Okay, so life continues to intervene.
The Trinity trip (June 12-14) is CANCELED because of an Active 20-30 camping trip. I'll just have to hike a long ways while drunk now. Normally I would push it to another weekend, but the weekend before I am moving, the weekend after I am at a wedding, and the weekend after I need to rest.
The Little Sur trip (October 2-4) is CANCELED because my 10th annual high school reunion is that weekend. This trip was supposed to be the last hurrah, but I don't trust the weather after this.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Monday, May 18, 2009
Skyline-to-Sea Trip Report
Wow, this post has gone too long without being written. So I finally took the remaining time had off to sit down and finish it.
The Sublime
I grew up in Northern California. We used to visit Armstrong Grove and see the Redwoods. These same trees are all over the Santa Cruz Mountains.
The fog rolls in and gets captured in the deep, narrow valleys. This, along with ample run-off from all of the creeks, provides enough water to grow a tree hundreds of feet tall and hundreds of years old.
And there are thousands of them.
The valleys trap this moisture, making the trail humid. The redwoods provide shade, making the trail cool. Smaller plants and trees scrabble for prime position next to a creek or near a fallen tree where they can get sunlight.
The creeks are full of careworn stones, granite, quartz, and slate. Exposed by the seismic uplift of the Californian coast, these rocks have have been ejected from the molten mantel of the Earth.
One of my favorite things about camping is figuring out to make due without the stuff you forgot. The quick list of what I remember I forgot ("there are thing you remembered to remember, things you remembered you forgot, things you remembered to forget, and things you've forgotten you forgot," Jeff "Rummy" Heckey):
All-in-all, though, I think ingenuity, critical thinking, and just plain stubbornness got us through the trip.
The rest of the pictures can be found here, at my Picasa page.
Happy Trails.
The Sublime
I grew up in Northern California. We used to visit Armstrong Grove and see the Redwoods. These same trees are all over the Santa Cruz Mountains.
The fog rolls in and gets captured in the deep, narrow valleys. This, along with ample run-off from all of the creeks, provides enough water to grow a tree hundreds of feet tall and hundreds of years old.
And there are thousands of them.
The valleys trap this moisture, making the trail humid. The redwoods provide shade, making the trail cool. Smaller plants and trees scrabble for prime position next to a creek or near a fallen tree where they can get sunlight.
The creeks are full of careworn stones, granite, quartz, and slate. Exposed by the seismic uplift of the Californian coast, these rocks have have been ejected from the molten mantel of the Earth.
The Banal
We started out from Roseville at about 4pm on Friday. We dropped off Matt's truck at the Waddell Beach Campground around 9:30pm. About 12am we arrived where the Waterman Gap Campground is at the crossroads between Hwy 9 and Hwy 236. About 12:01am, we passed Waterman Gap Campground looking for signs to Waterman Gap Campground. At 12:30pm we pulled into the Castle Rock State Park main lot. We then consulted the map and found that, not only was Waterman Gap exactly where I thought it was, but there was supposed to be parking nearby. We returned to the crossroads and looked for parking. We found "No Parking" signs instead. After consultation of the available data sources (i.e., my memory, Google maps, and Matt's indisputable logic), we went with Matt's suggestion of foregoing Waterman Gap in favor of Jay Campground near Big Basin HQ. We arrived at the campsite at about 1:30am, and were setup and asleep by about 2:30am. The next morning (around 10 am) I spent about 30 minutes explaining this turn of events to the strikingly large number of attractive park rangers and getting the campsites sorted. We then ate Matt's chorizo con papas for breakfast, and despite its location in the flow of the text, it was excellent.
On Saturday we hiked along the Sequoia Trail through the main valley of Big Basin up to Sempervirens Falls (somewhat underwhelming, if truth be told). From there we took the Shadowbrook Trail back around to campsite again.
While preparing lunch and hanging out at the campsite, a guy approached me and asked if I was Jeff. It turns out he and his friends were doing the Skyline-to-Sea Trail without reservations. He hoped that we would share our campsite (max. 6 people), in exchange for paying for the site and beer. We, of course, said yes.
We hung out with them for dinner and swapped stories. It turns out that the original guy (yes, I forgot his name) knows the author of the Backpack Gourmet, my camping cookbook. This came up because we made and dehydrated the book's gumbo stew. It was very good. I've yet to dislike a recipe from that book.

