Making Waves : Trestles’ Famous, Fabulous Surf Can’t Get a Break From Controversy

They travel thousands of miles in a relentless march toward this tiny dot of coastline, peeling off and hurling themselves onto the rock and sand in perfect symmetry, walls of iridescent green cascading into explosions of white foam.

These waves at Trestles are special and wondrous.

There has been much discussion recently regarding this beach, a 1 1/2-mile strand at the southernmost tip of San Clemente with three surf breaks, Lowers, Uppers and Cotton’s Point. There was an uproar about a proposed Marine housing development, outcry over the future of its fragile wetlands and debate over the number of surfing contests.

All because of these waves.

Since the 1940s, surfers have flocked here, reveling in the opportunity to slide across these waves on redwood planks or slash up and down them on high-tech slices of Styrofoam and fiberglass.

The surfboards have changed. Styles of riding them have changed. These waves remain the same.

“It’s a high-performance wave, a wave that really allows you to progress to another level,” said Lisa Andersen, who won her third consecutive Assn. of Surfing Professionals world championship this year and is considered to be the most radical and innovative female surfer ever. “You have guys who free surf at Trestles every day and they’re really ripping. I’ve surfed the best waves all over the world and I’ve had some of my most fun days at Trestles.”

That may explain why members of the San Onofre Surf Club rebelled in 1951 when Marine commanders at Camp Pendleton put up a gate to control access to the beach. The surfers tore down the no-parking signs and used them for firewood, threw burning wood at commuter trains and almost burned down the railroad trestle that gave the area its name.

The Marines in charge--some of whom had spent time in the surf on exotic Pacific beaches . . . dodging Japanese machine-gun fire--apparently weren’t impressed with this surfer show of force. They simply starting arresting and fining trespassers, sometimes confiscating boards. But the surfers kept surfing, paddling down San Mateo Creek and negotiating a sometimes Marine-infested wetlands jungle on their way to the beach.

Once you made it to the ocean in those days, it was all relaxation and exhilaration. And sometimes, when you got a really good ride, you wished there were more people around to witness it.

These days, no one wants a bigger crowd. Surfing at Trestles is already as stressful as playing hide-and-seek with the military police. The surf gladiators of the ‘90s wage a new kind of war to get waves, jockeying for the prime takeoff spots like rebounders on an inner-city playground with $100 riding on the game.

And if the swell is really good and there are a couple of photographers on the beach, bring a bodyguard.

“The people in the lineup at Lowers don’t reflect the typical cross-section of surfers,” head lifeguard Steve Long said. “We did a survey and found that 60% of them have surfed in contests at one time or another, so you’re talking about a group that’s more skilled, more competitive and more aggressive.

“And you notice that right away when you’re out there.”

Mention Trestles and most oldtimers will tell about Quonset huts full of appropriated surfboards, and the slash-and-clash set might talk about the bloodiest fistfights, but Allan Seymour always comes back to the early 1970s and a few hundred halcyon days in the history of this beach.

It was a brief hassle-free era of an almost Polynesian existence when a small corps of devotees had the sand and the surf pretty much to themselves.

Trestles had just been made a part of San Onofre State Beach, thanks in large part to the lobbying of Pat Nixon, who fell in love with the area during her stays at the Western White House. But the Marines no longer had jurisdiction and the state Department of Parks and Recreation had yet to establish a management plan.

“We’d dive for lobsters and at minus tides, we’d dig clams,” says Seymour, a self-proclaimed “surf impresario” and 30-year resident of Capistrano Beach. “We’d surf until sunset, then we’d steam the clams or lobster, have a big bonfire and walk back up the trail in the moonlight.

“When I think of Trestles, I always think of those days.”

Walk down that trail in the moonlight now and in the water you’ll find surfers, who probably have nothing to fear but the rocks on the bottom that focus the energy of the waves and keep them breaking in long, even lines. Trestles has managed to remain a kind of Mecca, where surfers can come together and celebrate their sport, occasionally even their differences. Unlike some other Southland surf spots, there is no gang of locals who terrorize anyone who dares to trespass on turf or surf.

“I don’t think a ‘this-is-my-wave’ attitude would last very long here,” said Mike Tope, chief ranger for the South County’s state beaches and parks. “Trestles transcends that. It’s a wave conducive to both longboards and shortboards and it’s a state beach with worldwide significance because of its waves.

“I’m a surfer myself, but Trestles is also special because of its other qualities. There’s no place left like it in Southern California. You have to go to Baja to get this kind of weather, warm water and isolation. I mean, just getting to the beach is an experience.”

Some things never change.

*

“Persons surfing in the ‘Trestles’ area do so in violation of the lawful regulations of the Commanding General, Marine Corps Base, Camp Pendleton. As such, they are guilty of committing an offense under Section 1382 of the United States Code and they may be apprehended by Military Police.”

--Col. J.J. Kelly, Base Provost Marshal, Nov. 1968

I strapped my surfboard onto the trailer on the back of my bike and pedaled the four blocks to Randy’s house in the predawn darkness. Randy was 18, had a Volkswagen bus and could plant himself on the nose of his board for what seemed like an eternity.

Three 16-year-old Huntington Beach High juniors, with Randy as guide, were about to discover that the mystical surfing Camelot known as Trestles was indeed a real beach with real waves.

On the way down 101, we retold the great horror stories of the era, about surfers who had lost their boards to green-faced Marine monsters in full battle dress.

When Randy pulled to the side of the road, we got our boards and clutched them as though they were our children as we huddled in the scrub while he drove off to park the bus.

