Año Nuevo Elephant Seals
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Last winter when we went to see the elephant seals at Año Nuevo State Reserve, it was late in their mating cycle, so it was mostly mothers and grown pups that were on the beach. This year we wanted to see the males and hopefully catch them as they battled for turf and dominance. They come ashore starting at the beginning of December and the park starts tours on December 15, so our hopes were high. Tersha, her niece Brianna, Augie, Linda and I headed out on the tour, glad for the wonderful nice weather we were having. Angie was our tour docent and our group included folks from London and a family from Amsterdam with their rambunctious young sons. We enjoyed the walk down to the beach and enjoyed seeing the bulls lounging on the beach. Unfortunately the bull seals considered the nice brisk 50′F temperatures, that we were thankful for, to be extremely warm so they were being very inactive in order to not overheat. But it was still a fun time. Afterwards, we stopped at the Pigeon Point Light Station State Historic Park before heading home.
Channel Islands National Park - Santa Cruz Island (Day 3)
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Day 3 in the Channel Islands National Park. Again, a beautiful morning to walk up to. Lisa headed out on the solo dawn hike this morning, I stayed in camp and nursed a blister on my foot. Those plastic sandals are not meant to be walked in for several miles <grin>. After we packed up our gear, we headed to the beach for a bit more tide-pooling before catching the boat back to the mainland. We enjoyed a nice lunch in Ventura Harbor and then we all headed north towards home.
Channel Islands National Park - Santa Cruz Island (Day 2)
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Day 2 in the Channel Islands National Park. What a nice way to wake up, it’s daybreak, birds are chirping, the perfect temperature and the glow of a sunrise that hasn’t popped over the ridge yet. All is quiet, not another camper is stirring, so I grab my camera and plan to walk up the road just a bit and see what the other campground looks like and hope to maybe see the little foxes again while it’s quiet. I get to the other camp and see the sign for the Potato Harbor Road and head towards it. I get to the start of the trail and a boy is giving me the “shhh” sign… there’s a little fox on the trail between us and we both quietly watch it for awhile as it figures out how to avoid both of us. The boy was ecstatic, he’d been up since 5am looking for the foxes and was delighted to see one. I start walking up the trail, thinking I’ll be able to see the ocean from the top. Well, I get to the top and can’t see the ocean, but I do see the trail spread out before me and decide, what the heck I must be half way to Potato Harbor, let’s go check it out. It was a gorgeous walk to the end of the trail, the dawn light was just gorgeous and the temperature was darn near perfect. Potato Harbor is a beach and cove surrounded by cliffs and there is no way to get down from the trail I was on. I thought I heard seals barking down there, but I couldn’t see any. As I’m heading back to camp, I realize the non-wisdom of heading out on a hike totally unprepared. By now the sun has come up over the ridge and I am walking directly into it. I have no hat, no water, no sunscreen and am wearing plastic sandals; thankfully it was only a couple of miles back to camp. When I got back to camp, the others were awake and were deciding what hike to do that day. I bowed out; they headed towards Smuggler’s Cove and I spent the day chasing shade to keep my sunburnt arms out of the sun as much as possible. I did a little tide-pooling while they were gone and saw some starfish and pretty green sea anemones. The rest of the crew came back from hiking and we all just hung out and relaxed. David found a garter snake near his tent and he displayed his snake charmer skills by adeptly handling and calming the snake. Paige won the dice game and did the appropriate funky winner’s dance. After dark we went looking for the phosphorous fish again, but tonight, it was large fish running and jumping out of the water when the light was shone on them–very cool to watch.
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Channel Islands National Park - Santa Cruz Island (Day 1)
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Paige from the NorCal Hikers Yahoo Group organized a campout to Santa Cruz Island, the largest of the islands in the Channel Islands National Park. Candace, Lisa and I left Sacramento Thursday night after work and headed down south to Ventura (near Los Angeles). We caught some Z’s at the Motel 6 and then were up bright and early to meet Paige, David and Rebecca (Bex) at the Island Packers dock for the boat ride over to the island. The boat ride to the island is about 20 miles and took about 1.5 hours and was pretty smooth sailing, unless you’re susceptible to sea-sickness. We arrived at the island while it was still shrouded in morning fog, but once that burned off, it was gorgeous sunshine for the rest of the weekend. Once we debarked, everyone formed a line and as people’s packs and stuff were unloaded from the boat, we tossed them to each other down the pier, in the old fire-bucket-brigade style. Once the boat was unloaded, we shouldered our backpacks and made our way down the long, hard, arduous road–all 1/4 mile of it!! After we settled into camp and enjoyed lunch, we took the short Cavern Point Trail next to camp and walked up into the clouds (or fog) and enjoyed a nice view of the island and Scorpion Anchorage Harbor from above. As dusk settled in, I glanced up and spotted the little island foxes that we would see on and off during the weekend. They are native to the island and were nearing extinction, but efforts are underway to preserve them. These cute little foxes were just as comfortable coming into the camp area as Henry the Seagull was as he was vigilantly on the prowl for unsecured food. He was rewarded once today that we saw, the folks at the next camp over left their food out and then walked away. Night settled in and there was a little breeze, but it was a nice night and the half-moon provided so much light, it was very pretty. We took a walk down to the pier and when David trained his flashlight on the pitch black water, little phosphorous fish were revealed that created long flowing trails in the water. Paige took some night photos and then we all called it a night.
