Inaugural trip to California

Back in the beginning of the summer of 2008, I was brainstorming for some solid ideas for a weeklong trip. What I came up with had to be broken up into two different trips, I just needed to figure out how to sneak that in to my work schedule. I had plenty of vacation days anyway. My first trip was a mountain climbing extravaganza down in the Weminuche Wilderness region of the San Juan Mountain Range. Myself, along with my two good buddies, Kiefer Thomas and Chris Ferraro, rode the Durango-Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad into Elk Park and within the next 6 days, we climbed 14 peaks in 3 different basins and ended with a night of debauchery in Durango to cap off, to date, the best trip of my young life.

I had another week of work before I packed my bags for my first trip to California. I remember that being the longest week of my life, but thursday rolled around soon enough and I was checking my bags at Frontier, headed for San Jose. I arrived to a typical California sunset, with rows of palm trees lining the foothills. My friend, Pirani, who I know from back East, picked me up in his Dakota and we made way for his "house" in Santa Cruz. It was all kind of surreal and exciting. We, or atleast I, had aggressive plans to hike 120 miles of the John Muir Trail from Florence Lake all the way to Mt.Whitney and then link up public transportation on our way back to Fresno. It took a lot of planning, but somehow, I was able to put it all together and Pirani and his Dakota would be both my companion and means of transportation.

We had a few drinks around Santa Cruz that night, ate some dinner at the wharf and got supplies for the next few days. His place was actually his girlfriend's, Heather, who lived right off route 1 near Watsonville. She lived in a geodesic dome with no extra places to sleep, so she and Pirani set up a 10-person tent in the backyard with a mattress and the works. It was cool and strange at the same time. Here I am, in what seems like a foreign country, I haven't really gotten my bearings straight yet and so far, I saw a bunch of seals making ungodly sounds at the wharf, realized how thick fog can really get and am sleeping in a tent in the back of a geodesic dome, right off the highway in Santa Cruz. I'd always envisioned California to be a strange place, this just confirmed my suspicions.

We woke up pretty early and made out way for Fresno with a layer of fog blanketing the landscape. As Pirani's Dakota climbed the hills separating the coast from the inland, it cleared up, as did the vegetation, it was definately a unique drive. We passed through fruit farm after fruit farm, which was cool. I think our packs were significantly heavier due to the abundance of apples, peaches and tangerines. We reach Fresno and hit up the local REI to get last minute supplies en route to Florence Lake. I noticed that Fresno was still well under 1000 feet, so the brunt of our climbing had yet to happen. Once we left town, the altitude immediately began to climb and before we knew it, we plateau'd out at 6,000 feet. We passed through the villages of Shaver and Huntington Lake and, after obtaining permits from the ranger station, reached the parking lot at Florence Lake as the sun was setting. I was hoping to average over 30 miles a day, with 3 mountains to climb in between, so we konked out pretty early.








Florence Lake


Alarm went off around 8am, since we couldn't really go anywhere till the boat shuttle ran at 9am, saved us quite a bit of time. We hadn't gotten much sleep due to a posse of Eastern Europeans arriving into camp around midnight the night before, starting a huge bonfire right next to our camp and playing music as loud as possible. I'm all about a good time in the mountains, but these guys were a bunch of assclowns. Pirani's way of getting back at them was to blare his car alarm for a couple minutes, I guess we showed them. Anyways, we paid the 10$ for the launch, got our stuff on the boat and were off. It was an unorthodox start to a hike on a motor boat like this, but I looked at it as a good thing. We were dropped off at the opposite shore, put our packs on our backs and were officially off. I didn't obtain a map for this section of the trail, since we weren't officially on the JMT just yet. I had a Kings Canyon/Sequioa Nat'l Park map, so we were essentially winging it at this point. Luckily, there was an obvious trail heading towards the direction we needed to go, plus ample trail signs and people along the way. Everyone we passed laughed at our agenda, but I knew my fitness level and ability at this point. 30 miles a day along relatively flat land, compared to the jagged mountains I had dealt with a week before in Colorado would feel like nothing, atleast to me. I'd always knew Pirani as a fit person, being a wrestler and lacrosse player throughout high school and college. I guess his sales job selling diesel generators had him travelling on the road a lot so he didn't have as much time to stay active. He had acquired a nice gut to boot, but I figured he's a stubborn guy and wouldn't let me know he was defeated.




