They were pumping out the RV waste tanks at Fernwood in the morning and it was getting smelly. I heard the man in the next campsite giving voluminous directions and travel tips to some foreign visitors and after they'd finished talking I wandered over myself. I hoped he might know what the camping possibilities were at Pfeiffer Big Sur S.P., which had been all booked up the night before. He didn't know much and in fact was quite modest when I said he sounded knowledgeable talking to the previous group. Different audience, I guess!
He'd heard on the grapevine that even though this is now mid-October and school would normally be keeping families close to home, the parks were very busy. He was not thrilled about camping in the parks. In his opinion the sites were small and too jammed together for comfort. True, prices are lower than in the RV parks, but he and his wife were apparently flush enough to be choosy. He'd grown up in the Monterey area and the two of them had recently returned north after a few decades in southern California. I had not yet decided whether to make the trek east to get to Yosemite and his responses were not useful in determining me, but it was nice to speak to someone in their retirement years who appreciates the land and is still out and about in it.
I got the van ready for departure and went immediately down the road to Pfeiffer Big Sur to try my luck. They had about five spots available and with campground map in hand I went to go choose one. I wound round and over the Big Sur River and the through the fretwork of one-way narrow camp roads trying to escape the haze of smoking eucalyptus campfires. There was no real escape, but I marked down a few choices on the map. I soon forgot why I liked each one, but no matter: the important thing was to get back to the ranger station soon to plunk down my $33 and lock it in place. I beat the rush and was now claimant to site 184, relatively close to the ranger station and the river, but far away via the one-way loops and more loops. I had left a few things on the table to make it clear it was occupied, but I was told to go back once more to the site and clip my placard to the number post.
Then I was free to go find a hike. I'd passed a sign somewhere along the park road that marked an access point for the Pine Ridge Trail, but could not recall just where I'd seen it. Instead, I drove back out onto Highway 1 to Big Sur Station, where a parking lot, visitor center and restrooms make a clear and well-appointed trail head. I spoke to the man at the counter in the visitor center and made a donation toward a trail map to take with me. I had to move the van to a second parking lot intended for long term use by hikers. I read all the instructions on the fee collection envelope and still was not sure if either of my two passes would absolve me of the parking fee. I noticed a shiny white truck with a National Park Service medallion on the side, and as its driver was inside, I approached him.
No, he assured me, there was no such thing as a dumb question. I asked him if he knew if my passes applied here. Was this a state park or was it federal, anyway? Both are in this immediate area: Pfeiffer Big Sur is state run, but it is engulfed within the massive Los Padres National Forest, and the Ventana Wilderness I was about to enter by walking the Pine Ridge Trail is part of Los Padres. He told me this was federal land but as a matter of fact he was about to have a meeting with the man in the visitor center because they had some joint management issues to discuss. He was pretty sure I was covered by my National Parks pass. If I wanted, I could walk back over and ask the visitor center guy but I decided to go with NPS's hunch.
I filled out, deposited, tore off and displayed and decided that was enough paper work. It was time to get out and walk!
It started in shade, and I got glimpses of the campground as the path flanked the river valley the campground occupies. Then the path rose and rose and rose above it and out into sunlight. I was astounded to find that whereas I had had zero to poor cell signal in the parking lot and campground, here I was in Ventana Wilderness, breathing hard and free, looking at steep mountainsides, and suddenly I had great reception on my cell phone. I sent Linnet a text on the strength of it, feeling peculiar. Next thing you know I'll turn into one of those annoyances I meet in the middle of Holy Nature, who stride along yapping loudly into their cell phones.
For this wilderness hike I was wearing my sunhat, some pajama/exercise pants, a T-shirt and my hiking boots. I wasn't yet in dehydration territory, so I made no special effort to load up on water. I didn't expect to be out long. I did bring my thermos with the remains of the hot tea, and every now and then I stopped for a refreshing half cup. I was meeting hikers geared up for serious backpacking, water bottles and sleeping bags dangling. There are hike-in camps further up into the range and these hikers were on the return journey, the final leg of their hike back out into the wilderness of civilization.
