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El Capitan State Beach Park
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- Good for Kids:
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5 reviews for El Capitan State Beach Park
Awesome campground very close to Santa Barbara. Of course, you gotta make reservations (especially around Summer Solstice Parade time) as soon as they let you, about 6 months in advance. This can be done online at http://reserveamerica.com.
Once you're there (speaking for loop 61-91 where we usually camp), it's like you're camping on the beach, which is only a little ways away. There is a trail where we like to ride our bikes that goes all the way by the Refugio SB campsite and possibly beyond. The beach is also available for day use, so it can get a little crowded on a hot day.
The bathrooms are fairly clean, showers are operated with quarters. And with a sunset at the beach every night, who cares about the occasional train that comes by? Hmm, I have a sudden hankering for s'mores!
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Sweet camping spot right on the beach about 30 minutes north of Santa Barbara. I almost don't want to blow it up by writing about it but who cares, knowledge is power, right?
The beach is OK; it's kind of rocky, and the water never warms up for it to get real comfortable. It is noisy; you can hear the rigs bowling down 101, there is the train (which is fun to moon), and they place is usually somewhat crowded.
That being said, this is one of my favorite places on Earth. When the wild mustard blooms, the hills light up California gold. Whales and dolphins do come close to the shore, as one person already mentioned, and I would say I have surfed uncomfortably close to dolphins frolicking here.
Do you want to know the best part about El Cap? If a solid 8+ foot swell creeps in due west, like below 275 degrees, the point lights up like a mini-Kirra. It's shallow and hollow and if you didn't bring your board you may regret it for the rest of your life. El Cap only gets good 5-10 days a year.
Auf.
Working 7 days a week for 8 months straight can make a person a little irritable. I definitely was getting the sense that this was happening to me. Luckily friends of ours had invited us to spend some time with them and their 3 kids and go camping at El Capitan State Beach. 6 kids and 4 adults made for a great time.
This was a short two hour drive from Los Angeles straight up the 101. What a beautiful campground! Sites hidden among the Oaks and Sycamores right on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Bathrooms were clean and they also had hot showers available for 25 cents.
The campsites themselves varied from tent camping, to tent trailers, and RV's, it was pretty cool seeing all the different types of camp set ups people had. Each site itself came with a fire ring, picnic bench, and enough space to fit your tent and all your camp cooking and eating stuff. Seems all we did was relax and eat and then eat some more!
A couple of minuses about the location itself, not necessarily a deal killer but annoying none the less: the sites are located right off the 101 which means you can hear big rigs rumbling by at 2 in the morning, there are also train tracks that run parallel to the freeway and you can hear the trains at 2 am, and finally, the beach is beautiful but there is this natural black oily tar that is all over the beach and gets all over you. We found that Pam cooking spray and baby wipes worked well to get the tar off of the bottom of your feet.
All in all, I'll definitely look forward to going again soon.
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This was one of the most breath taking hike I ever done. Trust me as a chubby guy, I don't do this often enough even though I should.
As part of my series of staying at El Capitan Ranch, we decided a good nature hike would be awesome since the donkey ride at our ranch was scratched because of weather reasons.
So my boss decided that we should just walk to the beach. I was scratching my head for the longest time on why we need to walk instead of taking our cars. I then realized that the Beach park takes reservation and charges $5 per car for parking. It's a fair price, but we all thought we needed some exercises.
It was a good call as we had gone through some easy path with beautiful trees along the way. There were a few streams running down the creeks along the way. At the end of our journey was this beautiful, clean and a very enticing beach that seemed to have the golden dust in the sand. The crashing waves were very loud and the brooks that was in the park gave us some standing stump for higher elevation of the view of the place.
There were a few surfers who were brave enough to surf in this cold windy weather, but they were wearing thick body suits. I would have gladly jumped in if it's not the freeze cold temperature in the water.
There is a small camping ground next to the beach and a bike path along the park path way. (pfft, why didn't we used that path instead?) The bluff over looking the view of the beach and camping ground was spectacular. I just wished someone would bring the camera for this. It was heavy and nobody wants moisture in their cameras, but c'mon, that was a missed opportunity to do so.
For a nature point of view, it's nothing short of a five stars for the entire place. This place is more of outdoor nature hike and a stop of a scenery look than the fishing or camping that the brochure was advertising about.
It is also an area that has weak cell phone signals also. Be prepared for that and just enjoyed the lovely nature it has to offer.
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We camped here [there is also the El Capitán Ranch across the way, but it's far more expensive and not right above to the beach like the state campground is @ $25/night. sucka.].
Water in July is warm and filled with dolphins, with which we frolicked -- no, really. We frolicked with real live dolphins. I can't believe it either.
Campsites are on bluff a short, well-paved walk above the beach. Our neighbor commented that she would be trying for our campsite next time [#59] as it is one of the few that is fully shaded, though I looked around and they all seem to have *some* shade.
Overall, campground is almost as good as Refugio up the road [except Refugio is right ON the beach and your campsite shade is provided by palm trees, which just looks so, so good] and is an excellent place to hang out for a couple days.
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