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Vive, ut vivas. Live, that you may live. A fine motto for all outdoor folk. Possess life more abundantly! Yet, to do that, as Jack London might have put it, you must light out after it. These diary entries are my footprints on time's sands. Mayhap, one day, our paths will cross.
Diary EntriesWinter Surfing
12-10-2009
As soon as I drove over the highway pass above Muir Beach, I knew that riding the surf today would pose a challenge. Yes, out in the misty distance, I could observe a sweet, ten foot-high storm swell cruising in toward the Marin County coast, arriving at 16-second intervals.
But that wide-wale, blue corduroy of incoming surf looked to be garlanded with streaks of wind-lashed whitecaps streaking in the opposite direction. This meant many things. For big-wave surfers who dare the famed Maverick’s big-wave break at Half Moon Bay, 50 miles to the south, it meant their day was a non-starter. Even though the swell was big enough to produce ride-able faces at low tide – a 0.9-foot plus at 1 p.m. – those offshore winds offered trouble for anyone seeking to take a drop. Get your board stalled by uprushing winds on a tall crest, and you’ll generally achieve only a pummeling wipe-out.
The break I aimed for was a bit more sheltered from such a southeasterly wind. But I knew I would still be lashed by cold spray and wind chill when I tried to make my rides.
The small town I drove into had many spaces open as I approached the street where most surfers parked. Unusual for it to be so empty when there was a ten-foot swell from the west, even on a weekday. I knew that meant other surfers had learned of the windy conditions, and opted not to bother even making this drive out. I could park my old Toyota truck near to the pocked concrete launch ramp that led down to the wave-battered beach. As I walked down to check the swell, I noted many small rocks had been hurled from the beach up onto the slope of the ramp - a hint about what winter storms had been consorting upon, as of late. Offshore, I saw just one board surfer in the water, hanging out to score lefts off the wave that stood up on the sandbar at the mouth of the lagoon. Further north, the Patch – a sloping reef that focuses a west swell fairly well – was empty of other surfers, yet full of curling swells. And wind-whipped whitecaps, heading in the opposite direction.
I joked with another board surfer who was walking in his wetsuit toward the waves, “It’s gonna be a chilly-willie!”
Then I hauled my surf kayak off the roof-rack on the truck, and trod myself toward that dark, foam-flecked water. This boat is my own design, a 10’4” gun with a double-channel bottom and a pintail that I call “Swerdis” – which is Scots-Irish for “sword.”
Paddling out, I took the first wave-splash in my face as the standard wake-up call. But this call had a little extra oomph. The seawater was about 50F degrees, and so was the air. Add wind-chill from the 10-20 mph offshore breeze, and you possessed conditions that might make a penguin comfortable, but not much else. Still, it looked like there could be ride-able swells way out there. So I went. Whap, whap. A few more frigid face-fulls. Then I was out. Past the small and medium breakers, and able to take my pick of the large.
My first ride confirmed my suspicions. That offshore blast was a real staller. I needed to pitch my weight forward, drive my surf kayak’s bow down while paddling for a wave, if I hoped to make a drop. Once up and riding, icy spray whipped my face and eyes even if was going left – downwind.
Are we having fun yet? Actually, yes, we are. The sole question was, how long could we keep it up? I made a personal judgment-call that, did I not stay out amid these waves for at least an hour, then I should be condemned and perhaps burned at the stake as a wimp. However at the moment, I must say, that burning part in particular didn’t sound so very bad.
Onward, through the second, third and fourth rides. Rated (in order): pretty good, not so awful, and fairly nice. After that, I stopped counting. Always a good sign. The existential, sensual right brain was taking over from the analytic, compartmentalizing left brain. However, the left brain re-asserted dominance whenever I glanced down at my waterproof watch. How long did I really want to stay out? My cheeks felt like they were being pimp-slapped by Mike Tyson. My sinuses felt like they were constantly about to succumb to an ice-cream headache. And all my rides, frankly, weren’t even close to supreme. The contrarian wind chop was strong enough to fight the swell. And make my rides bumpy, lumpy, and wildly unpredictable. As well as cold.
But I completed my hour out on the sea. Then I returned, being careful to catch what I call “The Bus,” the largest waves that you can ride toward the shore while steering yourself toward the exact spot where you went in. Bingo! Made my site. Then put the boat on my head, rocked it, drained it, and walked back to my truck. Here, in the bed, was an insulated box holding two gallons of hot water.
I put the kayak down on the grass, unclipped my helmet and removed it, unzipped my wetsuit, and poured hot water over my head, and down around the neck and waist of the wetsuit. Bliss.
Guiding Alcatraz Island Swimmers in SF Bay
7-18-2009
The “Swim Around the Rock” athletes formed a small knot on the beach at Aquatic Park – the sandy cover just below Ghiradelli Square in San Francisco. I say “small” because there was just 1.3 percent of the crowd of 1,800 swimmers I had assisted in the Escape From Alcatraz Triathlon a few weeks earlier.
