Greetings and a n00b question for everyone.

I am about 3 months away from lift and tires, but in the mean time would like to go to some camping spot with my family to stay for the weekend for the night and hit an easy trail or two on my stock X with puny tires during the day. I thought Pismo beach would be Ok as long as I do not stay in the Oceano Dunes SVRA area itself for the night. GPS or Google references wil help a lot

Thank you all in advance.

 

Welcome to the forum! There are lots of great places to do what you are looking for around SoCal. I highly recommend picking up a copy of "Backcountry Adventures Southern California" (Massey/Wilson), which has lots of info on trails from easy to moderate and great descriptions as to where to camp, etc...

One nice, easy day trip that has very mellow terrain is the Rincon-Shortcut near Azusa. You need to pick up a permit and gate code from the ranger, but there are places to camp along the trail and you could spend a couple days hiking around and geocaching and driving around the area. Same thing with Santa Clara Divide Road... lots of forest campgrounds around and some dirt roads to explore. One more place to look into might be section of Los Padres NF between Ojai and Frazier Park, which has some nice green and blue trails to explore and plenty of camping opportunities...

If you want to get out a little further, Anza-Borrego state park is one of my favorite spots for easy to moderate wheelin and backcountry camping. It's warming up, but shouldn't be too bad yet.

 

There is a campground at Pismo Dunes that is just inland along the creek that comes out to the ocean. It is somewhat shelteresd I think with some services. Would be a decent place I always thought, but I haven't stayed there.

Dunes are a different experience, but great fun. bring a tow strap. There's always someone around that can pull you out of a hole.

 

Thanks for the heads up-- I didn't know that.

 

I have been waiting to do Rincon for over a year now.

we did Santa Clara divide with Toad and Bullfrog once. It was easy, and there was a campground at the midpoint. The road is mostly paved coming in from the west, but the east end of that trail is more fun. We popped out on the 2 and popped out of the mountains near town down. It would be a great first run... but take at least one other vehicle just in case.

 

Hungry Valley is also pretty cool to go to. It is not difficult unless you find yourself wanting it to be. There is camping there.

 

Thank you for the advise I have bought a couple of books already and will start building my printed map collection on top of GPS maps. It is still amazingly cool for this time of year, so camping should be pleasant all over SoCal.