By Mike Anton
Los Angeles Times
September 16, 20061
Time
was, surfing one of the world's most famous breaks required
driving to the boondocks, bushwhacking through a reedy marsh
and confronting armed men who threatened arrest.
This wasn't Baja, but northern San Diego County in 1958. That
summer, Leo Hetzel was a 17-year-old Long Beach kid looking
for adventure. He found it at Trestles, the breaks off a beach
that seemed like wilderness despite the fact it was on the
Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base.
"It's like a magical place for me," said Hetzel, a
retired photographer who, at 65, still surfs Trestles weekly.
"There are a million stories from that place. People who
grew up in the '60s here in Southern California know those
stories, even if they're not a surfer."
The story of Trestles and its role in the popularization of
Southern California surf culture includes surfing gurus and
gun-toting Marines, a nuclear power plant and protests against
encroaching development. Even the Beach Boys and Richard Nixon
have roles.
And now, so does a planned toll road.
The proposed extension of Orange County's Foothill tollway has
generated debate within California because it would slice
through San Onofre State Beach. Opponents say it would
threaten wildlife habitat and the San Mateo Creek watershed.
But the six-lane roadway has garnered widespread attention
outside California over concern that it could damage Trestles
— spoiling views, polluting the water and altering the
hydraulics of the tapered waves that peel off its cobblestone
reef.
Trestles doesn't produce the world's biggest waves, but their
shape and consistency are considered among the best. It's the
only mainland U.S. stop on the Assn. of Surfing Professionals'
World Championship Tour, which ends today at Lower Trestles.
Trestles' fiercest protectors have dubbed it the
"Yosemite of Surfing," a broad crescent of white
sand backed by an estuary and bluffs where the waves roll in
like lines of whipped cream. Even toll road proponents, who
vigorously deny the highway would change Trestles, acknowledge
they're dealing with a Southern California icon.
"It's like saying you want to do something to harm
Plymouth Rock," said Meg Waters, a public relations
consultant who worked several years on the project for the
Irvine-based Transportation Corridor Agencies. "When you
say, 'It's going to wreck Trestles,' you're going to get
everybody who's ever heard something about surfing….
Trestles is in a Beach Boys song, for God's sakes!"
If everybody had an ocean across the U.S.A.
Then everybody be surfin' like Californ-i-a...
You'll catch 'em surfin' at Del Mar, Ventura County line.
Santa Cruz and Trestle …
When "Surfin' U.S.A." hit the charts in 1963,
surfing was enjoying a surge in popularity that would
eventually transform it from the passionate pursuit of a few
hundred self-styled rebels into a mainstream, heavily
commercialized sport.
Just a few years earlier, Trestles — named for the train
tracks that cross San Mateo Creek there — was an obscure
rumor passed from one longboarder to another. The first time
Steve Pezman drove from Long Beach looking for Trestles, he
had to hunt.
Pezman was 18 and motivated by two things: The spot was
frequented by surfing's A-list — guys like Robert August,
Dewey Weber, Phil Edwards, Mike Doyle and Miki Dora. And
sneaking onto Camp Pendleton provided a patina of danger,
which kept the crowds away.
"There were few surfers who were willing to thumb their
nose at the law and go in there," said Pezman, 65, who
publishes the Surfer's Journal from a San Clemente office park
a few miles from Trestles. "It was a constant game of
one-upmanship with the Marines…. They didn't know how to
cope with us without actually harming us. We were all just
kids. Most of the Marines were kids themselves."
Much of the battle for Trestles was waged in the
"jungle," the tree-and-brush-lined watershed of San
Mateo Creek, where surfers reconnoitered the "enemy"
and hid their cars — among them a 1948 Dodge painted in
camouflage colors — before sneaking down to the beach along
dirt paths. Pezman and Hetzel were among a small group who had
a key to the place after they attached a lock to a farm gate
that offered back-door access to the beach.
When a Marine patrol came across a group in the water, they
would park and wait for someone (in this era before surfboard
leashes) to lose their board. That would set off a "rock
dance," a race through the shoals pitting a man in swim
trunks against a uniformed Marine with the prize being 9 feet
of balsa wood.
When Marines came across the surfers' old beaters in the
jungle, they would flatten tires and strip out sparkplug
wires. Surfers returned the favor by vandalizing unattended
jeeps.
A few times, tempers escalated. Hetzel recalled when a Marine
shoved a visiting Hawaiian who wouldn't obey his order to
leave. The Hawaiian decked him and, surrounded by a group of
surfers, the Marine left.
"We thought, 'Cool.' So we went out into the water,"
Hetzel said. "Then, suddenly down the beach we saw 20
jeeps coming. They got on megaphones and shouted, 'You're all
under arrest.' … We paddled halfway to San Clemente Pier
before they gave up on us."
