Spot of the Week – Trestles
September 16th, 2010
Just north of the San Onofre State Beach, adjacent to the train trestle is one of the world’s best surfing arenas. Breaks run continuously from San Mateo Point to San Onofre State Beach.
Surfer's Eye map of Trestles
Cotton’s: Lined up left-hander, good in big south to southwest swells. Breaks over cobblestone and sand bottom on any tide, but lower is hollower. Holds 2-12ft plus, all levels.
Upper Trestles (Uppers): Superb quality, long (mostly) right-hand cobblestone point wave. Works best on a wrapped northwest to west winter swell at higher tides, when there will be multi-second barrels firing down the beach towards San Mateo Creek. It’ll work well on south swell too though. Any tide is OK, 2-10ft plus. All levels. Best in winter … generally. Crowded with mini-tankers.
Lowers: Left and right cobblestone peak. Long rights in winter swells from NW, awesome fast peak left and rights in summer south swells. Generally both left and rights have 3 sections, with the first (outside) being more hollow. Rights are often longer/lined up, and longer than Uppers. Lefts punchy with good channel to paddle back from. Any tide is OK, but low tide plus summer swell and morning offshore = hollow green barrels at high speed. 2-15ft, very crowded. Usually better than Uppers in summer, and vice versa for winter.
Down from here in Middles: Mellow right-left summer peak, needing northeast winds and any swell. All tides, although low is better as it can be a mush-burger at the best of times. If your surfing isn’t working here, either get a new board or a coach.
Here’s more info on surfspots in Southern California and throughout the USA & Hawaii.
Tags: spot of the week, surf guide, surf spot, surfing, Wavefinder