As the race emcee, coach Pedro Ordones of Water World Swim, pronounced his countdown, some 24 swimmers moved to the water’s edge, shifting excitedly from foot to foot, some swinging their arms to warm up. One thing that showed that a hardier lot of swimmers were about to plunge into a pluckier event was that nearly half of them were going “skin,” according to the roster. No, not naked. But, without neoprene wetsuits.
The Swim Around the Rock is exactly what that name implies.
Most Alcatraz swims begin with a jump off a ferry in the vicinity of the island, followed by a course of 1.2 miles or so to a destination on the San Francisco waterfront. Precisely the fantasy of the hundreds of prisoners confined in the concrete cellblock on the Alcatraz during its famed era as a federal max security pen, home of Al Capone, Robert Stroud – the Birdman, and other luminaries. Wait. They weren't luminescent. What should we call them. Notaries? No, that's something else . . .
The Around the Rock doubles down on this itinerary. Swimmers start in SF, go out to the Island on a mild flood tide, make their way completely around it, then stroke back to SF for a grand total of 3.25 miles. They spend two hours or more immersed in the bay’s chilly, choppy waters. Anyone who even attempts such an aquatic ordeal in my book is a stud or stud-ette.
I may own a tad more sympathy and understanding of what’s involved that most onlookers, because I was a member of the Dolphin Club (one of The City’s two historic swim clubs) for a pair of years. I gradually increased my ability to swim in bay waters from 7 minutes (the longest I could last on my first plunge) to 90 minutes. But it took me two years to do so, and I rarely ventured out past the friendly arms of Aquatic Park cove. I was acutely aware that every yard I went out in the open bay would make me more distant from the club sauna, for one thing!
So, these Round the Rock swimmers started off with my respect and admiration before they even got their feet wet. Especially, those skin swimmers, preparing to put the enhanced, subcutaneous fat layer of humans – God’s own wetsuit – to good use.
They ran eagerly into the water as the countdown ran out, and began stroking out of the cove and heading for open water. I and about two dozen other kayakers stood by to take up the chase. I had a mapping GPS on my deck, and was able to see that, excited by their start, the pack was moving at about 3 mph. Once out in the bay proper, however, they would slow to a more sedate and reasonable 1.5 mph.
That’s without adding the shove of the mild flood tide, which added another 1.5 mph of eastward push. The fog which had streamed thick and low over the water a few hours earlier had thankfully lifted, and visibility was much improved for all concerned – the swimmers, the recreational boat traffic, the ferry captains, and the kayakers.
But least of all for the swimmers. They wallow down in those wide wales of corduroy, the wrinkles of windchop and the echoes of ocean swells that roll in through the Golden Gate. That means one of the top boosts kayak guides can constantly provide is helping the swimmers adjust their course to an optimal direction.
The pack soon fanned out. Since there was nearly one kayak guide per swimmer, I decided to stick with one outlying swimmer who had decided to pick a high “ferry” angle – which is to say, a more westerly course than most of the others. His call. He knew his own speed, and the push of the tide from the briefing. Plus, of course, all the consequences were his, too.
I noticed that his course did deviate on a more or less constant basis, rotating through about 20 degrees of the compass. I was even taken by surprise once, when I saw him swimming right at the island as I pulled alongside to his left. I looked away, then when I looked back, saw him swimming right at my kayak. We collided before I could pull away, which displeased him greatly.
From this incident, I can provide a tip for other kayak guides – give swimmers a wider berth than you think they might need. They aren’t Navy SEALs, hewing to a steady course with a compass strapped to their wrists.
But it turned out his general ferry angle was excellent, and he hit the south end of Alcatraz Island, shaded the east shore, then tried to make the turn around the north end. Here, the flood was still coursing in – I would wager a flood current sustains longer between Alcatraz and Angel islands than it does in other parts of the central bay.
He and the other swimmers with a slower pace soon found themselves on a watery treadmill – barely creeping ahead against the current. One of the female skin swimmers “spy-hopped,” stuck her head up to assess the situation and adjust her goggles, and I yelled for her to “Charge it!” She put her head down and it did just that, making the corner handily and then adjusting her course to San Francisco.
I left my male outlier in the hands of another kayaker and followed her for a while. Then I saw another female bare swimmer outlying a considerable distance to the west, with a power boat associated with the event shadowing her, and no kayaks in the vicinity. She seemed to be the one in greatest need of a guide, so I paddled out to her. The power boat skipper gave me a thumbs up, and roared off to monitor the rest of the course.
She too rotated through about 20 degrees of course change on a regular basis, with a tendency to veer too far right. It was clear how she had gotten to be an outlier! I stuck by her all the way back to Aquatic Park, and she seemed to take my suggestions on course correction in good spirits.
She even paused with me to admire a Liberty Ship, the Jeremiah O’Brien, one of the living history displays on the waterfront, as it got up steam and backed out of its berth for a cruise on the bay.
It was a great thrill to see her swim back into the shelter of Aquatic Park, her stroke picking up speed, power and smoothness again in the flatter water. A small crowd at the finish line sent up a mighty cheer as she emerged, glistening from the bay, and jogged up the packed sand to the glorious and successful end of her adventure.
