Easter weekend camping and road trip

Every now and then the question arises: “what to do with a 3 day weekend?”

What better idea than a camping trip to Big Sur’s Kirk Creek campground? Well, that’s until the weather turns into a rain deluge which would really tamper the experience.

What better idea than a camping trip to El Capitan State Beach campground.

El Capitan State Beach

Not quite as glamorous but still pretty awesome! At least the weather forecast was more enticing.

Being quite closer than Big Sur I decided to grab an adventure motorcycle and make it a whole day ride and maaan was that a good idea. Instead of waking up at 4am to catch a pretty sunrise with my camera, I woke up at 4am to catch a pretty sunset with my motorcycle. I’ll selfishly keep that glorious memory to myself as I was too busy carving corners than stopping for pictures.

Now, that doesn’t mean I never stopped to snap a few things. My back was being mistreated by a pretty darn heavy camera bag after all so I was better off taking breaks and pulling some of the gear out. But it was always a challenge choosing between riding the twisties (the corners, not the chips) and firing the shutter. I also had a whole bunch of GoPro mounts covering the bike to record videos of the ride. I’ll probably make a montage though I have to be honest, you guys will probably get headaches from the continuous vibrations.

So here’s the ride I did (yep, on Google Treasure style map… it fits the feeling):

My treasured motorcycle ride

The sun broke through the clouds just around Lake Casitas. I didn’t stop to capture it and just kept riding instead. Around Santa Barbara I decided to go up the mountain ridge on the small Gibraltar Rd. I had gone up there last summer to go hike Forbush Flats and promised myself I’d come back with a motorcycle. Santa Barbara was overcast and drizzling but once I pierced through the clouds, the views were breathtaking. From there on the rest of the ride on this twisty road was above a sea of clouds which made the experience pretty unique.

Riding above the clouds

I kept scrapping the footpegs of the motorcycle (nah… I really only did it once) until I hit the 154 highway then cruised around Lake Cachuma.

From there I went to Solvang where I made a much shorter stop than anticipated. The Danish influenced village looked like it’d be awesome to visit until the swarm of shutter-happy-tourists started continuously asking me to take pictures of them. They even wanted to climb on my bike for their personal souvenir picture of the American-dream experience. Needless to say I was out of there pretty quickly.

Solvang colors

After cleaning up the flies off my bike and barely escaping from this tourist trap I headed towards the 1 taking Santa Rosa Rd. Ahhhh, much better scenery here. Santa Rosa Rd is a very nice drive through the local wineries.

I then turned onto the 14 miles pleasing road that dead ends at Jalama Beach. This is where I would pause and eat their famous burger that carries the same name. The ride through the mustard covered hillsides was just pure pleasure and the greasy-meaty reward was up to its reputation.

Scenery when you look away from the Jalama beach

The way out of there was even more pleasing since you don’t have a choice but to take that same beautiful 14 miles road but I got to ride it with a now satiated stomach.

The rest of the ride was just getting back on the 1 and heading to the campground. There I met up with the rest of my friends who were kind enough to carry most of my camping gear in their car. By the way, Sam and Maria rock the teardrop!

Sam’s to go

The rest of the day consisted mainly of resting after the 240 (s)miles ride and eating Sam’s delicious freshly cooked chicken stew around the campfire.

The next day, we headed out to the top of Refugio Rd and started hiking down the other side of the mountain. Having never ridden on dirt especially with a 600lb motorcycle; my friends, my bad hair and I just parked up there and started walking down.

The hiking-soon-to-feel-wimpy-group

It was a good opportunity to use the new extension tubes and do a little bit of macro work.

Fine prints available

Gigantic bug climbing a humongous mountain

Some bug climbing up roots

Now the common scenery on this little dirt road, besides Gabe climbing roots Indiana Jones style was composed dirt bikes and other off-road vehicles.

The “right” way to hike that trail

That was until we were surprised by this pristine pure white Toyota Prius with this older guy claiming he had no idea how he got all the way up there and was just breaking in his two months old car. Way to make me feel like a wimp deciding not to ride my adventure bike down a simple dirt road a hybrid city car could handle…

Off-roading zero emission style

Oh well, I got my revenge against self-wimpy-consciousness on the way down where I braved gravity for a few inches.

