Of Waves & Abalone

There are some waves I've heard about just north of San Francisco. These are not exactly the kind of waves you can just drive up to, hop out of the car, suit up and be in the water within a minute or two. You have to do some hiking and bush whacking to get to them. A lot of time invested in the "getting there" without any guarantee of success. It is called paying dues.

I've been adventure deprived for the past couple of weeks. So when I got the opportunity for an all day hike today I decided to call up a friend and go "pay some dues".

Beautiful hike in and out of the fog and sun. Good to explore an area I had not been into before. Got down to the beach and reminded me a lot of the North Coast - all cobblestones and flotsum.

We found some interesting things on the beach. I started off finding a very cool hat. My buddy said, "you may want to keep that, those are expensive". That was enough to make me lash it to my backpack. My buddy also collected (3) wiffle balls - WTF? He says they are great to play with in the house with his son.

Probably the most interesting items we found were all the abalone shells strewn about the length of the beach. Quite a few of them and enough to make us take a mental note and possibly come back on some favorable tides.

Speaking of tides, we walked along the beach as far as we could before we got cut off by the cliffs. Rather than walk back the way we came we actually climbed up the bluff. One of those things you do in life and realize when you make it to the top how stupid it was that you did it.

And for those of you who have not stepped outside of late, Spring is beginning to make an appearance. The wild Iris were out in force - spectacular!

Some things don't change in CA

I started this blog with the comment that CA has changed so dramatically over the course of it's relatively short history and that even dramatic changes are evident within two generations of my family. Rather than focus on what has changed about CA, I'd like to highlight something in CA that has not changed for 5-6 generations.

In the latest issue of Bay Nature, a great local magazine (and website) dedicated to, "Exploring, celebrating, and understanding the natural world of the San Francisco Bay Area", they highlight one of the largest and oldest Blue Oaks in CA. This amazing 400 year old tree (pictured above) is located within the Ohlone Regional Wilderness, located near the South East corner of the East Bay near Sunol, CA.

Just think about that, 400 years old, puts the tree just springing up out of the soil around 1609. I'm no historical scholar but I believe that Spanish explorers were just beginning to ply the waters off the CA coast and only up to Monterey at this time. So this tree was really only surrounded by its natural environment and any human contact would have been with the indigenous CA Native Americans of the area for the first half of it's life.

Pretty amazing what this tree has been through, humans, animals, disease, development and just about anything that mother nature could throw its way. Its good to know there are some things within CA that are greater than US and they can withstand the pressures our modern societies place on them. Fine examples of both natural selection and our East Bay Regional Park system at work.

Here are a few pics from my first hike with my Daughter this past Spring in the Sunol Regional Park not too far from where this tree is located. I highly recommend a Spring time hike through this area - simply amazing - you feel like you have stepped back 400 years.