Tips for Kayakers Guiding Alcatraz Swimmers
- Athletes involved in a swim from Alcatraz Island to the San Francisco waterfront feel excited and adrenalized by this experience. In addition, they are focused on achieving their goal in the fastest possible time. While such focus galvanizes their efforts, in some swimmers, two errors can occur: They can think that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line; and they can seem relatively impervious to outside input while swimming.
- One main function of kayak guides is to help the swimmers by properly adjusting their course, and to keep them aware of their surroundings. Most Alcatraz swims take place during an ebb tide. But during an ebb, the shortest distance from Alcatraz to a San Francisco landing site is not a straight line. If swimmers aim straight at their goal (like Aquatic Park or Crissy Field Beach, a seaward push from the ebb (which aims itself at the Golden Gate Bridge) will make them overshoot.
- During a typical ebb tide, with currents running at 3-4 knots, some 406 billion gallons of seawater will hurtle out through the Golden Gate. That creates many moving tons of impetus! Water from the south bay (largest of the bay’s three lobes, in terms of surface area) shoots north around Yerba Buena/Treasure Island. Generally speaking, water between San Francisco and Yerba Buena takes a hard left around the San Francisco waterfront, squirting westward between the city and Alcatraz Island. Water coming from between Oakland and Yerba Buena tends to shoot north until it bashes into ebb currents dropping down from the north bay. Then that combination bends west to flow between Angel Island and Alcatraz.
- It’s worth noting that both of these major current streams need to backfill behind Alcatraz. What this means is that the part of the ebb current that swimmers jump into as they hop off their ferry shuttle near the island is not only heading out to sea, but at that point, veering a bit northward as well. Swimmers embedded in that current who aim straight at their city-front goal will lose more ground, adding to the distance they must swim.
- The smartest thing a swimmer can do at the Alcatraz drop is to head, not for the St. Francis Yacht Club or Aquatic Park, but Pier 39. If they keep that ferry angle or bearing (compass heading) constant until they are off Fort Mason, at that point it becomes reasonable to fall off and take a more westerly heading. The key is, they should want to place themselves no more than a few hundred yards off the city waterfront. The current here is almost as strong as it is out in the center of the main ebb jet (halfway between the city and Alcatraz), and any slight reduction in that force is more than made up by two other advantages. Number one, the water surface is calmer here, there’s less wind chop and swells entering the Golden Gate are far more dissipated; swimmers generally can move faster in flatter water. Number two, swimmers can mentally relax and focus on stroke efficiency, knowing that there is no possibility of overshooting their goal.
- What this means for kayak guides is that a key part of their mission is to help swimmers adopt the smartest course from “the git-go”, since this will make for far fewer problems down the line. Helping lead swimmers correct their course near the start is invaluable, since most of the pack will often follow their lead. Since the lead swimmers tend to be elite athletes, they also tend to be fairly strong-minded individuals. Sometimes they require a ton of convincing. Use a firm but friendly tone, and insist on course correction. “Go left,” or “Go strong left” are useful, sometimes “Stop! You are going to overshoot!” are good things to say. The thing to keep in mind is that you are doing them a favor by helping have a more efficient swim and score a better time.
- Once the lead swimmers are properly oriented, move back along the western edge of the pack, adjusting course of swimmers on the fringe. Then, look for stragglers. Remember that the stragglers or wanderers are actually engaged in a more severe athletic challenge than the leaders are. They have a lesser ability than those with a shot at a ribbon, so to complete the course, they must apply an even higher level of determination and heart. Encouragement and praise go a long way to helping them continue. But also look for symptoms of physical failure, cramping, hypothermia or catastrophic loss of energy: weak kicking, too much breathing, periods of dog paddling. Invite them to grab onto your bow to rest, and take ten deep breaths before continuing. Ask them if they want to continue. Point out their relative location to the shore and advise them on strategy. If they indicate a lack of desire to continue, raise your paddle vertically to call in a motorized guide boat . . .Congratulate them on their effort . . . And invite them to train again for next year!
Sea Kayaking with a SEAL
5-27-2009
Bay Area outdoors folks may recall Mr. Duncan Smith, the U.S. Navy commando who started his Presidio Adventure Racing Academy in San Francisco in the early 1990s. At the time, Duncan was in the reserves. Afterward, he went back to the service full-time, and now boats a fairly high rank: Captain.
I had other business in Southern California: doing some Jack London research at the Huntington Collection in Pasadena, and a meeting with West Coast uber-agent Sandy Dijkstra. But I wanted another item on my agenda – a visit with my old pal Duncan. He and I have done a number of paddles and paddle races together. Once, we even ribboned in a tandem (a Tsunami Rangers X-2) at the CCK open ocean race out of Half Moon Bay.
Duncan was able to take a morning off, and we launched his Futura ski and traditional single sea kayak from a beach near the Coronado Yacht Club. It was a calm but overcast morning, low tide, with the current just beginning to reverse toward flood. We went out for three hours, and made it under the soaring Coronado Bridge, then over to the shoreline of San Diego proper.
