Oceano Dunes remains closed to camping with limited day-use hours. When will it reopen?
Oceano Dunes State Vehicular Recreation Area has been closed to camping for more than a month, frustrating would-be visitors and forcing California State Parks to cancel hundreds of reservations.
The closure had begun in early March after a series of storms ripped away much of the sand along the beach at the popular park in southern San Luis Obispo County and turned the Arroyo Grande Creek mouth into a wide and dangerous crossing for vehicles.
Early Wednesday morning, Anaheim resident Melissa Cieszko drove four hours to the dunes with her kids, camper and off-roading bikes for a spring break camping trip she’d been planning for months.
She was so busy working and packing that she didn’t have time to check her email before she left for the trip, she said.
When Cieszko reached the gate at the Oceano Dunes, California State Parks ranger told her she could only attempt crossing the creek for a half day of riding. That’s when she saw she’d received an email from State Parks on Sunday notifying her that her camping reservation had been canceled and refunded.
So, Cieszko made the disappointing decision to make a U-turn and head back home.
“I’ve been coming to the dunes since I was a child, and we come every summer and we were going to go dirt bike riding and camp for the week for spring break,” Cieszko said. “It took me days to pack and all the gas and my time and now I have crying kids because they can’t ride their bikes and quads ... it’ll be a fun car ride home.”
Since State Parks started limiting the amount of Oceano Dunes camping reservations available due to COVID-19, “It’s been extremely hard” to snag one, she said. “That was actually the first time I’ve been able to make (camping) reservations. We’ve been doing day trips.”
As of Wednesday, State Parks had canceled 720 camping reservations at the Oceano Dunes since April 1, according to Moreno.
State Parks spokesperson Jorge Moreno told The Tribune via email that park officials are monitoring conditions daily at the park and will reopen camping when the area is safe.
“The SVRA will resume camping when the creek is safe and crossable for more than a few hours per day,” Moreno wrote in an email on Wednesday.
Limited day use at Oceano Dunes due to deep creek crossing
Day use at the Oceano Dunes had also been limited since the start of winter storms.
Typically, the entire park is open daily from 6 a.m. to an hour past sunset for day use.
However, conditions at the Arroyo Grande Creek have caused State Parks to delay opening day use to later in the morning and closing day use south of the creek by the early afternoon each day. Anyone found south of the creek after the daily closures could be cited, according to State Parks.
“State Parks is evaluating creek conditions and has been measuring creek depth at different tide levels,” Moreno wrote. “Operational hours are adjusted based on observed creek conditions.”
State Parks lifeguards staged at the mouth of the creek on Wednesday morning said the creek was at least six inches deep in most areas, although the maximum depth was difficult to determine for sure given the changing tides and creek flows.
Arroyo Grande Creek has been flowing higher than usual because winter storms dumped enough rain on Lopez Lake to cause the reservoir to overflow for the first time in more than two decades.
As of Thursday morning, the lake was spilling more than 118 cubic feet of water per second, according to the San Luis Obispo County Public Works Department.
The California Coastal Commission voted in March 2021 to ban vehicle crossings of Arroyo Grande Creek if any amount of water was flowing into the ocean.
However, that restriction was temporarily lifted after off-road riding advocacy group Friends of Oceano Dunes sued the state agency.
Creek crossings are currently allowed during the litigation process unless the water becomes more than 12 inches deep.
“The high creek flows, coupled with normal tidal cycles, cause the creek to exceed safe crossing levels for most of the day,” Moreno said. “Additionally, the beach has been heavily eroded by winter storms and it may only take a small change in tides to cause the creek to exceed safe crossing levels.
“Tides in the range of 1.5 or 2 feet will result in a complete closure of the creek crossing at the beach. “
Although the Coastal Commission mandated that vehicle traffic will be prohibited in most of the Oceano Dunes by 2024, Friends of Oceano Dunes continues to advocate for greater access to the park.
“As the creek flows and swallowing those who tiptoe in the deeper spots of it it just goes to show we need a southern entrance to the Oceano Dunes SVRA,” Friends of Oceano Dunes said in an Instagram post on Wednesday.
“Camping should be RE-OPENED effective immediately!” the group said in a separate post the same day. “If rentals and day users can tow trailers across the creek, then so can families with camping reservations.”
This story was originally published April 13, 2023 at 11:40 AM.
