December Surf

Wintertime is in full effect in Northern CA and our beach is doing it's thang!!! A great weekend of shooting photos, bodyboarding, family time and some Holiday shopping wedged in between. Fall/Winter is truly my favorite time of year here in Northern CA.

I recently made a comment to a couple of buddies of mine that there is a dearth of guys out on boards that do not seem to know how to surf very well (ie: "bouys"). I can't count how many times I have seen perfect head high peaks roll in with guys perfectly positioned to paddle and drop into them and then pull back suddenly and not take the drop. Obviously a lot of beginners out which is usually not the case for our beach break.

Regardless, still fun out there and have been scoring some fun waves!

Sessions No 3 & No 4

Safe to say most of the surf community around these parts would agree this has been a pretty dismal Fall surf season. The surf and good surf conditions really have not been in alignment and shown up with much gusto until this past weekend. So it hasn't been since August that I have been out with my waterhousing to snap some water shots. Felt good to get out. The pic above was from a session of overhead + surf the biggest I've been out in so far - a bit sketchy at times. The pic below was from a session up in the far reaches of Northern California.

Perfect CA Hiking Trip

As far as I'm concerned you know you've had a great hiking trip when:

- You've come back uninjured

- Your hair still smells like camp fire 4 days later

- Only a small patch of poison oak

- Your muscles are sore but not too bad

- All your gear performed well

- You've come back with good pics & memories

I wrote earlier in my BLOG that I was going on a hiking trip and I've just recently gotten back. I even went so far as to say that the location we hiked into was my own personal definition of Paradise. It had been (2) years since I had been into this area and it did not disappoint. It still holds the title of most beautiful spot in CA.

All in all a great trip. Hiked in with two close buddies for four days. It was forecasted to rain most of the time and we only experienced rain on the way out, last day. Fall is a wonderful contrast to the last time I hiked in which was during the Spring of '07. What lacked in colorful wildflowers (the area is loaded with them in Spring) was made up with the turning colors of Fall foliage.

The following is a collection of images from the trip, enjoy. And if you are curious about the location I'm sure with some investigative work you can find it.

Buddy #1, start of the hike

Buddy #2, start of the hike & solar powered

Buddy #1, halfway in the weather gets moody

Buddy #2, leads the charge around one of several points

Buddy #1, negotiating a 1/4 mile of small boulders

Our camp spot in the trees

Backdoor to our campsite

Camp life, tree climbing

Camp life from above

Young Alder thicket

Buddy #1 after mediocre surf

Ran into my second rattlesnake, kinda looked like this

Day Hike, this trail was washed out two years ago

Day Hike, the creek we hiked up

Day Hike, Fall color

Day Hike, lavander vine

Day Hike, Buddy #2 deep in the creek valley

Day Hike, hike out of the creek valley

Day Hike, steep country

Back at camp

One of our many great camp fires

Weird things wash up on this stretch of coast line

Summer has arrived!

This past weekend Summer arrived in the Sunset District, for San Francisco in general. I was in charge of my daughter over the weekend, my Wife declared a "staycation" weekend - a break from the family to focus on and pamper herself - she deserves it. So with all the good weather (and good waves) my daughter and I hung out around the neighborhood. We walked to the beach, did some dune climbing and snapped some pictures together. Turns out an 18 month old can be pretty handy in pointing out the good set waves as you can see below.

I took my daughter down to the Sloat parking lot. Wanting to make sure she did not either fall off the cliff edge or get run over, I kept her in the car with the windows rolled down. It actually worked well and she was content for all of 10-15 minutes. Just enough to snap off a few pics of the "Choi Wan" super typhoon swell that originated just off central Japan last week.

My wife was kind enough to let me sneak out on Sunday for a quick paddle out. Had a great time, saw a lot of good waves come through but did not connect with anything to write home about. Hung out with the dolphins/porpoise for a short time - neat to see them out there.

Summer/Fall is here and life is good.