Inside a protected harbor, we marveled at the magnificent schooner America, a $6 million recreation of the famed boat that won the Royal Yacht Squadron's "100 Guinea Cup" race around the Isle of Wight in 1851 – and launched the phenomenon now known as America’s Cup sail racing.
But equally interesting was watching two Navy ships head out to sea, right across our course. One was the destroyer Decatur, the other a light cruiser. Ahead of the Decatur was a tugboat, escorting her, and Duncan and I amused ourselves by surfing on its substantial wake. It was good, clean, nautical fun, but Duncan said the whole time we’d been doing it, a gunner on the destroyer likely held the sights of a .30-caliber machine gun on us.
“A sea kayak could be a delivery system for a couple hundred pounds of CX explosives,” he said. “The Navy is keenly aware of that. And they won’t take any chances with it.”
His point was reinforced when the cruiser powered out past us next. It was escorted by a “rib” (rigid launch with an inflatable collar) marked Nave Security. The driver of the rib inserted his vessel between the cruiser and our kayaks, and gave us a very stern looking-over. But it was cool, he let us pass by without stopping us – and Duncan never had to identify himself as Navy officer!
Moral of the story? Enjoy paddling in San Diego harbor, if you ever get down that way. But don’t get near to active-duty Navy ships!
Kicking our tails over Santa Cruz Mtns
5-17-2009
Well, we did it. Pulled off the big trek for which I’d been training. Up and over the Santa Cruz Mountains, all the way from the streets of San Jose, over to the pounding Pacific at the Waddell Creek surf break – 54 hard miles in three days, with 8,000 feet of elevation gain (and loss, of course)!
For those of you who might have thought the famed Skyline-to-the-Sea Trail wasn’t quite interesting enough, this route—devised by my brother-in-law, Chris Dierkes—is a way to make it fascinating. Or, maybe “captivating” is a better word, because once you get going on this baby, there ain’t that many places to bail out if you change your mind!
Given the parlous state of the state’s park system, we felt fortunate to be able to go while some of the units were still open. (Big Basin and Castle Rock are on the hit list for potential closure, if the budget crisis can’t be resolved.) If you are considering visiting, or undertaking any similar hike, my advice: go soon!
We were fortunate in that bit of timing, but unfortunate in a different bit. The weekend we chose to go, May 15-17, the Bay Area got whomped by a heat wave that put the temperatures in San Jose in the 100s. Even up in the redwood-clad summits, we were baking in the mid-90s. That turned the adventure into a bit more of an ordeal than any of us had planned.
By us I mean: Dierkes, who had just turned 50, and who planned the trip as a challenge and a celebration; and Ted Weatherford, 42, one of his oldest buddies; and me.
We got underway at 8:26 a.m. Friday, stomped north on concrete sidewalks to the Los Gatos Creek trail, and hung a left. Took that to the town of Los Gatos, then made our way uphill through suburbia to El Sereno Open Space Preserve - a 1,415-acre park, a mix of brush and coastal hardwoods, with 7.4 miles of trail, crested by a 2,249-foot ridge.
Made it over the top around noon, and dropped down into Sanborn Skyline County Park (3,688 acres, with barbecue pits and campgrounds) where we lunched by lovely Lake McKenzie. Once bottoming out in Sanborn, it was time to trudge uphill again. We’d just given away 600 feet on a descent. Now we had to climb 1,774 more in order to make our 20.6 miles into Castle Rock State Park. After ten hours of hiking, we made it! It was just after 6 p.m., and we were happy to see cool shadows lengthen. We dropped off our daypacks at Ted’s car, tugged on our heavy packs, then went two hours (and 2.8 miles) more of trail to make camp before dark. Very happy to eat and fall asleep!
But it was hard to wake up. Still we were in the midst of grand park scenery, and it was a pleasure to see the hardwood forests, the wildflowers, the redwood groves, and the frozen waves of the coast range ridges. It was not quite so much of a pleasure to go up and down them . . . we had to climb 3,000 feet on the second day, even though our destination was lower than our start point. Very hot, very sweaty, very slow going. More like a slog than a saunter.
We made it into camp at Big Basin by 8 p.m., and were overjoyed to meet Chris’ friend Peter Hastings, who set us up with grilled ribeye steaks and a small keg of cold beer. Again we slept like the dead.
On the morning of the third day, we rose again, and faced the final leg of Skyline-to-the-Sea, a ramble down the Waddell Creek Canyon. My stiff, sore shanks loosened up enough to proceed, and by mid-afternoon on Sunday, we were soaking ourselves in a cool sea breeze at Waddell Beach. Well, I was. Ted actually ran and dove into the surf, and Chris waded around and soaked his tired feet.
But it was glorious! It had been an athletic achievement, an adventure for all of us. Like the I Ching says: Perseverance furthers!
A long hike in the redwoods
4-26-09
Yep, the old aphorism is correct. All journeys start with a single step. But that’s not really the problem. Starting a trip is easy. The problem is, how many steps are required before a journey is complete? And for a very long hike, your biggest problem is, when you get about halfway through, how do you avoid thinking about all those many more steps that must be taken?
