When Valley Packs Heat, ‘Free Zuma!’

Two days before, the mercury had reached 108 in Chatsworth. The next day, it dropped to 107.

Ah, a cooling trend.

And on this particular day, it was a few degrees cooler still--merely miserable, not unbearable. Even so, it seemed like a good idea to do what people often do on hellish summer days in the Valley, which is to get the hell out.

So I drove out 101, chose Malibu Canyon instead of Kanan Dume, and then snaked through the rugged beauty of the Santa Monica Mountains. When I saw the blue Pacific, I turned off the AC, rolled down the windows and felt the cool ocean breeze. I cruised up PCH, hung a left on Westward Beach Road, pulled over to the side. Free parking and, hence, “Free Zuma.”

Three young women were strolling up from the beach. Excuse me, ladies, but by any chance do you happen to live in the San Fernando Valley?

Their answer was sort of like: Well, duh. “It’s Free Zuma,” one of them said, as if that said it all.

Devon was from Sherman Oaks, Debra from Canoga Park, Tori from Northridge. They were longtime Vals and so of course veterans of Zuma Beach, the place where Vals of all ages usually wind up when they say, “Let’s go to the beach.”

To be a Val is to have a sense of Zuma. These young women knew, for example, that Tower 6 and Tower 7 were where the high schoolers hang out. Now that they are grown-up 20-year-olds, they figured they hang out near Tower 1, the “Free Zuma” area.

When I asked these Vals how long they’d been coming to this beach, Devon said, “Like, since I was 1.” Debra pointed down the beach toward the cliffs of Point Dume. Back when she was 10 years old, she said, she used to climb the rocks and spy on a hidden patch of beach where people sunbathed au naturel.

Debra told me that little nude beach is now gone, wiped out (she said) by boulders that tumbled during the Northridge earthquake. If this tale sounds apocryphal, just appreciate it as part of the ythology that links Zuma and the Valley.

Proximity and convenience are two obvious reasons Valleyites prefer Zuma, sometimes called “Encino-by-the-Sea.” Better to take a lovely drive through the canyons than to schlep over the Sepulveda Pass and deal with the crowds at Santa Monica and Venice. Zuma draws the crowds, yet it feels more remote.

My friend Miles used to so some lifeguarding at Zuma. He had spun a tale of what a mellow stretch of coast it was before Kanan Dume Road opened up and the Vals started coming and claimed Zuma as their own. He suggested I talk to a buddy of his. Tom Olson was a lifeguard then and a lifeguard now, having chucked the rat race of commercial real estate.

*

On this day I found Olson a few miles down PCH in a tower at obscure Corral Canyon Beach. As beaches go, it isn’t much. Here the highway roars just above a little rocky slope that drops to a skinny stretch of sand. Corral Canyon, he says, “is the place where people coming to Malibu come because they don’t know where to go.”

But Vals know to go to Zuma.

Olson got a funny look on his face when I told him what Miles had said. This lifeguard did not remember Zuma, particularly Free Zuma, ever being a mellow beach. To the contrary, it was intense.

Not only was the parking free, Olson pointed out, but that spot had the best bodysurfing. In the ‘70s teens from the Valley would arrive early in vans and trucks, blasting Led Zeppelin from their stereos.

“It had a unique feel to it,” the lifeguard recalled. “There were a lot of drugs, and they drank freely. Every other blanket had a bong.” Olson said he remembered being approached by stoned teenagers offering Quaaludes, or saying, “Hey, man, you want some pot?” Sometimes, he said, he pulled teenagers from the surf who had tried to swim even though they could barely stand.

Raids by the Sheriff’s Department, Olson said, forced the Free Zuma crowd to go elsewhere, behave or be more discreet.

At different points along Zuma, Olson said, you’ll find different crowds. Teeny-boppers indeed congregate around Towers 6 and 7, while it is more of “a family beach” from Towers 8 through 13. There’s “a hard-core volleyball contingent” at Tower 12 because that’s where the courts are.

Vals are found not just in the sand. At Free Zuma, I went down to the water’s edge, then up the beach past Zuma Lagoon to Tower 2. Eugene Atanasio, 27, is a Valley Boy resident who has been coming to Zuma since age 10, the last five years as a county lifeguard.

“This is paradise for the Valley,” he says. The allure isn’t just convenience. People come to Zuma Beach, he says, because “it’s the most beautiful. It’s got the cleanest water. It’s definitely the most enjoyable beach in L.A. County . . .

“To me it’s a sacred place. I feel privileged to work here.”

Anti-Val sentiments also exist here. Atanasio said that, growing up, he was “too clueless” to notice any animosity from “the locals.” Now he knows of one spot at Zuma where a wall was stained in surfboard wax with the graffito “Vals Go Home.”

But, he adds, “Most locals know this beach has a lot of Vals. . . . If you’re local and you don’t want to be around a lot of Vals, don’t come to Zuma.”

Most of the teeny-boppers were gone by the time I reached Towers 6 and 7. There were only half a dozen bodysurfers in the water here. A human head popped out of the sand, his body buried by friends. The head identified himself as a 21-year-old Encino man named Francesco.

“It’s a beautiful beach with beautiful women,” he said. “It’s a lot cleaner that Santa Monica, so it’s worth the travel.”

His friend Alex, a 16-year-old Thousand Oaks resident, says they head for Tower 7 because “that’s where the women are. And that’s where the food stand is . . . and the women. Did I mention the women?”

Nearby was another contingent of young people. Neil was from Granada Hills., Mannix from North Hills, Diobert from North Hills and Redilyn from Sun Valley. All are 18. Diobert said he learned that Tower 7 was the place to go on “Senior Ditch Day” at Monroe High.

*

Finally, there was Lisa Call of Northridge, who didn’t seem to understand that Zuma culture called for her to be a few towers up the beach. No teeny-bopper, Call is a mother of four. A fourth-grade teacher at Pacoima’s Canterbury Elementary, she hauled her three youngest and a neighbor’s boy to Zuma to get out of the heat.

Call says she comes about once a week during her summer break and knows why she prefers Zuma to Santa Monica or Venice. “As a mother, I feel safer here. I can keep one eye on them and one on my book.” And the last time she was here, she added, Nick Nolte plopped a towel down a few yards away.

There was no celebrity sighting on this day, but it still seemed to be a fine day at Zuma for the Call family. Eleven-year-old Kevin and his friend Felipe, 10, talked about how they had fun and made friends playing in the surf. Nine-year-old Allison offered a dramatic account of the sea gull that stole her bagel.

Only 4-year-old Aaron seemed anxious to go home. He had no comment for the media, just a scowl.

Scott Harris’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. Readers may write to him at The Times’ Valley Edition, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth, CA 91311, or via e-mail at scott.harris@latimes.com. Please include a phone number.