The Lost Coast and the Fog Belt

I can't say it enough, but I love living out on the west coast now. California has some of the most unique terrain, weather patterns, cultures, and geography I have ever experienced so far. For someone born and bred in the land of planned communities and deciduous trees this is nirvana.

Our initial plan was to go explore/hike the San Luis Obispo area but it turned out to be a bust because it's a pretty popular tourist destination. So what do two photographers do? Pick someplace really off the beaten path.



We left SF Friday evening after work. It's amazing how much stuff we take with us for three days, but then again 90% of it is camera gear so, oh well. The Mini can handle it just fine.

We stopped in Petaluma for dinner. Not the best destination for fine dining, but we had a wonderful dinner of veggie burgers at a place near the movie theater, where the waitress cracked us up with her hand motions and the words "dinner salad."



Friday night in Petaluma means lots of screaming/shrieking/flirting pre-teenagers. Yikes! We were outta there.

We drove all the way to the Avenue of the Giants, or as we call it: THE AVENUE OF THE GIANTS. Because you can't say it any other way except with a booming voice. This is a 31-mile alternate to route 101, which winds its way through Humboldt State Park, a huge redwood forest. It's filled with hippies and some dated tourist stuff, but it's absolutely quaint and gorgeous there. Phillipsville, where we were staying, has a population of 250 and I have no idea where the other 240 people are, because we never saw them.

Since the coastal redwoods only grow in what is known as the "fog belt" of CA and Oregon, there isn't a lot of sun. So we decided the risk to reward ratio wasn't worth keeping photographer's hours, not really. Each day dawned overcast and flitted in and out of sun and dreary. The redwoods also grow so high and densely together that sun, if any, reaches the ground in little dapples.





The trees, when they finally fall, make ginormous bridges across creeks and the forest floor. It's wonderful here: cool and breezy and quiet. And as the wind blows you can hear the rustle of far-away leaves and the occasional creaking of giant trunks, just like a ship in the waves.



My puppy Zach enjoyed tearing through the woods. Although he loves the social aspect of the SF dog parks, I think he feels a bit cramped (just like me.) We saw lots of wildlife, such as this weird millipede:



Cap'n Zach on the deck:


We drove up to Eureka for lunch because one of our favorite breweries is there: Lost Coast Brewery. Their 8-Ball Stout is amazing, but hard to find outside of Eureka. We were seated upstairs, which was great for people watching at the bar below:



The waitress suggested that we go to Old Town Coffee afterwards because I needed a place that had wireless but also had outdoor seating for the dog. We drove there, which wasn't too far away, and camped out for my 3-hour stint at work. We crossed the plaza on the way there, and there was a strange cloud of pigeons circling around.



Not 30 seconds after I took this shot, a hawk snatched a blackbird and flew away with him. Lives are so short in the wild. I'm not sure if the pigeons' flight had anything to do with the warning of imminent danger, but I feel that it did.

Zach was a favorite amongst the crowd. This lady drinking coffee at the shop gave him a huge doggy cookie. After he ate it, he curled up under the table and snoozed:



We didn't realize it, but the Kinetic Sculpture Race was going on and the finish line was right across the street from us! The town had turned out to watch. Some of them were seriously impressive.



There was a giant chicken:



And there was even a fire-breathing dragon. It sounds ridiculous but it was so cool.

After work, we packed up and studied the map. There was a tiny little loop of road that headed south out of Fortuna through the mountains and back towards Humboldt State Park. It nipped a bit down the Lost Coast, and we figured that we'd scout the area for shooting/hiking the next day.

The road was amazing. South of Ferndale (a Victorian town that I am convinced is haunted) it's all rainforest-y mountains, permanently shrouded in heavy wet fog:



I have many more photos form the following day, but we grew rather attached to this particular curve in the road. We saw an amazing amount of wildlife in such a desolate-looking place. Deer, of course, including a tiny Bambi-looking fawn, hawks, bluebirds, vultures, even a peacock! (our true screech-to-a-halt-and-say-WTF? moment)

Once we hit the coast it was so beautiful we had to get out and walk around. There aren't many opportunities to do this, since the road is one lane in each direction with private cow pastures on both sides. Not very hiker-friendly, but there are ways.

The beach here is black, and not made of sand but very small rocks. Hiking is twice as hard, as my gluts told me the next day!

Zach loves smelling the fresh ocean breeze:



And when you go inland, the collision of ocean and mountain air can be tumultuous:



The clouds broke up as we drove east to make a rather pretty sunset. Of course, we weren't anywhere that had a nice enough foreground, so you just make do with country roads and cow pastures:



The roads were so steep, twisty and turny that Zach kept sliding off of his pillow and getting sucked into the well at the back, heeehee!



The following morning we, by complete accident, somehow found ourselves hiking the exact same grove of redwoods that we'd explored the previous day. Brand new day! Happy happy joy!



I also never took any quintessential giant tree shots, but this gives you some idea:



This is the shot I wanted to get. As I said in my other thread, Marc's father has a shot that I just love and it goes something like this. But his version has better composition, better color, and of course, better dynamic range!



We headed north, back out the loop of road that took us south out of Fortuna to Ferndale, then up and across the mountains to the ocean. After a really overpriced mediocre lunch in Victorian Ferndale. (Yikes.)

The mountaintops are permanently in fog. It's beautiful. I imagine that this is what most of the PNW looks like:



As we passed those clouds and were in view of the ocean, the sun tried to peek out here and there. All of a sudden we heard a clicking, and I think Zach knocked Trav's camera over in the back seat so something was hitting the shutter. It was taking a bunch of photos of nothing so we had to pull over and rescue it. Zach played innocent, and I took the opportunity to photograph the hills, sunspots, and cow patties:



The view behind me was actually really gorgeous, too, but I didn't do it justice.

We got to our sunset spot a little early, as often happens when you become more familiar with a road. When the sun got a little lower we got our stuff and hiked out the beach:



This is the westernmost point of the continental US. The ocean is really rough here, extremely dangerous. There used to be a light house here but it got moved for some reason to a tourist town 30 miles south. There's some ruins out in the water about a quarter mile off, which look fascinating:





We had a lot of fun exploring the strange rocks, battered sea life and the first tidal pools I've ever seen in my life!



To get some of the shots we had to climb the sharp rocks. Nuthin' at all like Kelsey and John, of course:



But the clouds covered the sun and the western horizon, so we cut our evening short and headed back.

Good weekend. Saw some beautiful things, had intensely amusing moments and flashes of insight and realization, and it was just nice to get out of traffic for a while... until we hit Marin county, of course. Well, it was nice while it lasted. Thanks Ian for the suggestion and the recommendations on the route! :thumb

I hope everyone else had a great weekend, too.