One hiker was resting on the side of the trail when I encountered him, rummaging through his pack in search of something. He told me he had come all the way through from "the other side," which I understood to mean something several days' hike away. He held up his find in triumph: "There! My last macaroon!" He did look happy.
I encountered another man a couple of times. First he passed me and then I overtook him as he was resting. He was wearing a shirt that said "FEEL THE BERN." Something made him ask me, "Are you local?" I said, "No, I'm not, but I used to live here." By "here" I meant California broadly, forgetting that of course Berkeley does not comprise the entire state. He told me I looked like I was on my once a week hike. [OK, Not sure why you're telling me that. ] We were on a steep rocky path. I turned, looked back down the trail at him and said, "Oh, I'm just out for an afternoon stroll." [Well, Mr. Throughhiker, if my puny daypack bothers you, wait till you see me drinking hot tea. That'll raise your hackles.]
The cell coverage was good enough for me to use the Maps app and I asked it to find my location. By the shape of the PBSSP boundaries on screen and on the paper map, I could see pretty well where I was at present even though there had been no intersecting trails to indicate specific points along its length. I sure wouldn't want to rely on cell coverage or battery life for a serious hike, but I had fun using the app for something other than finding the nearest Home Depot. It was great to be out and moving my body, breathing hard and feeling my lungs expand and grow easy and more elastic.
Once on a shady stretch of the path I heard two young men approach from some distance away. The path was narrow so they had to go single file and their voices were raised to keep their conversation going. Guy in front: "Who cares? Some people just get way too stirred up about what other people do with their private parts." As we were about to pass, I said: "I agree!!" He looked up slightly startled, then he grinned and said, "Thank you!" We passed by.
When I was ready to return, I simply turned around and backtracked. Rough calculations say I walked a bit under 4 miles.
In the parking lot I met the NPS ranger huddled with the attendant from the Visitor Center. No doubt they were hashing out their joint management issues. NPS asked me if I'd had a good hike and I happily nodded. He told me he'd checked with VC guy on my question, and he'd been right: my federal pass was valid here. VC chimed in then and repeated the steps: "fill out the card, cite the Pass number on the card and display both in the front windshield. No money required. Check, check, and check.
I snapped a photo of a drought notice I found mounted next to the restrooms:
I've been keeping a steady store of five gallons at all times, refilling each jug whenever I have the chance. Water = Life.
I left Big Sur Station and did some running up and down Highway 1. At first I was trying to find Andrew Molera State Park, but then I got distracted onto a hunt for gas. I wasn't terribly low on fuel, but a gas station I passed had a sign claiming it had the last gas for the next 40 miles so I thought it might be smart to fill up so I could forget about it. The Tom-Tom, however, claimed there was gas at some shorter distance in the opposite direction, so I started off in chase of that. I drove long enough to get into another wrangle with Tom (my ignorance or its crankiness? I don't know). I wondered if its data base is out of date. Maybe it would be like the map L and I had in Alaska, dotted with gas stations that no longer existed and stores that had closed down. Once again I found a place to turn around and returned to my starting point. Sometimes you eat it:
I did at last get to Andrew Molera. The only camping here is primitive walk-in camping, reached by a trail that leaves from one end of the parking area. I took a different path that led at length to the beach. The sun was setting by now and cool and dark were moving in. There were pebbles and big rounded smooth rocks embedded in the sand here. The sound of the tide was lovely --- with all the pebbles and smaller rocks washing back with the receding water, it gave off a liquid pebbly sound I found so delicious I took video footage hoping to capture the music. I overheard someone say it was like ice cubes, but there was no glass-clinking here. This song was pure polished stones and water: "Rubble, rubble, rubble, zjzweeeeee ..." Wonderful.
My video skills: Completed Lesson One on capturing in loud detail the sound of wind whipping across the camera's puny microphone. Lesson 2 on removing and avoiding those sounds blew away, so I haven't got it down yet. A brief stretch of pebbly sounds is just audible at the tail end of this clip.
And a shorter edited version below, for the sake of saving bandwidth:
No comments:
Post a Comment