Trestles, North San Diego County, California: Last chance for icon

What you may know is that it’s the only mainland stop on the pro tour. It’s better than pretty much every wave in the state. It’s under fire due to a proposed Toll Road just south of San Clemente. And it’s featured on Kelly Slater’s Pro Surfer video game. Anyone who calls himself a surfer and lives in Southern California knows Trestles. Trestles offers a singular experience for around here, where else do you park your car and then trek into a natural habitat to score waves worthy of that extra work to get to them? Ok, besides Blacks.

What you may not know is that Trestles is on the bubble due to its natural habitat being at risk. Today it’s one of the few places you can go surf during or right after a rain because it’s one of the last unspoiled, coastal watersheds left in all of Southern California. This fact will be lost on most people who have yet to get sick from pollution, and hit deeply home to all the rest of us. Trestles, the wave, is the result of the entire watershed working. The cobbles, the sand, the points… everything about Cottons, Barbwires, Uppers, Lowers, Church and even San O is due to the watershed being vibrant and strong. The fight to stop the Toll Road is a fight to keep that watershed strong. It’s a fight to stop the slow degradation of this wave due to increased, localized development. When you add pavement to a region you are providing a waterslide for pollutants to use gravity and find sea level. The fight to “Save Trestles” is just that -- it’s a fight to save that experience we all think of when we think of “Trestles.” The walk down to the beach would be more broken up due to a huge set of onramps and off ramps that don’t exist today. The lagoon won’t give you that idyllic “Are you sure this is San Diego county?” feeling you get as it’ll have thousands of homes and cars feeding pollutants into it. Think those statements are us crying wolf? The other toll road, a few miles north (Rt 73), split the Aliso Creek watershed in half and provided a path to fill the area with development.  Today the mouth of Aliso creek has a permanent “pollution present / do not swim” warning. The sign is permanent. Permanent. Permanent. Permanent. If I can ask you one thing regarding Trestles, it’s to give a damn and get involved in every way you can. It will literally be won by us, the locals who show value and support for this. It will be lost if we don’t. That “we” includes you. SaveTrestles.org.