I grew up riding in the dunes of Marina
Beach in the 60's and 70's. We rode our dune buggies there for many years,
and were driven out by homeowners who built their homes after dune buggies
were there, and by the Sierra Club, which is against any and all motorized
recreation. What follows are some photos to provide a little history.
This is what we called "Big Hill" in 1967.
This is what "Big Hill" looks like now. As you can see, this photo was taken from a boardwalk, which is all you can access now. The rabid enviros have made it to where you can't even WALK on the dunes, let alone off-road out there. This is EXACTLY what the enviros want to do with Pismo now...close it all off to everyone, and put in a boardwalk to keep people from even being able to WALK on the dunes. If you look closely, you can see the boardwalk in the distance, near the right hand side of the photo. That little rise is the same rise as is seen in the 1967 photo.
What is really ironic about the whole thing is that the residents of Marina Beach, who used to have dune buggy noise in the daytime Saturdays and Sundays, now have auto traffic 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, thanks to the State of California.
This is the "Grapevine" hill in 1970.
This is what the state did in 1975 to create the Highway 1 bypass. They needed dirt to fill in the low spots. So, we used to have low lows and high highs, and now it's all fairly much level. You can easily walk up any hill out there now, where before it was quite a hike to get up them.
And everyone complained that the dune buggies were damaging the dunes. These photos are proof that these dunes were damaged MORE in a week by earthmovers than they were damaged in 20 years by dune buggies.
Was this really "progress"?
