Weekend Escape: El Capitan State Beach : They finally discover the joys of settling in at a popular beach campground. Now, if they could just get rid of their neighbors . . .

As a young married couple, our favorite way of getting away from it all was to backpack in the wilds: Yosemite, the Grand Tetons, Trinity Alps, Mt. Shasta. In our limited experience, car camping meant enduring a crowd of yahoos watching portable TVs and drinking beer outside Gargantuan tents at littered campsites with overflowing trash bins.

Two children later, car camping was looking better--better than not camping at all, anyway. So, this summer we planned to introduce Laura, 4, and Timmy, 18 months, to the joys of the outdoors.

We bought a spacious four-person tent to replace the lightweight one we had carried on our backs, a rechargeable lantern and camp chairs. In mid-July we dug out a 1991 Los Angeles Times article on Southern California’s best family campgrounds that we had set aside and began calling for reservations. And calling. And calling.

It was impossible to get a reservation for a Friday night at a beach campsite through the Labor Day weekend. After Labor Day? Presto! We had our pick of any weekend at most campgrounds on the list.

We chose the Friday after Labor Day at El Capitan State Beach, 20 miles northwest of Santa Barbara, because it seemed to offer the natural beauty of the beach tucked into the shadow of coastal cliffs, as well as the amenities families need.

Naively expecting a pristine, uncrowded campground, we arrived in early afternoon and found a line of cars waiting at the entrance gate.

The ranger briefed us on the camp selection procedure, which was necessary to avoid disputes that would surely arise if two groups of campers both claimed to have spotted the same site first.

The camp looked at least half full, and the prime cliff-top sites above the beach were gone. So we wound up choosing a spacious site that was one of about eight ringing an area the size of half a football field. A live oak tree shaded a flat spot that fit our tent perfectly and fir trees shielded us, more or less, from our neighbors. As effective as they are as a visual break, fir trees are lousy sound barriers. But more about that later.

As we set up camp, we realized the effects of overuse. We had to police the perimeter of the site, picking up trash and regretted not bringing a broom or a rake to rid the area of cigarette butts. We also noticed, for the first time, that the site was virtually in the shadow of U.S. 101 and the Southern Pacific railroad tracks.

Well, we thought, there’s always the beach. And El Capitan is a lovely one: Only a few hundred yards from our campsite, it is a compact crescent of fine brown sand, with rocky tide pools to the southeastern end and an expanse of steep bluffs stretching to the west. Above the tide pools, on a grassy knoll, are a dozen picnic tables with million-dollar Pacific Ocean views.

The kids romped, playing in the sand, chasing waves, tossing smooth rocks into the surf. After a swim in the almost-tepid water and some body surfing in the moderate waves, we joined them in excavating a sandcastle and moat.

“What’s that black stuff on your hands?” one of us asked 20 minutes later. Then we noticed the “black stuff”--tar--was on our legs and our arms, and mostly, on the bottoms of our feet. Natural oil seepage that washes in from offshore, the gooey stuff does not come off easily. Later that night in the camp shower, however, we took turns with a dish scrubber and got most of it off. (A quarter buys several minutes of hot water and 50 cents buys enough time for an adult and a squirming child both to get clean.)

The next day we saw a sign warning about the tar, offering suggestions for its removal (including using mayonnaise) and advising that the best solution was to avoid it in the first place. Hey, thanks a lot.

By the time we left the beach, the campground was filling up and we started dinner. Each campsite has a fire ring, and the camp store sells firewood, but we used two backpacking stoves to cook a quick but tasty and filling meal. We had cooked a quantity of fusilli pasta before setting out from home and had brought along sun-dried tomatoes, pine nuts, scallions and spicy chicken sausage to dress it up. Home-grown sliced tomatoes and green beans, an inexpensive Pinot Noir and bread completed the repast.

Of course the children were famished and had little patience with such culinary indulgences. They downed fruit, yogurt, string cheese, undressed pasta and hot dogs while the adults’ meal was cooking.

We cleaned up, got the kids bedded down and read outside the tent by lantern light. It was pleasant but not quiet: Our neighbors to the right arrived at 9 p.m. and were struggling to raise a tent while their three children howled and their dog woofed. Loud rock music blared from a radio at a site occupied by another of our neighbors. A trio of twentysomethings behind us on a gals-only camping trip giggled and shrieked like banshees.

By 10, we had turned in. The night was cool, perfect for snuggling into sleeping bags, and most of the campground was quiet--except for the good ol’ gals behind us. Finally, after 11, a few menacing shouts in their direction embarrassed them into keeping their giggling down to a titter.

*

Timmy, the family’s early riser, was up at dawn, occasioning a walk to the beach. He chortled every time one of the large flock of brown pelicans did one of their characteristic slow turns before plunging straight down, neck outstretched, to splash into the surf. He also was captivated by almost-tame bunnies that were slow to hop off the hiking trail and by the line of surf-casters who seemed to be far better at hauling in thick strands of seaweed than catching anything.

Back at the campsite, it was time for pancakes and real filter coffee, a needed eye-opener after the shorter-than-ideal night before.

After cleaning up, we spent the rest of the morning exploring the 133-acre camp ground, which has a 2 1/2-mile bicycle trail that follows the coastal bluff to Refugio State Beach to the west.

With checkout time at noon, we dismantled the tent, packed the van, bought sandwiches and fruit at the well-stocked camp store and ate at one of those picnic tables above the beach, watching the pelicans glide and dive. The state charges $5 for day use of the beach, but the ranger at the gate waived the fee for us.

After a nap break for the kids, we started the drive home. We exited U.S. 101 in downtown Santa Barbara and cruised the wharf area for a restaurant. The Crab Shack on Cabrillo Boulevard across from Stearns Wharf suggested the proper atmosphere for our ragtag group, and it turned out to be just right.

On the drive home as the kids slept, we weighed the pluses and minuses of the hectic two days: We had found a well-run campground in a beautiful setting--but it was noisier at night than our house in Los Angeles. And though most families we encountered were considerate, the depredations of some--the revelers, the litterers and the fire bugs who had lopped branches off the ancient live oaks at our camp site--saddened us.

Yet we will camp again. Next time, we’ll stay longer and go mid-week or on a weekend even more removed from the Memorial-to-Labor-Day crush. A ranger told us that El Capitan, which is open year-round, is at capacity on weekends into October, but is only one-third full during the week now. (From Memorial to Labor Day it is at capacity every day; nearby Refugio, with 80 campsites and a south-facing beach with gentle waves, is even more popular.)

We considered the reaction of Laura, who in one 24-hour period had scalded herself with hot cocoa, caught her hair in the tent zipper and was stung by a yellow jacket--and still managed to bounce with enthusiasm at every turn of her adventure. If she could do it, so could we.

Budget for Four

Gas: $15

Camping, reservation fees: $22

Lunch: $6

Picnic lunch, T-shirts: $25

Dinner for four, the Crab Shack: $54

FINAL TAB: $122

El Capitan State Beach: information, tel. (805) 968-3294; for reservations, call Mistix, tel. (800) 444-7275.