Note: To see full pictures, click on the
thumbnais that are presented on this page.
For the avid ATVer, there is no better way to
work of the Turkey Day indulgences than several days of hard dune
running. Most of the Southern California dune addicts head to
Glamis, the grand daddy of dunes. It is not uncommon for there to
be over 100,000 riders at Glamis during the Thanksgiving weekend.
For us in Northern California, Pismo is a much more reasonable
drive and does pretty well to satisfy the urge.
Pismo Beach is situated on the California coast
just south of San Luis Obispo about mid way between the San
Francisco Bay Area and LA. It is a designated OHV area administered
by the California Dept. of Parks and Recreation.
The Weekend Warrior
This year the trip consisted of my brother and
I who headed down on Friday morning. The wives opted to stay back
with the kids and do a little after Thanksgiving shopping. We got
out of San Jose at about 10AM and arrived at the Pismo Beach
entrance at just after 1PM. We had made great time in the ’89
F350 Crew with the Weekend Warrior in tow. There at Pismo we met an
old friend up from LA as well as Dean Waters and family of
off-road.com fame. It didn’t take us long to unload the
Warrior and set up camp.
Dean's rig
Carving a bowl
The first ride came just after
lunch. It had been several months since I had a chance to get out
and I really felt it. That'll teach me. I guess the only way for me
to stay in shape is to do more riding. Never the less, the rides
were great. There were quite a few other riders who had the same
idea as we had but we still had no problem finding an area of free
sand to do our thing. The rangers estimated the camper count at
somewhere between 700 and 800. Figuring an average of 2 to 3 riders
per camper plus day use folks, meant that there were well over 2000
duners out for the weekend.
Practicing the drag start
Doing the jump'n thing
Comp Hill on a sunny
Saturday afternoon
Slip Sliding Away
The weather was great. Before we left San
Jose we had heard some reports that Glamis was having problems with
wind storms. Pismo is also known for its afternoon wind so we were
a little bit concerned. But the weekend weather turned out to be
almost perfect. The temps were in the low to mid 70’s with
full sun and low winds. At night there was almost no wind. Perfect
for relaxing and sharing the days adventures around the
campfire.
Other than a few minor problems with
Dean’s sons Suzuki 50 and another friends newly aquired
Suzuki LT250, all the machines happened to stay together. But as
with all good ride weekends, it had to come to an end. We packed up
and headed out on Sunday afternoon, enthusiastically planning our
next dune adventure.
If you are interested in heading to Pismo
sometime, look for details on the Ride Spots page.
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