Lower Trestles
San Clemente · near San Clemente · San Diego
Surfing
At a glance
- Skill level
- advanced
- Best season
- Fall · Sept–Nov when south and northwest swells overlap
Worth knowing
- Good for a first timer
- No
Surfing detail
- Nickname
- Lowers
- Break types
- reef · point
- Swell
- South swell (summer) + northwest (fall/winter) · Best when both active · 3–8ft ideal
- Tide
- Lower tides push performance · Mid works well
- Wind
- Offshore mornings are world-class · Afternoon onshore is the main enemy
- Crowd
- Heavy. WSL competition venue — when it's good, it's packed with California's best surfers. "Invaders Must Die" reportedly still painted on the access trail. Respect the lineup. Wait your turn.
- Board
- High-performance shortboard 5ft6 to 6ft2 · This is a performance wave
- Wetsuit
- 3/2mm most of year · Spring suit possible in warm fall months
- Intl tip
- The Camp Pendleton marine base buffers Trestles from development on both sides, which is why the surrounding coastline remains one of the most pristine stretches of SoCal coast. The nature trail to Lowers passes through genuinely beautiful coastal scrub.
The guide
The crown jewel of Southern California surfing. Lowers is a cobblestone-reef A-frame that the World Surf League chose as a comp…
In the Guidebook
Everything above is yours for free. The written guide to Lower Trestles — what it is actually like, and what we would tell a friend before they went — comes with the Guidebook.
Getting there
- Coordinates
- 33.3766, -117.5906