said. “Weekdays are always the best time. If you choose a day that isn’t right after a stocking, you can virtually have the place to yourself.”

Spring weekends are always the busiest both at the park and at the pond, rangers say. There are five picnic tables located in the meadow near the pond, which also sits in view of the Palmomar School Camp.

For those who don’t arrive early enough, there are an additional 30 picnic tables in the Silvercrest picnic area a half-mile away. The campsites, which are closed in the winter, are by reservation only (1-800-444-7275) and are often filled months in advance. So the best way to enjoy the park and fish Doane Pond is through day trips.

Anglers need a California fishing license and there’s a $3 charge to enter the park on weekdays; $4 on weekends and holidays. Rangers warn visitors to be prepared for unpredictable mountain weather that can include snow storms through May.

Doane Pond is open each day at 6 a.m. until sunset for fisherman.

To get there, take I-15 north to California 76 and head east about 25 miles through the Pauma Valley. Then bear left onto county route S-6 and take it 7 miles to the top of the mountain along some winding switchbacks. At the top, go left and then left again into State Park Road, marked by a general store and restaurant on the corner.

Take State Mountain Road 4 miles to the park entrance and ranger’s station. For weather and other information about the park and Doane Pond, call 742-3462 or the ranger station at Cuyamaca Rancho State Park at 765-0755.

Biking Amid the Marines

You’re on your 10-speed or beach bike, pumping hard along a rural stretch of road far from the freeway whine, bracing yourself against a stiff coastal breeze, when you see the sign: “Tank Crossing.”

Wait a minute, that’s not a school crossing. It’s not a deer crossing. It says tank, as in multiton, camouflaged, war-time killing machine.

So where are you? You’re cruising the 19.5-mile-long public bicycle route across Camp Joseph H. Pendleton, the North County Marine base, from Oceanside to San Clemente.

For years, the base has allowed bicycle enthusiasts to traverse the winding base route that offers visitors not only beautiful views of the ocean and nearby hillsides, but also close-up looks at amphibious vehicles, helicopter landings as well as uniformed Marines playing war games.

And then, of course, there’s the tanks.

The route provides an ideal, 39-mile round-trip excursion for North County cyclists looking for a few good miles of surf, sand, picturesque bluffs and rolling hills.

But this is no difficult Marine basic training exercise. According to “Cycling San Diego,” a guide for local bicyclists by Jerry Schad and Don Krupp, the route is one of the easiest and flattest bike rides in North County--using base access roads, abandoned sections of Old U.S. 101 and short sections of bike path.

At the Oceanside gate, northbound riders will be required to show picture identification. Access is limited to daytime hours, seven days a week, except during special base maneuvers. Heading north from the Oceanside gate, you’ll travel a mile and a half along Vandegrift Boulevard, a four-lane highway that is often congested with base rush-hour traffic on weekday mornings.

At the traffic light, turn left onto Stewart Mesa Road. Nine miles later, near a cluster of refurbished ranch buildings, the route goes left onto Las Pulgas Road toward I-5.

You then follow the bike path signs along sections of Old U.S. 101, passing underneath the freeway to sections near the beach. After a few more miles, the route winds past the nuclear generating station and through San Onofre State Beach with its numerous short trails to the beach below.

The authors of “Cycling San Diego” suggest a good turnaround point south of the San Diego-Orange County line at Trestles Beach--an uncrowded surfing beach that’s a great place for a picnic lunch before the return ride.

To reach it, turn left from the bike route onto a paved walkway right after the San Mateo Creek bridge and go a third of a mile to the beach.

The Marines say it’s impossible to get lost on the bike route and suggest that visitors ask base MPs about variations in the marked route.

To get to the Oceanside gate by car, take the Oceanside Harbor Drive exit off Interstate 5 north, turn right on San Rafael Drive and park in the residential area beyond the red-painted curbs.

Obey the rules on base. Roving patrols can offer assistance to stranded cyclists but will also ticket visitors breaking camp rules. For more information, call the base public affairs office at 725-5566.