San Onofre Trails - Hiking, Nudists, and Secluded Beach

This weekend was another beautiful, sunny November day and at a perfect 70 degrees, it seemed fitting to go for a nice hike. We chose one of our favorite local hiking spots that seems to be surprisingly relatively unknown by lots of San Diego and Orange County locals, which are the trails at the San Onofre bluffs. There are 6 different trails that lead you down to the approx. 3 miles of state beach.  Just south of the state beach, the beach trail continues through Camp Pendleton. This is also an awesome place to go for some uncrowded long boarding!

You're guaranteed to run into a few nudists just south of trail 6. As we've found, the common trend among nude beach goers is they typically tend to be male, age 40+ and love to stand up and do a little stretch coincidentally always when you are walking by. This weekend was no exception for this norm based on the few we ran into getting their tan line free sunbathing in.

The good news is once you pass the nudist section you are on completely remote beach. How many places in Southern California can you be the only one on a beach???

Getting There: From the 5 fwy, exit Basilone and head west. You'll go south past the San Onofre Surf Beach and follow signs to San Onofre State Beach which leads you to the top of the bluffs and the beginning of Trail 1. This is a state beach so the typical $15 day use applies if you do not have a state beach pass (which is awesome to have, by the way).

We like to start at trail 5 or 6 and head south to do the more remote part of the trail which very few people seem to head to.

Here are a few pictures from our hike this weekend:

Santa Barbara Camping

Memorial Day Weekend, 2013

We love the Ventura and Santa Barbara Coast and were luckily able to secure a fairly last minute campsite at El Capitan State Beach for Memorial Day weekend. El Capitan is about 15 minutes north of Santa Barbara. We arrived on Friday afternoon and set up our camp and left to take a stroll on the beach. We walked North for a few miles and there was barely anyone in sight. The beach was deserted. It was incredibly beautiful. 

Evening hike along the beach

We then started up a fire and made smores with strawberries. It was Chelsea's idea of making something with absolutely no nutritive value at least have something a little healthy. They turned out really good. We brought our new air mattress and that made sleeping much easier than on the little pads we have previously used. Having a mattress when camping is a serious game changer in getting good sleep when camping.

Cooking up chicken apple sausages for dinner.

Strawberries, roasted marshmallows and graham cracker treat! Tasted like a strawberry shortcake!

We went for another few mile hike, this time South of El Capitan, early in the morning to another deserted coastline. We couldn't believe on the Saturday of a holiday weekend we had found a completely empty beach! It was awesome and really pretty. 

Chelsea getting in touch with nature hiking barefoot.

We then hung out in downtown Santa Barbara at the pier and ate at a cafe nearby. No one in SB was at the actual beach, they were all dressed nice and there for the restaurants and shopping. It was really bizarre. It was an 80 degree day and everyone dressed up nicely as they walked along the boardwalk to get to different shops but not hang out on the sand. Although beautiful, the city of Santa Barbara isn't really our scene, so we made our way to Carpinteria, which was way more like a beach town. We then checked the waves all the way down the coast to Ventura, where we stayed the night. We surfed a slow but fun C-Street the next morning and hung out at San Buenaventura State Beach afterwards. Everytime we're in Ventura we've been able to score fun waves at C-Street!  

Had to put the full suit back on for Ventura surf.

We had a ton of fun together on this weekend getaway and would recommend El Capitan as a place to camp for anyone! Here are a few more pics from the trip.

Ocean view from our campsite.

Taking a stroll at high tide along El Capitan Beach.

Colorful sand crab

Watching the dolphins at sunset together.

Sunset at El Capitan State Beach

Back to Oahu

We decided it was time to come back to our roots as a married couple and we wanted a surf trip as well. We were able to see my brother Tanner, who is going to school in Laie and we got to hike, surf and meet up with our old friends. It was good to take a walk down memory lane. We both love BYU-Hawaii and the experiences that we had there both as single students right out of high school and once again as a married couple.

 Surfing on the South Shore at Publics, the first break we ever surfed together on the day that we moved to Hawaii in Jan. 2006

 Chelsea having fun at Chun's Reef

 Chelsea paddling out after a good ride

 Honu at Laniakea

 Attempt #1 of getting an underwater duck diving picture

Attempt #2 at getting an underwater duck diving picture

 Three Dennings and a Bledsoe @ Kahuku Grill. Little bro works as a cook here.

 Matt, Mike and Mike Sr. checking the waves at Rocky's.

Another great thing about Hawaii, on the right day you can still get a beach to yourself.

 Session at Chun's Reef.

 Temple Beach, where we used to go for walks when we were students.

 Chelsea's good friend, Sara Duffin, wife of the one and only DD

Mike surfing Freddy's

 North Shore Sunset

 Hanging out at Bikini Beach

 Laie Falls Hike. We met a stray dog on the way up who hiked with us and protected us from a wild boar. He was a pretty cool dog.

  Sunset Beach Park

 Dennings with aloha shirts

 Skating the half pipe at the house that we rented

 Another amazing sunset

 Pre-session at Lani's

 Getting out of the water after a session at Lani's

 Poke meal

 Our old apartment from 2006-2008. Good memories. Part of our tour down memory lane

 The LDS Temple where Mike worked night shifts as a janitor for the first year and a half of marriage. 10pm-2am.

 View from Laie Point

 In the front of the BYU-Hawaii Campus

Courtyard in the middle of campus. Basically the most beautiful college in the world!

Hawaii will always be so special to us having spent the first few years of married life there. It is our favorite place in the world and we will be back many more times!

The California Coast

We just got back from an amazing, trip taking the coastal route from San Diego to the Oregon border. Since we have both grown up in Southern California, we didn't really need to explore much in this region so our exploring part of the trip really began in Central California.

The coastal towns are so small and mellow once you leave Southern California. We brought a book full of surf breaks with us and stopped at some of the better waves. It was a great experience to explore the Central and Northern California culture. We talked to local surfers and hung out in hippy towns. We hiked in forests, along deserted coasts and along coastal bluffs. It was a phenomenal trip and we recommend it to everyone! Our favorite stretch of coastline in the state would probably have to be the Sonoma County Coast, just north of Bodega Bay. It is isolated, scenic and absolutely beautiful. Once you leave Southern California, the hotels are very affordable too. We did the trip in 5 days up and 2 days down. Here are some of the main highlights from the road trip:

Hiking in Patrick's Point State Park

Redwoods State Park

Exploring the Lost Coast

Smith River

Sunrise on the Sonoma County coast

Cute little surf town of Capitola

Surfing Santa Cruz

The hook surf break

Big Sur

Delicious cinnamon rolls in Pismo Beach