A couple hours after our departure, we reached the John Muir Wilderness, Kings Canyon boundary. We took a quick break at the river crossing and then continued on. The hike weaved in through, around and up canyon after canyon, but for the most part, the hike was pretty mellow. As we neared Evolution Lake, we found a campsite, off the trail, right next to the river, guarded on each side by a decent sized boulder, as well as a tree to hang food and wet clothes. Pirani was pretty tired and I began to wonder if he'd make it the entire way. I was so focused on the agenda, I hadn't even fathomed we wouldn't make it. But his current condition was a concern, we both agreed to play it by ear. He next day, we moved camp further down trail and got our first glimpse of Evolution Basin, a place I greatly aniticipated. It did not dispoint. It was at this juncture where we reassessed Pirani's energy level and out progress. We weren't really behind in terms of mileage, but Pirani was struggling a good deal. After a lengthy discussion, we both agreed to just set up camp along the shores of the lake, enjoy the region and make our way back casually to the car. I really wanted Whitney, but at the same time, I figured I've never spent time in California, so anything we did would be new for me anyways and I was fine with that.

This was our view outside our tent, basically, and the water was surprisingly bareable. There were some cliffs to jump off, mountains nearby to climb up and not many crowds, everyone was spread out around the rim of the lake. This was around 35 miles from our starting point and it felt every bit as secluded from the rest of the universe, it was a remarkable place and worth the price of admission. I will surely be back someday.

The next day we woke up casually, hung out by the lake and eventually made our way back towards the car. We reached our campsite from the previous night and decided to just konk out around there for one last night before we reach civilization. Had I remembered this was still 20 miles from the car, I would've tried to get a lot closer. That aside, we had a nice sunset in the canyon that allowed us to forget that reality.

Not a bad place to call home for a night

The slog back to the car was rough on Pirani's very well being. As we neared the docks to catch the last launch of the day, Pirani reached survival mode, he was hurtin', which made me feel that much better about our decision to turn around. I decided to jog the last 3-4 miles to ensure we flag the boat down, and what do you know, as I crest the hill and the Florence Lake finally comes into view, a boat is floating across the lake in the distance. Just as the captain was untying the ropes to head back for the day, I was able to get his attention to wait. Luckily, Pirani, somehow, wasn't too far behind, we only had to wait maybe 10-15 minutes and the only other people were a bunch of hikers, so they understood and weren't impatient. We reached the docks near the parking lot soon after and I took one last dip in the Lake to wash off all the grit before our drive back to Fresno. We found a solid burger/milkshake stand off the road around Shaver Lake, fueled back up and found a cheap hotel in Fresno, as the hour was getting late and we were both pretty worn out.


Santa Cruz sunet

The next couple days were spent hanging around Santa Cruz, shooting paintball guns at the beach, eating seafood along the wharf, checking out Redwood Forest State Park and relaxing. I remembered my Uncle Mike and Aunt Stacey lived just north of San Fransisco and that I hadn't seen him in a while. I gave them a call and they welcomed me with open arms. Pirani and I headed to Novato thursday night and had a great seafood dinner on the banks of Sausalito. The next day, while they worked, Pirani and I hung out around the city, had some food and parted ways. Saturday, Stacey took me to a hike along the coast around the town of Point Reyes.

Pacific Ocean coastline outside Pt.Reyes Nat'l Seashore

It was a solid day, I'd never seen the Pacific Ocean from this vantage point, truly a dramatic site. That night, the two of them spoiled me over some surf n' turf at the Wharf District of downtown San Francisco at some restaurant in the shape of a cruiseliner, can't remember the name of it. I got a whole bunch of San Fran memorabilia, enough for someone to suspect me to be gay, but whatever, I was just being a tourist.

The next day, we got yet another early start (isn't this supposed to be vacation?) and explored wine country just north of their house in Napa. They took me to Stag's Leap, Pine Ridge and another one up North, which happened to be Stacey's favorite. Stacey was a wine aficiandao and as Mike talked to the pourers about BMWs, we drank glass after glass (no spitting).


Stacey and Michael in front of the last winery we checked out, concluding my Cali trip.

Mike dropped me off at the San Jose airport in the M3, we said our goodbyes and I was on my way back to Denver, capping off an interesting trip. What I thought was supposed to be a strictly backpacking week, turned out to be a tour of the entire coast, from Monterrey all the way up to Napa Valley. It was everything I thought it would be and more and I look foward to returning in the near future. I can see the appeal of California now.