Two ways: hike in a beautiful place; and hike with a beautiful companion.
On Sunday, I undertook a hike of about 20 miles, with 2,500 feet or so of elevation gain. It was part of my training regimen for an upcoming 50-miler I will be faced with on May 15. I was fully prepared to go it alone on the training session, when my wife Dawn announced that she felt ready for an outdoor adventure and wanted to come along.
Hm, I thought. I know she’s fit, I know she’s strong, I know she’s determined. But if you haven’t been training specifically to hike a long way, one may become progressively more disconcerted with the enterprise. I offered enough warnings about the possible problems so that Dawn could reconsider with honor… and still she wanted to come. Well and good. But I made sure I carried a good blister kit – and a cell phone, and phone numbers for three local taxi companies. And a $100 bill, in case a cabbie needed extra coaxing to drive all the way up into the San Francisco Peninsula hills.
One thing I’ve learned from my outdoor adventures is that it’s important to have a Plan B. And the more grand the challenge gets, the more letters of the alphabet should be pasted onto reasonable alternatives, a la’ Plan C – Z.
We hit Wunderlicht Park at 8:20 a.m., found a good place to park in the shade, and buckled on our packs. Most of our toted weight was water. I carried a gallon, in a back bladder and two bottles, Dawn slightly more than half that. We each had two peanut butter and carrot sandwiches and assorted treats. We zoomed up the Alambique Trail at a steady pace, and made The Crossroads in just over an hour. After that, the beauty of the forest path steady grew more impressive, considerably enhanced by May’s soft green foliage and blossoms.
We made the Bear Gulch trailhead on Skyline, stretched out, then turned north toward Huddart Park. The next five miles were absolutely the loveliest of the journey. We paused to take picnic lunch about halfway through. Dawn wisely mentioned a hotspot beginning to glow on the bottom of her right foot, and I treated it with a double layer of Moleskin plus padding, with a donut-hole scissored out to reduce impact on the site. Same treatment on the ball of her left foot, just in case. Then she tugged on an extra pair of socks, and laced her boots lightly.
The treatment took, and in relative comfort, we bombed on past King Mountain Road and into Huddart. Rather than take the quick route down—the Archery Fire Road—we opted to go a more scenic route, down the redwood canyons of interior trails.
Second lunch was at the picnic tables of the Miwok Shelter, where the trees part to afford a fine view of the distant bay. We gobbled out second sandwiches, stretched out a bit, and launched into the home stretch at 2:20 p.m. By 4:10 p.m., we were striding back into Wunderlicht, reached via King Mountain, Tripp, and Woodside roads. A bit of hand and back slapping, of course, and mutual congratulations all the way around.
Mission accomplished, in just under eight hours. I was happy with myself, and exceptionally proud of Dawn, who had continued with remarkable vigor and good humor the entire way. It was pleasant to have her to chat and joke around with during the long hike. I had only one regret: I had not thought to leave a cooler with ice-cold beer in the car. Oh well. Next time! We are already talking about making this walk a twice-annual event, once in spring and once in fall.
A Run on Forest Trails
4/21/09
No disrespect to Daniel Day-Lewis. The guy is a fabulous actor with a distinctive ability to vanish into a role. But his opening scenes in that movie, “Last of the Mohicans,” were entirely ludicrous. If you saw the film, you may recall, he and a few other leather-clad blokes were running through the East Coast woods, chasing a buck, trying to score a shot at it with their flintlock rifles. Mr. Day-Lewis ran incredibly well for the cameras. But the idea that he could get even an inch nearer to a deer that’s already bounding away by tromping after it? It is to laugh! That buck would be in the next county by the time “Deerslayer” made it over one ravine.
Running in the woods—that’s what deer do for a living. They have all the proper equipment for it. No matter how hard a man trains or tries, he’ll still remain an upright ape seeking to make-do on the horizontal plane by using his only-slightly-altered tree-climbing body.
That said, I have to admit, I like to run in the woods, too. In fact, I much prefer trail-running over any other form of travel. But I have zero delusions of grandeur about my practice of this activity. If you saw me, you wouldn’t either. For one thing, I don’t actually run. My gait is sort of a high-speed shuffle, with feet lifted just high enough to clear obstacles. My running speed is only about 50-percent faster than my hiking speed.
The prime consideration is to reduce cumulative impact on ankles, knees and hips. Compared to that, forward progress is my secondary goal. If I can make it into my 80s with all my teeth and major skeletal joints intact, I’ll be a happy man.
On this weekday morning, I parked in the hamlet of Woodside at a public lot, clipped on my fanny pack (with integral water bladder), knotted a bandanna around my skull, put NPR on the earbuds, and took off for Huddart County Park. This preserve is a legacy of a lumberman, who gave the ground to the public after he’d cut down all the big trees. Thanks! But the redwoods came back—as they will if you give ‘em half a chance. And now it’s a cool, shady refuge, laced with pathways.
