We've got a little variety in this trip report. We have some arid desert stuff, some snow topped mountain stuff and some thundering surf stuff. (Say surf stuff 10 times real fast). We've got some big horn sheep, some bobcats and some cougars. We've got some elephant seals, some harbor seals, some sea otters and some gray whales. Lots of cool stuff. Ain't life grand?
Entered California from Yuma, Arizona, right on the Mexican border in the beginning of March. Nothing down there but wind and sand so popped up to Joshua Tree National Park 100 miles north. Joshua Trees are a type of yucca cactus with clusters of protruding dagger like stalks. Many of these were flowering with large, white, and sometimes purplish blossoms.
Did some hiking in Mojave Desert National Preserve. Thick forests of Joshua Trees here and all of them seemed to be in full bloom. Lots of the bushy yuccas with long sword like stalks. They were in bloom too with similar but larger blossoms than the Joshua Tree. Very pretty. A slow moving cold front moved in and it became too cold, too rainy and too windy in the high desert (3000+ feet) for me. It was even snowing when I left.
On to the low desert and Death Valley National Park for a few more days of hiking. Spotted a young big horn sheep in a canyon and got my first pictures of one. I never saw so many wild flowers as along the roads outside of Death Valley. Red, yellow, purple, white, different kinds, shapes and sizes. They were everywhere.
Tons of flowers as I entered Sequoia National Forest too, not far away. Here I had my only mini-disaster of the report. Hiking along a creek and came to some nice cascading waterfalls. Couldn't get a good angle for a picture so walked out on a big boulder slanting out about 8 feet over the 3-4 foot deep creek. As I inched my way forward I figured I better sit down before I fell down. Bad move! The boulder was smooth as silk from having water rush over it for 1000's of years. Soon as my butt hit the rock I started sliding.
I stopped right on the edge of the rock and thought "I'm going swimming". I'd crossed this creek earlier in the day and it was ice cold. My feet and shins were numb in the 20-30 seconds it took to make the crossing. A complete plunge might have done some serious harm to me. I had enough traction to keep from sliding farther but not enough to push myself up. I dumped my camera and GPS and wallet so they wouldn't get wet and then was able to get my boots and socks off. Bare feet gave me enough traction to turn over and inch my way off the rock. I never did get the picture I wanted but I was happy to get out of that situation.
Visited Sequoia National Park... in the snow. Most of the park was closed but I did get to see lots of giant Sequoia trees. They grow to 300 feet and can be more than 35 feet in diameter... yes, diameter, not circumference. One is named General Sherman and is billed as the largest living thing on earth at 275 feet high and 36 feet in diameter. That's a lot of toothpicks.
Kings Canyon National Park is right next door to Sequoia and most of this park was closed too and it had just snowed again. I did get some beautiful pictures of snow covered pines.
Yosemite National Park is 50-100 miles away and had plenty of snow too. I did get to see Bridal Falls that drops 600 feet and Yosemite Falls that drops 2500 feet in three sections making it the 3rd tallest in the world. Saw El Capitan and Half Dome, two famous rock climbing areas. Huge granite slabs make Yosemite a premier rock climbing area.
Too much snow so I headed for the coast and got my first look at the Pacific Ocean at Morro Rock in Morro Bay, north of Santa Barbara. No way was I going anywhere south of that. It's wall to wall people from L.A. to San Diego. 33 million people in California and that's where 30 million live. Morro Rock sticks up 400-500 feet and was just about the first thing I saw on the actual coast. Of course there were surfers out there and I got one nice picture.
CA-1 runs along most of the coast of California. I'd always heard it referred to as the Pacific Coast Highway but saw no signs to that effect. Cabrillo Highway is CA-1 between Morro Bay and Monterey, just south of San Francisco. I spent several days along here enjoying the magnificent coastline.
One of the very next things I saw on the coast was several hundred elephant seals. The males were out to sea but the females and juveniles were all along the beaches. 100's of them lined a beach just north of the Hearst Castle. The females molt in spring, the males come in to mate in June (I guess when the females are all prettied up after molting) and then the females go out to sea and the males molt in July. I gotta figure how to get back to that area in June or July to see the males with their elephant like snouts. The females weigh about 1000 pounds and the males top off at 2500 pounds... and they're not friendly critters. Later I watched several mommies teaching babies to swim and crash around in the surf. I was on a cliff looking down into very clear water and watched them bob around and swim and maybe feed for quite a while.
