Oso Flaco Lake National Wildlife Refuge

USA / California / Oceano /
Absolutely beautiful little park. There's a parking lot at the end of a little farm road. You walk a path that turns into a bridge over Oso Flaco Lake, then becomes a wood/plastic timber boardwalk leading out to the beach. It's a really nice beach, and there's hardly anybody else there.
The Oso Flaco Lake Natural Area is part of the Oceano Dunes State Vehicular Recreation Area located north of the city of Guadalupe. Visitors to the Natural Area can walk along the mile-long boardwalk that follows the creek, passing across Oso Flaco Lake, to the ocean.
dunescenter.org/visit-the-dunes/points-of-interest/oso-...
Nearby cities:
Coordinates:   35°1'47"N   120°37'23"W

Comments

  • This location has been maintained by the Nature Conservancy for several years now, I'm guessing since the mid-1990s. Before that you could range freely over the dunes but there wasn't much in the way of native flora and fauna (more, though, than in the ATV-infested dunes to the north). But the Conservancy made most of the dunes in Oso Flaco off limits to foot traffic -- you can walk out to the beach on a wooden walkway but you aren't supposed to stray off of it -- and the result is that the local plant and animal life has exploded in the area. A huge variety of waterfowl can be seen in the lake, and the dunes are actually lush -- this must be more or less what they looked like 100 years ago.
This article was last modified 8 years ago