Carpinteria State Beach
Description
The social media heart of Carpinteria State Beach Twelve miles south of Santa Barbara, Carpinteria State Beach offers a mile of beach for swimming, surf fishing, tidepool exploring and camping. Although dogs are not allowed on beach we have a great picnic area where they are allowed to enjoy the outdoors as well. Lifeguards patrol the beach year round while lifeguard towers are staffed roughly from memorial day weekend through labor day weekend. The Spanish named the area Carpinteria because the Chumash tribe, which lived in the area, had a large seagoing canoe-building enterprise, or "carpentry shop" there, because of naturally-occurring surface tar which was used to seal the boats.
Seals and sea lions can be seen in the area December through May, as well as an occasional gray whale. Tidepools contain starfish, sea anemones, crabs, snails, octopi and sea urchins.
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Check out the newest addition to the San Miguel Campground Loop! These viewing scopes are free to use and are great for watching the wide variety of marine mammals just off shore.
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These two Litter Getters and 15 others participated in the Earth Day Beach Clean-up. Over 200 small plastic items, 75 paper items, 54 cigarette butts, baby wipes, shoes, socks, and a voodoo doll were picked up. One tent fly and 2 chairs were the large items, and everything else, in a mile of beach, only added up to one bag of trash, and one bag of recyclables. Not bad!
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Good morning and happy Earth Day! If you are camping with us or are local and want to give back to our planet, meet at the end of Palm Ave at 9:00 AM to join our beach clean up. It's a beautiful beach and gets even better with less trash!
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Phase two of the beach dune boardwalk is coming along nicely. Parks maintenance and natural resources staff have been partnering with the California Conservation Corps to keep this project moving. Phase one has been open to the public for a while and has seen an amazing amount of traffic. We look forward to opening phase two in the near future. This is also a great ADA accesible feature for those that otherwise may not get to enjoy the amazing views here.
Earth Day Beach Clean-Up
Hunt for the Nurdle - Do we have nurdles on our beach? Let's look! We will also collect and count what is found on the beach. Pick-up and/or bring bags and gloves at end of Palm Ave. and beach.
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EARTH DAY-APRIL 22nd Let's search for the nurdle
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Huge thank you to our small army of volunteers and our amazing maintenance staff! Carpinteria State Beach is looking great. Chazz, Trish and Lyle have been going above and beyond helping to keep this park such a wonderful place for our visitors.
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First Saturday Hike - April 1st at 1:00 We will walk to the Rincon and back on the Bluffs - leashed dogs OK.
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A young elephant seal asking for some privacy on the beach today. Sam from the Channel Islands Marine & Wildlife Institute came to assess the pinniped and help post some educational information. This special animal is about three months old, recently weaned from mom and is at the end of her "catastrophic molt." All that means she is doing exaclty what she is supposed to be doing, but is very tired and needs a rest. The best way we can help is to provide a safe space to recover, so please don't approach! After a good nap this elephant seal will go back to the water on its own and work on refining her fishing skills.
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1st Saturday Hike 1:00pm Meet at the kiosk/entrance station March 4th - Walk to the Rincon!
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Join us for a fun afternoon, celebrating the 85th Birthday of Carpinteria State Beach. Walks include bird watching, chumash botany and tide pooling. Arts and crafts tables for the whole family. Activities are from 1-4 and the Visitor Center is open 10-4.
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