Cruisin the Cali Coast

Route 1 along coastal California is an iconic road. Lori and I decided to do a little road trip and drove a section from San Francisco to Santa Barbara.

We started out in the City with a little visit to Bourbon and Branch, in a non-descript building in the Tenderloin. There is no sign or address and we wouldn't have known which building to go into if there hadn't been people lined up on the street outside. Sorry, no pictures but the grapefruit margarita was da bomb!

The weather was great and I love those windy coastal drives, with no hurry and no worry.

We made a stop at the Pigeon Point Lighthouse. They have a hostel there that looks like it would be a cool place to stay.

Spent the first night at Andrew Molera State Park and had the place to ourselves.

Wall o' poison oak, very colorful though

Sea Lion enjoying the morning sun

We camped under this tree

We were feeling ambitious the next day, so we continued through Big Sur down towards Santa Barbara.

Stopped for breakfast at a viewpoint and ended up being serenaded by Campbell Rabbit.

There was an ok campground at the Montana de Oro State Park. The campground was not that great but the beach and cliffs nearby were incredible. I could have spent days there just photographing.

Also passed by Piedras Blancas on the way.

Playful seals

Santa Barbara was great, we had the best tacos at La Super Rica!

We didn't have a lot of time but we did get to look around the Santa Barbara Mission.

We camped at El Capitan State Beach, it was nice but expen$ive ($50), cheaper than a hotel though.

Spent the next day in San Luis Obispo, made it to the Thursday evening farmers market and had some incredible barbeque.

Best name for a Chinese restaurant!

On the way up to Cambria we stopped at a few wineries along to way.

Stayed at a really nice hostel in Cambria, The Bridge Street Inn. Cambria looks like a really cool place to retire.

Caught this sunset outside of Cambria

We also had tickets to do the night tour of Hearst Castle. Words cannot express the opulence of this place, wow!

Went back through Big Sur on our way home and caught sunset on Pfeiffer beach.

view from our tent

If you want an awesomely good burger and don't mind paying for it, go to Nepenthe and get the ambrosia burger, it is wicked good!

Phone booth at Nepenthe

I really didn't want the trip to end but our week was up and it was time to go back to work. If you ever get a chance to take a ride down California route 1, I would highly recommend it.

Stan comes for a vist

At the end of October, Stan came out for a short visit. Good times were had, always good to spend some time with Stan, thanks for coming by!

We had a really nice trip out to Bolinas, CA. Lori and I had been there before but we didn't walk around and see the sights.

Tons of interesting graffiti along the beach

For some reason, I really liked these stairs

CALI

Chillaxin' on the beach (picture by Stan)

Death and Rebirth

Dear Family, Friends and Random Humans,

My computer has lived a comfortable and productive life however, all things must end eventually. Unfortunately, mine has had an untimely demise and so, until I swap out a few parts, the blog will be on hiatus. As I will be traveling, it will be a couple of weeks until everything is back up and running. But, stay tuned, updates will be forthcoming after the rebirth of my computer.

Update: 12/14

Finally replaced my hard drive with a brand spankin' new SSD drive. Liking the faster speeds. Upgraded to Windows 7 from Vista. Overall a very good change but it is taking some time to get everything functioning well. Took me an hour to figure out how to get my monitor to operate at a decent resolution. Also, upgraded to Lightroom 5 from 3, pretty happy with this change as well and I have a month and half of photos to go through. Good to be up and running again, new blog posts will be coming!

Trinity Alps Redux

The Trinity Alps were so nice, I was happy to have a chance to visit them again. Joined a trip with a few other BPL folks for a three day excursion up Canyon Creek trail.

Got a ride up with Jacob and Sandra on Friday, we didn't hit the trail until about 3 pm but with only five miles to hike, we had plenty of time before dark.

Sandra and Jacob

The fall colors are coming out, it isn't New England but still lovely none the less. We hiked up the same trail from my previous trip on Labor Day.

Most of the trail is through the forest and we found the side trail that led to where we were going to camp. It was a beautiful spot on the river and near a meadow that was well hidden from the trail.

We chilled in camp for the evening, drinking beer and enjoying the fire.

Saturday's agenda was to hike up the Boulder Creek trail to a couple of lakes. It was a pretty steep climb and the trail was quite rocky. Justin was hiking in his five finger shoes and must have had sore feet, although he didn't complain once.

