San Onofre (Trails)
San Onofre State Beach · near San Clemente · San Diego
Surfing
At a glance
- Skill level
- intermediate
- Best season
- Year-round · Summer south swells are fun and mellow
Worth knowing
- Good for a first timer
- Yes
Surfing detail
- Break types
- beach · reef
- Swell
- S and NW · 2–6ft · More dynamic than Old Man's, mellower than Lowers
- Tide
- Works across tides
- Wind
- Morning offshore best
- Crowd
- The lively, clothing-optional stretch of San Onofre — a scene, but spread out along the trails-access beach.
- Board
- Longboard, midlength, or fish · Classic mellow-wave boards
- Wetsuit
- 3/2mm most of the year · 4/3mm mid-winter · Water 60–68°F
- Intl tip
- San Onofre State Beach contains Old Man's, Trails, and the Trestles breaks — one of the greatest concentrations of surf history in the world, tucked improbably next to a decommissioned nuclear plant and Camp Pendleton. The whole complex rewards a full exploratory day.
The guide
San Onofre's 'Trails' is the stretch between the mellow, forgiving waves of Old Man's and the powerful high-performance surf of…
In the Guidebook
Everything above is yours for free. The written guide to San Onofre (Trails) — what it is actually like, and what we would tell a friend before they went — comes with the Guidebook.
Getting there
- Coordinates
- 33.373, -117.565