Over the course of three hours, I knocked off about 11 miles, enjoying the forest fragrances, the frisking squirrels, darting wrens . . . and one doe, who seemed unusually curious about me. Instead of running off, which she could of course have easily done, she stood her ground, even crossed over to stand on the trail directly in front of me, and stared intently as I approached. It was as though she almost recognized me, and wanted to be sure of my identity, before rushing up to greet me as a long-lost relative. Well, that lasted until I got about 50 feet away and spoke softly to her—then she changed her mind and bounded off. Did I try to chase her? I did not.
Instead, I looped back down to my truck, rode home to lunch, and—muscles invigorated, mind cleared, blood circulating—plopped down on the desk chair to launch into the afternoon’s scribbles.
Take the 58 Year-Old Knees for a Stride
4/14/09
My cautionary tale(s) come from friends who exercised heavily from youth through middle-age, then wound up having knee and/or hip replacement surgery after another decade or two. Plenty of things are improved through exercise, like cardio and pulmonary health. But some things just can’t stand the pounding. Like skeletal joints and cartilage.
Moral of the story from these folks, far as I’m concerned, is that we need to budget our major moves. If jarring activities like running become not only persistent but also pathological, and you could be toast. Not right away, perhaps, but long before you are ready to feel toasted.
I’ve always been a walker and a hiker, and a bit of jogger also – the latter activity kicking off in the mid-1970s. The problem is that I’m built thick. In body type terms, I’m a mesomorph, like a Percheron (a draft horse). I’m 5’11’’, but since I was 17, I’ve always weighed more than 200 pounds. Sometimes (embarrassingly, because a pendulous paunch shows up then) more than 230. Lately, I’ve struggled heroically, and succeeded, at staying below 220. My object all sublime is to hover below 210.
The paradox, the Catch-22, is that the best way to keep weight off is sustained aerobic activity. Such as running.
I ran my first marathon, the Napa, at age 53. Thought that I might do a marathon a year after that. But pain in my knees, followed by diagnosis of a torn right meniscus, put the kibosh on that scheme. Instead, I took plenty of time off, and adopted a series of non-weight-bearing, leg-strengthening exercises. Five years later, I’m jogging again. Apparently, the portion of the meniscus I damaged was that part capable of self-healing without surgery. (In an anatomy book, take a look at it: it’s the blood-supplied crescent toward the outside of the puck.) I plan my second marathon to celebrate my 60th birthday.
In the interim, I’m willing to entertain a variety of leg-oriented schemes. Such as that of my brother-in-law, Chris Dierkes, who lives in western San Jose. He’s turning 50, and wants to celebrate memorably, by hiking from his home, to the sea. A simple matter of 54 miles in three days with about 4,000 feet of elevation gain. Hmm. Naturally, stimulated by the challenge, I volunteered to accompany him. Which now makes it incumbent upon me to train. And pretty dam avidly too, since we’re now only a month away from the endeavor.
That’s why I hiked for five hours today, from my home on the Peninsula, up into Huddart Park above Woodside, with 40 pounds in a pack on my back. Grand to leave the surface streets and get up among those fragrant redwoods! Round trip, about 13 miles. Felt a bit painful on the way back home, even though I had NPR droning in my earbuds. I tried to focus on economic chaos and global turmoil instead of the pain in my thighs.
Wonder how I’ll do when push comes to shove. The way Chris has it figured, our first day will be 21 miles, with most of the elevation gain on that day. And hard as that might be, it will be followed by two more days of hard hiking. To address the challenge, I’m going to assemble the lightest pack I’ve ever carried, wear arch supports in my boots, and stout wool socks, and use Leki hiking poles.
Beyond that, I’m thinking: fistfuls of Motrin.
A Paddle with Young Brian
04/10/09
I tried his cell phone, but got no answer. Made me feel a tad grumpy. We were supposed to meet, 7-7:30 a.m. on the beach at Horseshoe Cove, at East Fort Baker near the Marin County headlands, and go for a sea kayak paddle outside the Golden Gate. Our plan was to yo-yo out on the last of a five-knot ebb, then ride the start of a four-knot flood back inside.
No one drove up. But at 7:15, I spotted movement in the cove, then saw Brian Coggan paddling up to the cove beach, right on time. Turned out, he lives on the waterfront in Tiburon, and could easily ride the ebb over from that town to our rendezvous spot. No need for any driving, or any burning of fossil fuels. Cool!
Brian is a slim, sandy-haired chap, age 24, a young man with a mission. He’s preparing to paddle down the Mississippi River – all 2,500 miles of it – with two companions, engineering community meetings to discuss the importance of American water resources at every port of call, starting in July. I’d met Brian a year ago, while using Angel Island as a base camp for a week of paddling with my friends John Weed and Matty Kinsella. Brian had been camped nearby with a Sea Trek-guided group of students from a school in Marin.
He had called e-mailed me early in April, wanting to chat about that Mississippi trip, with a view toward finding out if I could help him score any kind of media coverage. We agreed the best way to talk was by taking a local paddle ourselves. A down-wind, down-tide run from Coyote Point to Redwood Creek was set for Monday, but thwarted by the sudden appearance of a south wind. So, this Golden Gate outing on Friday was our Plan B.
