Lords of the Dunes Battle for Their Patch of Sand

The buggy named Sand Rover seemed certain to plow snout-first into the sand dune. Just at that moment, Don Preble punched the gas. His $40,000 machine bucked from the power of its Land Rover engine. Rubber scoops on its tires found traction where there should be none. The vehicle scampered up the face of Competition Hill with astonishing speed.

Suddenly all four wheels ran out of dune. They spun, clawing at the air, as the home-built buggy took flight. Then, with a bone-jarring bounce, it became earthbound again.

Preble slammed on the brakes and turned to avoid a buggy coming at him over the next rise. Missed by a mile. Well, OK, maybe by only a few yards. But, hey. No problem. It’s easy to stop fast in sand.

For hours, Preble and his pals raced up Competition Hill, in an endless loop of man and machine. The hill is the biggest sand heap left at Oceano Dunes State Vehicle Recreation Area. At least it used to be the biggest. Old-timers confide that it’s a bit smaller these days, a little more slope-shouldered after years of off-road vehicles eroding its face.

No rest for the dunes on this long Memorial Day weekend. Off-roaders from California’s arid interior--from Chino, Simi Valley and Victorville--came here to the seaside to tear up the sand. Towing every kind of off-road vehicle imaginable, they approached the beach as mercilessly as a panzer division.

There were crude and ugly buggies built at home, sleek and shiny “sand rails” with V-8 engines. There were dirt bikes and all-terrain vehicles, SUVs, Jeeps and trucks, many jacked up and fitted with monster tires.

Revving motors and the oily smell of two-stroke engines transformed these peaceful wind-swept dunes near Pismo Beach into a scene out of a Mad Max movie, complete with a cast of thousands. There were fewer Mohawks, though, and feather headdresses, and, arguably, less bloodshed despite 18 accidents and one helicopter evacuation of a motorcyclist turned human “dune dart” who crashed headfirst into the sand.

Park rangers estimated that 47,600 people showed up Memorial Day weekend on the 5.5-mile stretch of beach with its shrinking patch of dunes still open to off-roaders.

The hordes cursed at fences erected to protect snowy plovers and a couple of other creatures on the brink of extinction. They fear that the day will come when the entire beach will be cordoned off.

“The Sierra Club is hellbent on getting us off the beach,” said Ed Waldheim, president of the California Off Road Vehicle Assn. “They have 1,100 miles of beach and what do we have? Five miles left.”

The dunes around Pismo, one of only two public beaches in California that permit vehicles, have become a battleground between the forces of motorized recreation and environmental protection.

Over the years, dunes at Oceano open to vehicles have been reduced from 15,000 acres to 1,500. Environmentalists want a ban on all vehicles, pointing out how the once abundant snowy plover, which nests directly on the beach, now numbers just 976 birds on the Pacific Coast. The dunes, home to about 60 plovers, offer one of the few nesting grounds not lost to development. But instead of a total ban, officials have opted to study the impacts of off-road vehicles.

“This is an endgame,” said Mark Massara of the Sierra Club. “As soon as we get reliable science, the cars are history. And everybody knows it. The problem is the plovers will be extinct by then.”

The off-roaders aren’t about to admit defeat. “I’ve been the biggest loudmouth, trying to keep this beach open,” said Jim Suty, president of Friends of Oceano Dunes.

As often he can, Suty, a second-generation “duner,” drives from San Jose with his wife, Karen, their boys, Jake, 4, Josh, 2, and a trailer full of ATVs. His parents and in-laws come too. Their caravan of motor homes and trailers was circled on the beach to block the wind and wayward ATVs from ripping through.

On Memorial Day, the struggle for control of the beach was focused on a patch of soft, foot-deep sand near the park’s Pier Avenue entrance. Park officials haven’t been able to get the environmental permits needed to scrape the sand away. The result: spinning tires and flying sand as a procession of trucks, trailers and motor homes bogged down.

Wes Hoagland was hanging out there in his Ford F-250 truck. It was the one jacked up over 18-inch-wide, super-swamper bogger tires, the one with “HOG PULL” vanity plates, the one flying an enormous flag with skull and crossbones and eye sockets that glow red.

Hoagland was there to show his pulling power. “Down there you can rev your motor,” he said, waving toward the dunes. “But here, it’s a show of brute force, of what my truck can do.” Pulling people out of the sand is also his contribution to the war against the environmentalists. “If we don’t fight for our land,” he said, “we’re going to lose it.”