It’s a bird

After we got back to our campsite, we decided to take a little walk on the beach to throw a couple Frisbees and enjoy the sunset. Until now the light for photography had been pretty flat the whole time (yeah, I’m using the same excuse I used with my Vasquez Rocks hike). It was now time to take some decent sunset shots. Since I’ve been gibbering quite a bit I’ll just let the following few pictures take care of the concluding this story.

Enjoy

Sunset over the coast

Fine prints available

Fine prints available

….

I lied! I’ll say one last thing.

We also ate sand crabs/fleas!

Deep fried tasty sand crab

Vasquez Rocks Park Hike

Every single time I've driven up to Mammoth and back I've always noticed the interesting jagged rock formations just north of the 14 freeway. And every single time I wish I had time to stop and go explore.

The Vasquez Rocks landscape

Last week my friend Aaron invited me to go hike around Vasquez Rocks Park on Saturday March 24th 2013. I looked it up out of interest and; oh lo and behold it happens to be the park I've always wanted to go visit. I actually didn't even know it was a park until I got the invitation. Of course I agreed to go explore. Finally! Not that I really needed an excuse or a friend but you know how it goes, it always helps to have someone push you a little.

Vasquez Rocks Park, 40 miles north of Los Angeles, was named after one of the most notorious California bandit who would hide there around 1873-74 to escape law enforcement, Tiburcio Vásquez (El Bandido). I mean... just check out those rocks, can you spot Aaron climbing around?

Where is Aaron?

Anyhow; this area which was formed by action of the San Andreas Fault is a great playground for hiking and bouldering around.

Aaron enjoying the views of the Vasquez Rocks Park

It also makes a great subject for landscape photography. Being a seasoned landscape photographer, I of course ended up out there in the middle of a sunny day... arguably the worst time to take landscape shots. And yes that's my excuse.

Aaron bouldering in the poor light I use as an excuse

So I focused on the fun hiking and bouldering part doing my best not to end up in a 127 hours situation (don't click, that's the nasty part of the movie! Oh... you already clicked and you couldn't stop watching... sorry...). Naturally after seeing that great movie we had to avoid canyons, so we just decided to hike up the crack you see going diagonally up in this picture. At least you don't end up stuck with your hand under a boulder.

Our clear way up

You work your way up that cliff wondering if you should've turned back earlier when you still could but get rewarded with a pretty great view (to all of our moms, we were never really in danger... sure).

Yep, we came from down there!

The top gave us great opportunity for fun pictures actually.

Ok, maybe a little bit of danger here but I needed a picture of myself right?

The rest of the hike was just about working our way through this kind of terrain. It was really fun but nothing like our opening act.

The Vasquez Rocks terrain

Walking all the way around the park isn't that challenging, especially if you stay on the trails. The loop is probably less than 4 miles but the views are really cool. You sometimes end up in caves just like this one.

Caveman posing

The area even allows you to do some serious rock climbing.

Heel hook

In the end it was a great little hike in a beautiful and quite relaxing landscape (if you make sure you go before kids show up and ignore the 14 freeway in the back).

Ahhhh, beautiful view of the human impact

I'll definitely be going back there seeking the sunrise or sunset light to void my poor light excuse for not posting better pictures. And then, later in the day when the light gets poor again, I'll go risk my life on the side of those cliffs hiking and jumping around! Who's in?

Oh! And I didn't want to end on some self-gratifying pictures so here are a few good ones of Aaron.

Aaron on the top of the world... sort of

Aaron on a better top of the world

Aaron the Peruvian model

Forbush Flat Hike

This is more of a trail review than a pure photography post but I just don't have time to write something new before I fly to Alaska... Haha, yep, I'm going to Alaska!!!!

As usual, click on the pictures to see full size and the rest of the gallery. Or skip the whole reading thing and checkout all the pictures here.

After reading about all sorts of trails, I settled for an overnighter at Forbush Flat to enjoy the Perseid meteor shower. The only issue with this is that the timing of the meteor shower is set like a clock and peaks every year around August 12th. Well, August 12th in the Santa Barbara mountains is quite the furnace…

Nonetheless, based on the fact that most of the hike is shaded, that the forecast convinced me it would be 85deg max and that there should be water flowing year long (at least people going there in July said there was water), I decided to go forward and plan my overnighter here with my girlfriend.

