Trestles is in fact a collection of waves in located in California’s San Onofre State Park. Its best wave, Lowers, has become a byword for performance surfing. It is an A-Frame right and left that walls for 100 yards over a rivermouth cobblestone rock, with a mix of pace, crumbly lip, perfect wave pitch and forgivable power that make most surfers feel like they are surfing like Kelly Slater. Of course one can only imagine what Kelly Slater must feel like when he surfs the place. Probably like Kelly Slater. In 2012 he won here for the sixth time, marking the 50th event win of his career.
The wave is prized in Cali for its quality and consistency. It sucks in any hint of south swell and holds any size and so has become one of California’s shining jewels. But what elevates it to almost mythical status in American surfing is its almost bubble location and rare atmosphere.
It is located at the edge of Orange County’s suburbia nightmare, an ugly commercialised zone of density and excess unrivaled in the modern world. And yet Trestles, lying in the protected State Park is a very different experience free of the excess. In between not winning the war in Vietnam and bugging his political opponents, President Nixon stopped development here in the early ‘70s and ever since the San Clemente locals have called it one-and-a-half miles of God’s country, with no Maccas, no neon piers, no Baywatch lifeguards and none of the usual bullshit that surrounds the OC’s other waves. It was first surfed as far back as the 1930s and has been called Trestles since at least 1951, named after the wooden trestle bridge (now a concrete viaduct) that surfers had to walk under to reach the beach.
For a place addicted to cars, it is different to most spots in that it takes a bit of effort to surf Trestles. You park at the Cristianitos exit in the State Park and then can either walk, run, crawl, roll, bike, or skate down the trail to the wave, making sure not be run down by the Amtrak Train as you cross the tracks. As Kai Otton says, “there is nothing like the expectation of a walk to Trestles.” Surprisingly enough, the effort to get there doesn’t keep people away.
Trestles is always crowded during summer, particularly at Lowers. And the rest of the breaks — Uppers, Middles, Cottons, Churches and everywhere in between, which don’t pack the ego boosting quality of Lowers, still have their share of hungry groms, competent locals, greedy longboarders and increasing numbers of SUP’ers. Still, it’s possible to get your share of quality waves; the kind where you hit the lip a half dozen times and start to think you’re much better than you really are. All of the breaks at Trestles have that magic – the ability to keep you coming back, the effort of the 20-minute walks, dodging the train and the surfers, being repaid ten times over.
No surprise then that it has become a competition favourite, and host to a World Tour event for the last decade. Christian Fletcher also famously won a Pro Am here in 1989 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgwA7tJWRIQ) with his aerials, signaling a new era in surfing. The wave is absolutely perfect for allocating waves of similar shape and size, left and right, time after time. It magnifies imperfection in style, but allows sections for the worlds best to try stuff they’d only imagined in their, well, imaginations. “It’s such a high performance wave and I think everyone acknowledges that,” says Joel Parkinson, “but it’s also a great ‘flow’ wave. It’s a great wave to flow your turns together and choreograph a wave and make it look great from beginning to end.”
Trestles remains one of the waves that most surfers that want to surf before the die. The apex of performance in surfing in a part of California that remains special for so many different reasons. You simply have to walk down the track, sign the guestbook (the quarter mile of graffiti), snaffle a wave and enjoy the ride, live the myth.
Trestles Stats:
World Tour Winners: Luke Egan (2002), Richie Lovett (2003), Joel Parkinson (2004), Kelly Slater (2005,07,08,10,11,12 ) Bede Durbidge (2006), Mick Fanning (2009), Taj Burrow 2013
Famous Locals: Nate Yeomans, Mike Losness, Greg and Rusty Long, Kolohe Andino, Dane, Pat and Tanner Gudauskas, Troy Mothershead, Jeff Lukasik.
Current Odds to win (via sportsbet.com.au): Kelly Slater 6.00, Medina 7.00, Mick Fanning 8.00, John John Florence 14, Matt Wilkinson 50, Dion Atkinson 226