In the 1950s and '60s, countless surfers were detained and
cited for trespassing. Many more had their boards confiscated.
Rick Wilson, who today works for the Surfrider Foundation,
keeps a faded citation from March 26, 1966, framed on his
office wall.
"I had to go down to the provost's office at Camp
Pendleton with my mom to retrieve my board," said Wilson,
who talked his way out of a fine.
Trestles was relative wilderness in the 1950s. That began to
change in the '60s. The completion of Interstate 5 made
Trestles more accessible and opened the door to southern
Orange County's tremendous growth. The San Onofre Nuclear
Generating Station came next, its looming domes a mere mile
away.
San Clemente's population doubled during the 1960s. But it was
one new, part-time resident who had the biggest impact on
Trestles. When President Nixon moved into a Spanish-style,
bluff-top estate he named the Western White House, the stakes
on the beach changed — at least when Nixon was in town.
Trespassers had the Secret Service to contend with, maybe a
Coast Guard cutter.
Nixon was aware of the tension between surfers and Marines; an
assistant attorney general was a member of the San Onofre
Surfing Club, which leased its nearby beach from the Marine
Corps. Nixon was made an honorary member of the club.
Surfers weren't happy when Nixon ordered the Marines to give
up land for what would become San Onofre State Beach. Club
members lost their private getaway. And making Trestles part
of a state park brought crowds and surfing competitions that
periodically closed the beach to the public. Officials later
pared the number of contests, but regulars still complain.
"As a state park, the Trestles I knew and loved is pretty
much gone," Pezman said.
In the mid-1980s, a proposed marina-hotel project with as many
as 3,000 boat slips melted away amid heated protests from
local residents. A decade later, though, an attempt to block
construction of a gated community on a bluff above Trestles
for Marine officers failed.
As the homes went up in 1998, Orange County's toll road agency
began design work on a new route that would cut through the
state park. This year, toll road directors approved the
project. The state attorney general and environmental groups
quickly sued, challenging the agency's environmental review.
With approval still needed by the California Coastal
Commission and several federal agencies, the fight is expected
to last years.
Opponents say the toll road would be clearly visible from the
beach, generate pollution and cause runoff of fine sand and
silt that would alter the delicate dynamics of the ocean floor
from which Trestles' perfect waves spring. Proponents argue
that the toll road, which would connect with I-5 south of San
Clemente, would be no closer than the freeway and detention
basins would control contamination and sediment.
"It's a false scare," toll agency spokeswoman Lisa
Telles said. "It's not going to change all the memories
and history and the ability to surf Trestles."
Trestles' fate is just one of several issues opponents have
raised, but it has arguably garnered the most visibility. The
San Clemente-based Surfrider Foundation's "Save
Trestles" campaign has become a key fundraising tool. The
Save Trestles website (www.surfrider.org/savetrestles/ —
established this year, logs more than 8,000 visits a month; a
search for the phrase on Google yields more than 12,000 hits.
"It's really a rallying point…. It's a commodity,"
Surfrider's Matt McClain said of Trestles. "If we lose
this campaign in our own backyard, it doesn't say a whole hell
of a lot about the surf industry and the surfing community
around here."
Getting to Trestles still requires effort. It's a 20-minute
walk from a parking lot adjacent to a burger stand at the
south end of San Clemente. The jungle remains, but the walkway
is paved and skirts the Marine Corps' housing and the freeway.
The roar of the traffic drowns out whatever birds may be in
the trees. There is still abundant wildlife, but along with
deer and bobcats, there is also the occasional homeless
person. Stickers for surf products are plastered on every
fence post. So too are ones imploring "Save
Trestles."
"I'm not sure what the 'Yosemite of Surfing' is, what it
means," said John Raab, 47, a San Clemente surfer and
frustrated commuter who spent a recent morning at Trestles and
believes it and a toll road can coexist. "You've got an
eight-lane freeway going through…. If this didn't kill it,
what could?"
Other regulars were more skeptical. "I think anytime man
messes with nature, he screws it up," said Andy Fomenko,
41, who has been surfing Trestles since he was a teen and
believes that, while changed, it's still a unique place.
"No one wants to take that chance."
Down on the wide beach, the only sound is the rustle of reeds
at the mouth of San Mateo Creek and the breaking of waves.
There are no homes or resorts on the bluffs. Save for the
distant domes of San Onofre and a peek-a-boo view of the
freeway, there's still a 1950s vibe to the place.
"I don't use the word 'pristine.' It's not
pristine," McClain said. But he and other surfers argue
that Trestles may be the last of its kind — a relatively
untouched slice of Southern California coastline. Like a
comfortable, old wetsuit with a few torn seams, it needs to be
treated gingerly. "It's not just a wave at
Trestles," McClain said. "It's the whole
experience."
|
|
