Life’s a Beach, if You Plan Early

The only remaining evidence of s’mores was stuck on chins and T-shirts, and some of the campers were nodding off in front of the campfire, when the headlights of a strange car swept across the group site at Refugio State Beach north of Santa Barbara.

The newcomers, Lorraine and her teenage son Travis, traveling from Santa Cruz to visit relatives in the San Fernando Valley, were looking for a place to spend the night. “We thought we would camp tonight on the way down,” she explained to the other campers when told the site was reserved. “We’ll be glad to pay you.... All the campgrounds around here are full.”

Summer and all the beach campgrounds are full ... imagine that .

Courtesy of the other campers, Lorraine and Travis were treated to a free night’s camping at one of California’s premier beach campsites, but you probably don’t want to pack the car tonight and take off for the coast hoping for similar good fortune.

Camping along Southern California’s coast hasn’t been a spur of the moment endeavor since the ‘50s. In fact, for those of us who love beach camping in the Southland, the two most important days of the year are Jan. 2 and Feb. 1.

It has nothing to do with the special appeal of our shoreline on those two winter days and everything to do with the fact that on those mornings, the fortunate will win the right to occupy California’s state beach campsites from Santa Barbara to the Mexican border during the following July and August. Campsites for most state parks are available seven months in advance of the month one will actually be camping. Reservations are taken beginning the first day of the month at 8 a.m. For example, July camp dates go up for grabs Jan. 2 (because of the New Year’s Day holiday) and August camp dates are available Feb. 1. The cycle continues year-round.

A week with the heat of the sun on your shoulders, the relentless melody of waves spending themselves onto shore, the smell of campfire in your sweatshirt and the sight of dolphins playing in the surf can melt away months of workaday stress. But the dash to get one of those precious sites during the peak summer months can create a heart-pumping psychodrama. Computer-generated speed-dialing programs (on as many phone lines as you can manage) and the redial feature are important tools in the race. Because folks also are attempting to reserve spots for summer vacations in Yosemite and other popular destinations, the phone-traffic jam is monumental.

And if you don’t get through on the phone in the first couple of hours, the chances of getting into one of the half a dozen or so prime beach locales is slim.

State parks span almost one-third of California’s scenic coastline, more than 280 miles of it, but only a tiny fraction of that is set aside for beachfront or very-close-to-the-beach camping. Slightly more than 2,000 campsites are available at 14 state beaches in Southern California.

At all but four of those parks, a reservation guarantees you a spot in the campground, but not a specific site. The sites are doled out via a lottery held each morning at the ranger station. During peak summer months, stays at beach parks are limited to one week.

More people camped at Carpinteria than any of the others from July of last year through June of this year--382,732 called it home, at least briefly. Point Mugu and McGrath in Ventura were next at 246,305 and 217,821, respectively. But though the larger campgrounds accommodate more campers, it’s the southernmost spots that are most sought-after.

On the first day they were available this year, a combined 1,982 July and August reservations were snatched up for South Carlsbad. Nearby San Elijo in Cardiff-by-the-Sea was the next most popular spot, with a combined 1,613 reservations in July and August going on the first day.

For those who secure a spot, the getting is good. Stan Clift, 76, shook the foam off his Boogie board and gave wife Glenda, 68, a hand with hers. They’ve emerged from their daily wave-riding ritual at South Carlsbad where they’ve camped for a week every summer since 1964, moving down the coast to San Elijo during the years South Carlsbad was closed for improvements.

It’s definitely a family affair. Two sisters, a brother, all four of his children and their children were camping here after obtaining four sites. “We’ve got people here from Utah, Oregon, Nevada and we’re from Trona, Calif., near Death Valley,” he said. “It was 123 degrees one day before we left, so we like the sea breeze a lot. “It’s a week we always look forward to, mainly because of the chance to get together with family.”

Clift isn’t sure how many people were working the phones Jan. 2, and he isn’t sure everybody who is supposed to be calling is trying very hard. “Seems like the same five or six always get through,” he said, smiling.