Justin sporting his five finger shoes

Rest stop on the way up

We had a quick lunch at Boulder Creek Lake and then headed up to Forbidden Lakes. It was a nice little hike with a bit of bushwhacking to keep it interesting.

Looking over Boulder Creek Lake

The Forbidden Lakes were not quite as picturesque as Boulder Creek Lake but still worth the effort.

Forbidden Lake (upper)

We headed back down to camp, somehow losing Justin along the way. Fortunately, he found his way back to camp solo.

Another nice evening in camp enjoying the fresh air and good company.

All too soon it was time to hike out.

The Sinks

The Cast of Characters:

Justin

Kat

Matt

Sandra and Jacob

Ken

Thanks to Ken for organizing the trip and thanks to everyone for making it a great time.

Sea to Summit Nano Pyramid Net Review

This piece of gear seems to have gone under the radar of many in the ultralight community. I have only found one review (Backpacking North) and very little discussion (Backpacking Light) about what is potentially the lightest and cheapest mosquito net option for pyramid style shelters. So, what is there not to love about a 3 oz pyramid style net that costs $50?

I bought mine from REI with a 20% discount, so it cost me $40 and I figured it was worth trying out. Other netting options for my Zpacks hexamid are quite expensive and I couldn't really justify the expense. Of course, it is hard to put a price on peace of mind, which becomes very valuable when being attacked by hungry, persistant and horribly annoying mosquitoes.

I don't recall where I first heard about the Sea to Summit Nano Pyramid Net but you can get the specs here:

Sea to Summit Nano at REI

I decided to take the net out on my last backpacking trip, not because I expected any bugs but just to see how it worked with my hexamid tarp.

The first thing I did was weigh it, many times manufacturers claims about weight are off but in this case it weighed in exactly at 3 oz. I think I can reduce this a little bit by trimming off the immensley long stretchy cord that is used to hang the apex of the net. Make sure you get the Nano, there is another non-nano version that weighs 3 times more.

Bug net set up under Hexamid

There are corner loops that can be used to attach the net to your tarp, if your tarp has loops or clips to attach to. The hexamid has these, as do many other pyramid style tarps.

I had to do some field modifications to keep the net from being too droopy and laying over my face. This net is not specifically designed for use with the hexamid, so I wasn't surprised that it didn't fit exactly. In fact, it fit a bit funny and I had to play around with it for a bit to get it into decent form. I found that clipping all four corners of the net to the tarp did not work out very well, so I ended up only clipping in 2 corners.

Rubber band and stick to take up slack

The elastic around the bottom of the net did an ok job of sealing off my sleeping bag, pad and bivy from the outside. There were a few small gaps that a persistant mosquito could get into. With some more fiddling these could probably be sealed but it is not a perfect fit.

I keep mentioning mosquitos because the netting is definately not fine enough to keep out noseeums and other really small insects. For me, in the West, this is not a big deal but those of you in the East, this might reduce the effectiveness of the netting. There is a bug repellent treatment applied to the netting, so this might provide some protection, but I am just speculating.

What came to mind for me as I was playing around with the netting was that it actually could be quite versatile. For example, if you want to eat your meal in peace, just drape the net over yourself and keep those pesky mosquitoes away. I can see this being very useful when stopping for lunch and you don't necessarily want to set up your shelter for a short period of time. Draping the net, takes almost no time and provides 100% mosquito protection.

And, perhaps more importantly, it can be used when Nature calls. You know there is almost nothing worse than trying to do your business, squatting over a freshly dug hole, and being ruthlessly bombarded, in very sensitive areas, by hundreds of mosquitoes that have been following you around. With some care, OK a lot of care, you could drape the netting over yourself and have a few minutes of peace with a nice relaxing poo.

So relaxing

That almost makes it worth the price right there and is one definite advantage this net has over many others which come with attached floors. As I carry a ground sheet, I do not require any floor with the net and so this allows it to be much more versatile.

To summarize, I think this net has a lot of potential. If you want a light, cheap bug net option and are willing to accept that it might not fit your shelter perfectly, I don't think you can go wrong with the Sea to Summit Nano Pyramid Net. Add to that, the ability to provide yourself a mosquito free zone when eating and excreting and you have a winner.