Sunday, we left from Jay Campground and headed out on the third leg of the Skyline-to-Sea Trail. The first section of the trail was closed due to down trees and trail damage, so we started out on the Sunset Trail for about 1.5 miles before it joined back up with Skyline-to-Sea. It also turned out that I have accidentally scheduled a trip on the same day and same trails as an Ultramarathon. Again (see Mt. Tam). I need to make sure that no other trips are co-scheduled with runs.
About 5-6 miles down the trail we took a detour to see the Berry Creek Falls. This was an aggressive trail, going up about 500 feet in three stages over about 1.2 miles one way. This caused Matt some discomfort because of his enormously long legs, but at least he toughed through it well.
From the base of Berry Creek, we continued along the Skyline-to-Sea Trail. The trail is beautiful. It is mostly a gentle downhill, with needlessly painful and annoying uphill when you are expecting only downhill.
We reach the final, mostly level portion of the trail and continued along for about 2 miles. Eventually, we came to a sign saying about 2 miles to go. About half-mile or a little more we ran into a father and son bicycling who said it was about 1.25 miles to go to get back. About 40 minutes later, just as I started cursing the fact that we should have (at our current pace) gone about 2 miles, we went up a final hill and reached the Waddell Beach Campground and the truck. It felt good to lay down.
On our drive back, we stopped at Hawgs Seafood Restaurant. Very good stuff, very fresh. Very hard to find around Sac. Plus they have sazerac on the drink list. :)
On Saturday we hiked along the Sequoia Trail through the main valley of Big Basin up to Sempervirens Falls (somewhat underwhelming, if truth be told). From there we took the Shadowbrook Trail back around to campsite again.
While preparing lunch and hanging out at the campsite, a guy approached me and asked if I was Jeff. It turns out he and his friends were doing the Skyline-to-Sea Trail without reservations. He hoped that we would share our campsite (max. 6 people), in exchange for paying for the site and beer. We, of course, said yes.
We hung out with them for dinner and swapped stories. It turns out that the original guy (yes, I forgot his name) knows the author of the Backpack Gourmet, my camping cookbook. This came up because we made and dehydrated the book's gumbo stew. It was very good. I've yet to dislike a recipe from that book.
Sunday, we left from Jay Campground and headed out on the third leg of the Skyline-to-Sea Trail. The first section of the trail was closed due to down trees and trail damage, so we started out on the Sunset Trail for about 1.5 miles before it joined back up with Skyline-to-Sea. It also turned out that I have accidentally scheduled a trip on the same day and same trails as an Ultramarathon. Again (see Mt. Tam). I need to make sure that no other trips are co-scheduled with runs.
About 5-6 miles down the trail we took a detour to see the Berry Creek Falls. This was an aggressive trail, going up about 500 feet in three stages over about 1.2 miles one way. This caused Matt some discomfort because of his enormously long legs, but at least he toughed through it well.
From the base of Berry Creek, we continued along the Skyline-to-Sea Trail. The trail is beautiful. It is mostly a gentle downhill, with needlessly painful and annoying uphill when you are expecting only downhill.
We reach the final, mostly level portion of the trail and continued along for about 2 miles. Eventually, we came to a sign saying about 2 miles to go. About half-mile or a little more we ran into a father and son bicycling who said it was about 1.25 miles to go to get back. About 40 minutes later, just as I started cursing the fact that we should have (at our current pace) gone about 2 miles, we went up a final hill and reached the Waddell Beach Campground and the truck. It felt good to lay down.
On our drive back, we stopped at Hawgs Seafood Restaurant. Very good stuff, very fresh. Very hard to find around Sac. Plus they have sazerac on the drink list. :)
The Forgotten
One of my favorite things about camping is figuring out to make due without the stuff you forgot. The quick list of what I remember I forgot ("there are thing you remembered to remember, things you remembered you forgot, things you remembered to forget, and things you've forgotten you forgot," Jeff "Rummy" Heckey):
- eggs (hence only chorizo con papas);
- hip-flask;
- to allow extra time for organizing when more than one person involved;
- to buy a map with the complete trail on it;
- to completely research the access to the trail; and last but most certainly not least
- boots.
All-in-all, though, I think ingenuity, critical thinking, and just plain stubbornness got us through the trip.
The rest of the pictures can be found here, at my Picasa page.
Happy Trails.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)