Members of the Clift clan weren’t the only ones to dial (800) 444-7275 on Jan. 2 and talk to a human. After a 40-minute string of busy signals and a few drones of “we are unable to complete your call as dialed ...,” a recorded voice told me to hang on for the next available agent. The next available agent hadn’t finished saying hello when I blurted out: “Any week at the group campground at Refugio!”

“Oh, that [campground] must be nice,” the operator said. “It always goes really fast.” (The operators are either in Ballaston Spa, N.Y., Madison, Wis., or Sacramento, so don’t expect much local knowledge when it comes to help picking a campground.)

After managing to secure the Refugio site--Sunday through Thursday--I also put in dibs for the last week in July at South Carlsbad. A bottle of champagne might have been uncorked, but it wasn’t yet 9 on the morning after the morning after New Year’s Eve.

Fellow campers--close friends and family members--scowl when they hear that I’m writing about strategies for getting a beach campsite. (That scratching sound you hear is my name being crossed off Christmas lists from Northridge to Fallbrook).

There is nothing clandestine about the process, though. It’s all about a bit of perseverance and a good portion of dumb luck.

“I get the exact same reaction from my family when I tell someone about it,” said San Diego’s Bonnie Simmons, who says she or her sister has managed to get a site they share at South Carlsbad the last three summers. “Putting it in the newspaper? OK, maybe someone will take out a hit on you.”

On the plus side, she says, not everyone thinks camping is a vacation at all. “They’d rather get a massage at a resort than wash dishes in cold water at a dirty campground,” she says.

It is amazing what lengths campers will go to just to earn the right to spend a week eating gritty sandwiches on the beach and wait in line to deposit a quarter for every two minutes of hot water in the shower. Then they get to go home and do eight loads of sandy laundry.

Sure, the air’s clean and the ocean hopefully not-too-polluted. And the wildlife can be awe-inspiring ... or annoying, or worse.

Dolphins, pelicans, sandpipers and seagulls lift our spirits, but we could do without close encounters with stingrays and jellyfish. Lizards are OK. Squirrels chew through your trash bags and devour anything left unattended. But the ants ... the ants can really ruin your day. Apparently, one seemingly empty 7-Up can contain enough drops of liquid to feed about 10 million ants.

And then there’s the daily ice run and cooler reorganization chores. (The single biggest advantage of taking a recreational vehicle beach camping is the propane refrigerator.)

“It’s a great vacation for the kids, of course, because they think the extent of their work is carrying their own towel to the beach. But I think my husband and I would come if we didn’t have kids,” Simmons said. “The walks on the beach in the morning and at sunset alone make all the hassles worthwhile.”

While getting a site can be hard work, and the chores around a campsite not to everyone’s liking, the price is one of the world’s best bargains.

California State Parks became the only major park system in the country to reduce prices when it cut most fees a year ago. Thanks to a state budget surplus, day use, entrance and camping fees were reduced, usually by about half, and charges for extra vehicles at campsites and use of boat-launch ramps were eliminated. An oceanfront site at South Carlsbad, for example, costs $12 a day, and that includes three vehicles, if you can squeeze them onto your space.

South Carlsbad, with campsites on a bluff strung along both sides of what used to be Coast Highway, is one of the only parks to distinguish between oceanfront and inland sites in the reservation system.

This year, South Carlsbad, Doheny, Bolsa Chica and San Clemente have discarded the daily lottery at the ranger station. Callers now pick campsites by number when making reservations at those parks.

“Out-of-state campers and people who have to drive a long way don’t like the lottery because they have to be here at 8 in the morning and can’t get into their site until 2 that afternoon,” said Linda Macoskey, a volunteer host at South Carlsbad. “I guess site specific gives an advantage to people who know the campground.”

The lottery is very important at places such as Refugio and San Elijo, where a handful of beachfront sites are clearly better than the rest, and it’s not so important at campgrounds such as El Capitan or San Onofre, where all the sites are a distance from the beach.

Still, the spot on the bluff with a 180-degree ocean view--just like the one next to the showers--usually sits empty all day.

Everybody’s on the beach.