ATVs, buggies and illegal fireworks: Here’s what Oceano Dunes looked like 40 years ago
The sand dunes south of Pismo Beach have been a recreation destination for off-road enthusiasts for a long time.
Those who enjoy riding and camping at Oceano Dunes State Vehicular Recreation Area are a gregarious group who enjoy being a part of an instant city with similar interests.
At the same time, the Oceano Dunes have been a source of controversy over everything from the deadly injuries sustained by off-road riders to the impacts of blowing dust on air quality.
The state park was closed to vehicles for a time due to COVID-19 and concerns about the impact of off-highway vehicles on western snowy plovers.
With the Oceano Dunes now open to campers and riders, and spring on the horizon, there are decisions about the dunes coming soon involving the San Luis Obispo Air Pollution Control District, California Coastal Commission and California State Parks.
Back in the early 1980s, Independence Day was one of the major events that drew visitors to what was then known as Pismo State Beach.
Carol Roberts wrote this story for the Telegram-Tribune, which ran on July 6, 1981.
The good, the bad and the noisy at Oceano
Oceano.
Clumps of cars are stuck in the sand south of the Oceano ramp but no one looks upset. Hundreds of vehicles block private driveways in town. Beer flows freely and tourists walk the beach.
It is almost midnight Saturday and six County Sheriff’s Search and Rescue volunteers have responded to more than 60 calls about mishaps on the beach and in the dunes at Pismo State Beach.
Volunteers Dave Smee and Mike Cox of San Luis Obispo explain most of the mishaps are “ATC related.” That means most of the accidents had to do with the popular all-terrain cycles that roar up and down the beach.
While they talk about their concern for youngsters who ride the 3-wheel vehicles without helmets or parental supervision, 12 people race by in a 6-wheel ATV (all-terrain vehicle). It looks like a crowded, tiny hot tub.
The volunteers estimate there are more than 40,000 people on the beach and in the dunes, fewer than on past Fourth of July weekends.
They say there are only four state park rangers on duty in what has become an instant city. Smee, Cox and four other volunteers provide the mobile “city” its only immediate medical aid.
They have treated seal bites and a horse bite, braced numerous broken bones, bandaged hundreds of cuts and salved as many burns and bruises.
The men use their own vehicles to answer calls for help. They provide their own food and minister to the wounded with supplies financed by the Sheriff’s Department and San Luis Obispo General Hospital.
Their bright orange trailer is a familiar site to holiday beach campers. It is filled with radio equipment monitored throughout the weekend by Greg Komski, John Owen and others.
The trailer resembles a MASH unit in the middle of a war zone, with popping firecrackers and blasts of color overhead.
It is surrounded by thousands of campers.
Smee and another volunteer, Sam Cotton of Los Osos, say they have been on the beach since Thursday afternoon.
They are tired.
They are there because they want to help people, the men say. But they admit it’s hard for them to understand why so many people want to vacation in chaos.
Nearby, Carl and Barbara Wykofka of Camarillo say they have been coming to Oceano for two years. They always come with their friends Dean and Ruby Pettigrew of Upland.
The two couples sip beer, with an eye on their young daughters dressed for bed. But the noise from roaring engines is anything but conductive to sleep.
Why do they come?
“It’s nice to get away from home. This is a great way to meet new people,” says Barbara Wykofka. Her husband, a salesman, points to his two ATCs and a dune buggy. “We come for recreation,” he says.
***
“Rescue base.”
The voice is obviously a child’s.
“There’s a lady unconscious at 5. Can you come?”
John Owen, one of the Sheriff’s Search and Rescue volunteers, pulls his microphone closer and scans a map that shows the location of numbered beach markers.
“Please put an adult on the radio,” he tells the youthful voice.
“I’ll get my mother,” the boy responds.
Soon a woman says: “Please come. A woman is unconscious. She fell off her ATC and was run over by an Odyssey.”
That’s all it takes. The volunteers run to their four-wheel drive vehicles and head south on a beach packed with thousands of campers. The men in the vehicles move swiftly past the people until they hear a child’s voice.
“Over here,” the boy shouts and then runs ahead motioning as he weaves in and out of makeshift camps.
Volunteer Cotton is the first to arrive. He revives the woman and then cuts through her down jacket to get at a broken arm. Then he radios for the Five Cities Ambulance that will take her to Arroyo Grande Community Hospital.
The woman’s friends worry as they huddle by their campfire, surrounded by a large circle of motorhomes, vans and camping trailers. Radio KZOZ blares in the background while a colorful, noisy show of illegal fireworks bursts overhead.
Cotton and Dale Myer, another volunteer, calmly administer first aid.
Before leaving the camp they shake hands with 12-year-old Phillip Vessey of Hollister, who summoned them.
“Good job son,” says Cotton as the youngster beams.
***
Competition Hill.
The ride over Sand Highway — three miles back in the dunes south of Oceano — is a fairly smooth one.
It’s after 10 p.m. Saturday and thousands of headlights lead and follow Cotton’s 4-wheel drive vehicle as it dips and crests the dunes.
Finally he and his passengers arrive. Below is an unbelievable sight reminiscent of a science fiction movie, maybe “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.”
Thousands of headlights shine in the more than 700-acre bowl below as dune buggies, ATCs and 4-wheel drive vehicles race up a hill.
There are no traffic controllers, no law.
Everyone seems to know where they’re supposed to go and how fast.
A glow from the Union Oil refinery on the Nipomo Mesa is off to the left. Below, engines roar in a cacophony that will continue until 4 a.m. The view is spectacular, a panorama of lights moving in darkness.
Two teenagers, Rick York of Arroyo Grande and Mark Durante of San Luis Obispo, watch from above. They’re trying to decide whether to join the racers or the hundreds of spectators below.
“You have to respect them,” says Cotton, looking down at the off-road vehicle enthusiasts.
“It’s amazing. There are relatively few injuries for so many people.”