The sun rose gloriously through scraps of fog over San Francisco as we powered out onto the Pacific below the bridge, assisted by a faint boost from the last scraps of the ebb current. It felt lovely to be accompanied by long skeins of black cormorants, flapping in formation just above the waves, as they went to sea for a day of feeding. Often, also, many a common murre popped back up to the surface nearby. Harbor seals would poke the gray boulders of their heads up to check us out. Thank God we live in a place that still has some sea life to it!
Little marine traffic of a human nature was evident at that hour, though; just us, and a couple of ocean-going tugs churning back in through the Gate. Man, I’ve gotta say, those tugs are hella stout-looking watercraft.
Though a moderate swell heaved under our boats, the sea surface was calm at first, due to our shelter in the crook of the Marin headlands.. An 8-10 mph northwest wind began to wrinkle things up as we approached the Point Bonita light.
We yacked about all the glories of heading to sea, as illustrated by the nautical history of Bay Area native novelist Jack London. I’m working on an article on London’s photography, so I had hipped myself recently to much of the author’s history. But Brian seemed to know a fair amount also, due I guess to his personal interest and general education. He himself is a sailor and the son of a sailboat racer, and quite knowledgeable about all things nautical.
We had entertained the notion of adventuring by paddling through a “needle-eye” cave that pierces through the cliff at Point Bonita. Once we rounded the corner, it was obviously far too rough to try a stunt like that. The swell, garlanded with wind chop, was bashing right into the cliffs. Daring the passage of that cave would have been a Tsunami Rangers move, demanding the use of motocross body armor, brass balls, considerable chutzpah, and lotsa luck.
The water off Point Bonita was confused, but I felt comfortable and happy in my boat, a Necky Looksha IV (in Kevlar lay-up), one of my three sea kayaks, and by far the most sea-worthy. Only, sadly, not the fastest! I bought it off Steph Dutton in the 1990’s, well after he had finished his epic paddle from B.C. to Baja.
So we turned south to link another leg of the Golden Gate triangle, paddling down to Mile Rock. This gave us recourse to a nice course: both the swell and wind were at our backs now, and gave a nice surfin’ shove-along to our progress.
Mile Rock is decorated with a red-and-white striped concrete cylinder that was once the base of a lighthouse—supposedly, one of the harshest sites for a “wicky” to be stationed. They had to be hoisted into the place by a crane, and when it came time to leave, if the weather happened to be bad, there they jolly well stayed until things improved.
We rounded Mile Rock, where I snapped a few pix. Then we cruised along the SF headlands to Baker Beach. Here, we spotted a different sort of wildlife. Coldwater swimmers were dousing themselves in the chilly Pacific. A couple of dudes were still in the water, while a couple of good-looking gals in bikinis, jogged up and down the beach, trying to get warm again. I appreciated what all of them were doing. I belonged to the Dolphin Club a few years. Coldwater swimming is a San Francisco traditional exercise, one with a distinguished pedigree, and it’s a sensual hoot to boot. Believe it or not, your body can adapt.
Brian told me of his Mississippi plans during this leg. It’s an ambitious project. He has a degree in environmental education, and this is one way to make direct use of it. Such a voyage is also a grand adventure for a young man, and if you are in your mid-20s, grand adventures are what you should do—in my opinion. Settling down can always be saved for later. Be interesting to hear how it goes. Though, as I told Brian, I’m not sure whether any West Coast media can be generated at this point.
We angled out into the Gate shipping channel to snare our share of the first of the flood. I aimed at Point Diablo. Maintaining the same relative bearing, after we’d moved a mile, I found myself aimed at Lime Point, still getting shoved sideways under the bridge. Always fun having the tides do a bit of the work for you!
We made landfall back at Horseshoe Cove shortly after 11 a.m., completing a jagged, ten-mile triangle. Brian stretched his legs on the beach, then took off for Tiburon. Smart, fit, friendly, calm young man. Good to see him forge ahead in the paddling realm. I predict great things lie ahead for Mr Coggan.
Kayak Surf at Pillar Point
4/6/2009
The NOAA Web site predicted 6 foot swell arriving at 14 second intervals on this Monday, which is a sweet-sounding set of numbers for those of us into the sport of kayak surfing. Now, I know that you board surfers out there think it’s an aberrant form of surfing – if not an abortion – but the very first surfers in California were kayak surfers. No kiddin’: the Aleut sea otter hunters who came down here with Russian traders from Alaska in the early 1800s.
I got into the sport just a little bit later, in the 1970s, when I was living in the coastal town of Mendocino. I used a river kayak, a Hollowform, to putt around in the shore break and explore the sea caves in the headlands, during those early days. Nearly got myself squished in some of those caves, but those adventures are another story!
Anyhow, I was fortunate enough to be in on the founding of the Nor Cal kayak surf contests in the mid-1980s, and was on the first U.S. team when we went to Ireland in 1988. These days, I no longer compete, but love going out with friends in a boat I designed with the assistance and advice of Dick Wold. (The model is called, “Swerdis,” which is Celtic for sword.)