When he returned, Randy led us to a small creek and we paddled silently toward the beach. We got out and walked along a narrow trail through heavy brush before crossing the open sand at a full sprint and staggering over the slippery rocks into the safety of the sea.

The blackness soon turned to midnight blue and smooth mounds of water took shape, swelling, rising and erupting into foam.

We surfed into the afternoon on smooth, head-high waves and never saw a Marine, or anyone else for that matter.

And I carry a keepsake from that day, a mental picture--actually more like a couple seconds of videotape--that epitomizes the surfing experience for me:

I’m paddling up the face of a huge swell and to my right, Randy is racing ahead of a circular waterfall. He sticks his head into the wall of water, yanks it out with a shake and a huge grin splits his tanned face as he flashes past.

*

Norman Rest, 48, and Chris Stacy, 22, are on opposite ends of the surf-dude scale, but both are staying true to the lifestyle.

Rest, a developer from Laguna Beach, isn’t building many houses these days and says his 1997 New Year’s resolution is “to surf 100 days and ski 100 days.” Stacy, who recently graduated from UCLA with a degree in geography and environmental studies, is living with his parents in Mission Viejo and delivering pizzas in the evenings so he can surf. Sometime soon, he knows, he’s going to have to join the 9-to-5 world.

Rest is grinding down the trail to Trestles, a flat tire on his bicycle grumbling against the asphalt. The tire is disintegrating, the trip back should be a bear, but the sight of a glassy five-foot set improves his spirits.

“I’ve been surfing here for more than 30 years and I still love it,” Rest said. “It’s reminiscent of an older era of surfing in Orange County, back when things weren’t quite so user-friendly. This is one place where they haven’t paved paradise to put up the parking lot.

“That mile and a half of trail is a great buffer because it takes a certain amount of commitment to get down here. I hope they never make it any easier.”

Stacy, whose formal education has taught him the fragility of areas such as this one, isn’t sure Trestles will be able to stave off the forces of concrete and rebar much longer.

“I heard a rumor about some sort of boardwalk down here,” he said. “If that happens, the wetlands are doomed. I’ve been surfing here since I got my [driver’s] license and it’s gotten more crowded every year. I’m against anything that makes this place more popular or easier to get to. I don’t want more parking, I don’t want your article. I’m really fed up with the crowds.

“I’ve never been in a physical fight out there, but even the verbal tussles suck. You’re paddling back out thinking, ‘Wow, this is not what I’m out here for.’ Surfing is supposed to be relaxing and fun. Maybe I’m getting too old for this.”

*

The Irvine-based ASP is planning a May stop at Trestles. They will bring the best 56 surfers on the globe and too much congestion for a lot of people who don’t think their favorite surf spot should be off limits for a week so Kelly Slater can defy gravity and please his sponsors.

A state-run survey of 326 Trestles surfers this year revealed that 63% believed there were already too many surf contests. In 1996, five contests took over the beach for 21 days. After meeting with representatives from the ASP and local surfers, the state has adopted a new contest policy for Trestles.

Next year, there will be only three contests--one professional, one pro-am and one amateur--lasting a total of 15 days.

Nobody polled Andersen, though. She is among those top pros who are counting on the ASP moving its annual world-tour stop at the Huntington Beach Pier to Trestles in 1997.

“You can’t see me now, but I’m jumping up and down,” she said from Hawaii. “Huntington can be OK, but you have to be lucky to hit it right. Trestles in the worst conditions is almost always fun and most of the time it offers a great wave for what we do. You want the best surfer to win, but at Huntington it too often comes down to who happens to catch the right wave.

“Maybe you won’t be able to get many spectators down to Trestles, but we don’t care about that, only the promoters.”

Actually, the number of spectators is a large issue to Parks and Recreation, the local chapter of the Audubon Society, the Surfrider Foundation, the Sierra Club and the Trestles Surfing Assn. They’re all bent on ensuring the beach’s environment isn’t trampled.

“If the World Championship Tour does come here, the event would not be promoted like Huntington Beach,” Tope said. “No music, no vendors, no grandstands and strict guidelines on what kind of advertising would be allowed in advance.”

In some ways, Trestles polices itself. There is nowhere for thousands of people to park. There is parking for about 100 cars at the end of El Camino Real in San Clemente where the bike and walking trails begin. For contests, park officials open up a small stretch of old highway 101 and made room for maybe 200 more cars.

“We are very sensitive to the concerns of everyday users and the types of environmental impacts resulting from contests,” Tope said. “We worked with both sides on this and it’s tough to make everybody happy, but I think we’ve reached a good compromise.”

*

Environmentalists and the Trestles surf community were up in arms earlier this year when the Marine Corps announced a proposed 128-unit housing development on the bluffs above Uppers and Cotton’s Point.

They relaxed a bit when the California Coastal Commission voted, 7-5, to preserve the area. The commission, however, has no jurisdiction over federally owned land, and the Marines apparently haven’t given up the idea.

“I’m one of the few surfers who think that the state and the Marines have done a wonderful job as caretakers,” Seymour said. “I support the Marines whenever possible because if we lose Camp Pendleton, that breath of wilderness between San Clemente and Oceanside would evaporate in a hurry.”

Seymour, like many of his peers at Trestles, will settle for the status quo. He’s thankful for every huff and puff as he lugs his board and wetsuit down the trail. He’s even willing to share the waves with those who share his passion.

“The walk is a mini-wilderness experience and helps you unwind,” he says. “Plus, it keeps the kooks out. I don’t mind the rock dance and I can deal with the crowd. Here, the treasure is always worth the treasure hunt.”

These waves.