Lots of harbor seals in the water and sacked out on the beaches. I even saw a couple of sea otters. I was on a 500 foot cliff so no pictures. Much of the coast is cliffs from 50-1000 feet. Very few places along the highway (2 lane road) are down at beach level. Some turnouts have trails leading down to the beach used by surfers but not much you can lug a sea kayak down. The southern part of CA-1 is great for the 60 miles from Morro Bay to Big Sur. The 60 miles from Big Sur is more populated with fewer viewing opportunities.
North of San Francisco CA-1 is called Shoreline Highway. It took me another several days to do this stretch. Most of this shoreline is extremely rugged too. Cliffs rise up sometimes to 1000 feet or so. Huge monoliths, boulders and rocks line the beaches and the waves crashing against them is awesome.
I would stop at every viewpoint or turnout to see whatever there was to see. If a trail led down to the beach I took it and wandered around down there. That's what I did for 2 weeks. Unfortunately, as I moved north the rains came more often and lasted longer. Sometimes it would rain 10 times in one day and each rain would last 1-2 hours. Eventually I had to accept that and dug my rain pants out and would wear full rain gear for my little treks.
One day I met a large cat on the trail. Looked pretty much like a standard house cat from 50 feet down the trail except it was 2 feet high at the shoulders and about 2 1/2 feet long. I snapped a couple of pictures and we agreed to part company. Went hiking at the next turnoff and startled 4 deer. A little farther on I glimpsed something out of the corner of my eye. A rusty brown color and long enough to be a very large cat. I had the impression of powerful haunches as it slinked away from a 4 foot pile of rocks. I didn't actually see anything, just caught that glimpse A few days later a ranger pretty much confirmed I had met a bobcat on the trail and I had probably glimpsed a mountain lion.
I guess my favorite part of the California coast was Navarro Beach below Mendocino. The Navarro River (creek) flows into the Pacific here. The beach is less than 1/2 mile and covered with logs, branches, stumps, roots and other driftwood. To the left are sea stacks, monoliths, huge boulders and rocks. Waves crash into them constantly, even at lower tides. High winds coming in off the ocean and even more force to the waves.
The Navarro River empties into the ocean on the right. A sand bar appears at lower tides and 30-40 harbor seals sack out there. The river is forced into a class II channel. Great fun watching young pups try to work their way up this channel to mom up on the sandbar. Some make it and some give up and let the current sweep them back out to the ocean. Here they crash around and seem to be having a good time. When they get tired they just let the waves push them up on the beach for a while. There was even an arch in a cliff, making the whole scene that much prettier, even in the rain and fog.
Redwood National Forest has to be the dampest, wettest, most humid place outside of a jungle. It rained continuously and was soaking wet to start with. Redwoods grow to 370 feet, making them the tallest trees in the world but normally only get to 20 feet in diameter. What's really strange is a Sequoia pinecone is about the size of a golf ball and a redwood's is even smaller yet they grow into those monstrous trees.
They claim a Big Foot sighting in this area sometime in the past. I was walking down a trail thinking about them when a guy with a beard came around a bend in the trail. I said "Ahhh, a Sasquatch" and he said "What?" and I said "Big, ugly, hairy and smells bad". He didn't think that was very funny but I thought it was hilarious and so did his wife.
I was watching some seals feeding below the Klamath River Overlook north of Redwoods National Park when I thought I saw a water spout. Gray whales migrate 5000+ miles from Alaska to Baja November through January and migrate back again in the spring. This was just a couple hundred feet off shore and that seemed pretty close for whales. But as I watched I saw more spouts and several times a whale breached, kinda raised his big head up out of the water and looked around. Timing and distance between spouts made me think there were at least three whales out there at the time. On the down side, I was up 500 feet on a bluff and the whales were 1/4 mile away. I could see them clearly but they seemed kinda small, which they ain't.
I haven't had the boat in the Pacific Ocean, yet. Water temperatures are 50 and so are the land temperatures with strong winds. Rough water would be fun but not if I have to get wet since I don't have a wet suit. It was fairly calm and warm when I saw the whales but a 20-25mph wind picked up soon after. My time will come though.
Still seem to be in good health. Still haven't had a cold, even with the cold and rain... just a runny nose when I'm out in the weather.
Loaded a ton of new photos on the website plus the new trip reports.