On the Monday in question, I rang up another pal, John Lull, who lives in Granada, and we decided to snatch some rides off the end of Maverick’s Reef, off Pillar Point. This is just slightly inland of the place where the big wave board surfers tempt fate on the famed Maverick’s wave – celebrated as one of the biggest, baddest waves on the planet. The same swells crop up in milder (and much safer) form off the end of the visible reef.
Well, that morning, the WNW swell was a bit bigger than predicted: coming in at 8-9 feet and 17 seconds. The westerly direction sent it smack into the reef, and there were no traveling peaks at Mushroom Rock, the take-off point we like to use. Instead, these waves were jumping up and flopping over, a whole 20-40 of the lip crashing down at once. Not a recipe for kayak surfing happiness.
Remember Falstaff on discretion and valor? I do, all the time!
Lull and I decided not to expose ourselves to that pummeling, but just workout in the reverberation waves that swept around into the cove, and grew to nice, little, playful (if chaotic) four foot-high reforms as they swept up onto a rocky shelf and hit the beach.
We got out there at high tide, and I was wondering if the Maverick’s board surfers would try to take advantage of the swell. It was almost big enough to make outside Maverick’s go off when the tide dropped – and pickings have been slim for those guys this year. Sure enough, we hadn’t been fooling around in the cove ten minutes when I saw a hooded figure paddling in on a long board – Grant Washburn, a big, friendly guy who is one of the “Mav’s” regulars. He said he had tried the swell off Mushroom Rock, found it unappetizing, and was heading into the beach to hook up with a friend from South Africa. They’d go have some breakfast, wait for the tide to drop, see if the outside waves sharpened up.
Lull and I spent about two hours, bashing and crashing around in the reverberation waves, called it a nice workout on a lovely spring day, and headed for shore ourselves. Moral to the story? Maybe something like: the more times you practice your combat roll, the fewer times you’ll likely end up having to use it. Or, even better, what Ratty said to Mole in “Wind in the Willows”: “There's nothing, absolutely nothing, half so much worth doing as simply messing around in boats.”
Ski Thunder Saddle at Kirkwood
3/27/2009
Some winter resorts possess the potent allure of a mecca – especially for those of us who love the High Sierra with unreasoning passion. Kirkwood is one such place for me. Its sheer isolation – you have to cross two high passes south of Lake Tahoe to get there from other resorts - give the place a sort of solitary splendor, in the same way that a single gem can shine the brighter and beguile with more charm than a row of stones.
My devotions at Kirkwood take the form of steadily trying to tackle ever-harder runs down slopes that plummet from such lofty and distinctive features as Thimble Peak, The Sisters and Glove Rock. I should point out that while I did grow up skiing, since I was raised in Florida, it was only water skiing. Snow skiing, in both Nordic and Alpine forms, only entered my life in my early 30s. Initially, I was clumsy at it as a calf on roller skates.
But the good news is that now, a quarter-century on, I’m still getting better! That’s one advantage of adopting a sport in adulthood. There’s plenty of folks in every spot who must look regretfully back at a heyday in their 20s. That’s when they turned in their hottest performances. They’ve been in decline ever since. In my case, I was still emerging from intermediate status when I was 40. I can look forward to doing better on the bumps and off-piste steeps in my 60s. Assuming, of course, that my creaky knees hold up!
This particular Friday, I arrived at Kirkwood early, met my friend John Kleinfelter at The Wall chair, and we warmed up by zooming the groomers for two hours. The snow was indeed the “firm packed powder” of resort brochures, the temperatures were cool, the winds were low and – on a spring weekday – the lift lines absolutely non-existent. Just a few of the reasons why I’m such a huge fan of midweek spring skiing.
Then we met Kathy Hubbard (from the California Ski Industry Association) on her snowboard and her charming companion Matthew, a highly-skilled three-pinner, and proceeded to tear up the backside.
On one of these runs, Kleinfelter peered over the lip of Thunder Saddle into the off-piste bowl below, and pronounced it good.
This was a place I’d often glimpsed from the Caples Crest chair, wondering if I’d ever develop the sand to give it a go. Looked like today was gonna be the day! The snow had softened enough to give my Fisher Big Stix plenty of bite (I ski 185s) and we wound through moguls – with me pausing to catch my breath and enjoy the views, all the way back down to the flats. Made me wonder why I’d waited so long to drop in here. Made me think I ought to drop in on more places. Another notch in the old ski pole. And believe me, since I’m still using an old pair of Chouinard adjustables, there’s lots of notches. Good, deep ones. (Buenos notches . . . )
Sometimes I feel like a guilty child, swiping a sugar cookie from the jar, when I ski. I know that it’s a pricey, energy intensive endeavor, that global warming could put the kibosh on it, and that burning carbon to get here and have my fun might subvert the very thing I come to enjoy. But ardent exercise in clean air with good friends, the pleasure of speed and the small, pleasing triumph of succeeding at a new, challenging run make me hope that humankind somehow will manage to keep creating experiences like this for a great deal longer. I just wish we could do it solely on solar and wind power.
At least ski mountaineering passes the energy morality test, and with flying colors. You can power that with granola. Or beer, chips and salsa!