It was the first time I hiked this trail; I thought it was in good condition.

Forbush Flat trail condition

There are a few places where you get “free-bush-exfoliation” and a couple others places with steep sideways incline in loose gravel but nothing insurmountable. We hiked the 2 miles down in the dead of the heat (between 1pm and 2pm), my watch thermometer, on my wrist, stayed stuck between 98deg and 105deg the whole time. Despite the heat, the hike was enjoyable and pretty shaded. The views at certain points were nice but I wouldn’t qualify them as breathtaking. It’s too bad that gigantic power line goes through the landscape.

Forbush Flat trail scenery

The camp spots were empty and in good shape. The table at the lower spot, where we stayed, is pretty worn out but very usable. One of its benches could probably get replaced. There was absolutely no water flowing in the creek. I hiked up the creek a little bit and found a small pool of clear stagnant water, no bigger than a small bathtub. Without that and the water filter, we’d be pretty dried out. There was also an uncomfortable amount of bugs. Enough that we went through a whole bug repellent container.

There was nobody to be found all day, who would hike down there in the middle of a hot summer day! Well us I guess. The hike description was a tiny bit confusing as you reach the campsites before your reach the rusty sign with the junction for the Blue Canyon trail; unless I was disoriented I guess.

After setting camp and hanging out a little, we decided to hike the 2 miles down to the Santa Ynez river and refill our bottles with some fresh water down there. We headed down the trail, which was pretty much in the same condition as the one to get down to the campsites. After a mile or so, we started seeing pools of sitting water, some clearer than others.

Stagnant water on the way to the Santa Ynez River

That’s when I realized I had forgotten the water filter at the campsite; we were down to our last liter of water. Now, I’m not completely unprepared as it might sound throughout the description: I did have some iodine pills. Knowing where the pools were to refill, we went a little further to try to find the actual flowing river. After hitting another dry hill, still not seeing the river and not being sure where we were heading or how far we were, I decided to head back to the pools where I knew we’d find some water. A little dip, a little iodine nasty tasting water and we were back in business. We then headed back to camp. I looked at the map today, and we stopped about 0.3 miles from the actual river.

Back at the camp, I filled the jug (the one that lives at the campsites) with water from the tiny pool up the creek and we started filtering. Oh what a pleasure to taste something that was filtered and not just sterilized by a life saving pill. We also played a little taking pictures of the sunset.

Forbush Flat sunset

Forbush Flat sunset

Portrait silhouette

Portrait silhouette again, but better... right?

And frolicked in the field.

Frolicking in the Forbush Flat fields

A group of about 15 mid-20’s people showed up right after sunset and set camp in the upper site. They were partying and extremely loud, playing music, singing, laughing, screaming until late in the night; living basically. Honestly, it didn’t bother us a bit but I’d understand people could be deeply annoyed by this. After seeing a few meteors and played with light painting, we headed to bed.

Perseid meteor shower

Light painting

Even without the youngsters, the wildlife night was pretty loud. Some animal stayed around our tent digging through stuff pretty much until the morning. We had our tent set up without the rainfly so we could actually see some meteors through the trees, which was quite enjoyable. The tent is pretty much all mesh, I slept in my underwear and only needed the quilt in the middle of the night just because of a tiny breeze. I would’ve been just as happy with a shirt on.

We left camp at 9 the next morning because I was slow to pack, being tired from the little sleep I had both because of the animal digging around and my stomach not happy with the iodine water. We were at the car by 10:15 or so, drenched in sweat from the uphill hike in the heat. At least half of the hike was in the shade though.

I will definitely be going back but better prepared and not in August. Many lessons were learnt, whether about hiking in the heat, expecting to have water at the camp, timing the hike, etc. But heading there somewhat early in the day, setting camp then go check out the cascading pools (with flowing water) on the trail to the Santa Ynez river seems like an attractive idea to me.

Also, don’t overlook the fact that the hike is downwards on the way there and up on the way back. It’s definitely not a flat hike so even if 2 miles sounds easy, it’s still somewhat of a workout especially in the heat.

You can find the original details for the hike here.