California!

Another state, another blogpost! We’re now in California and the weather is great! Well, not really, it’s raining again but we can’t complain because we’ve made two fantastic hikes the last three days.. 

Sanders last post was from Tillamook where the local police now has produced a series of ‘most wanted’ posters featuring Sander with beard (he has shaven it off now) and Frans in his chill-pants, a pair of pants in which he practically lives; he sleeps in them and on ‘drive days’ he wears them all day as well. To avoid scenes with the law enforcement of Sea Side, we decided to take a trip to the countryside of Oregon and climb the highest mountain in the Coastal Range. After driving 80 km inland, we slept at Philemat County Fair, a place where bull-fighting is the main business in summer. The next day (the 12th) we drove up the mountain and got told by a park ranger (old, with a white beard!) that only last week the entire mountain was off-limits because of the snow. We decided to start walking anyway and within half an hour we were walking through a beautiful forest on the slope of the mountain where it had been snowing only the day before. After climbing ~400 meter, we arrived at the parking lot at the top of the mountain; luckily, the snow had covered all traces of civilization. When we arrived at the peak (~1360 m) we were amazed to discover that Mary’s Peak was the only mountain high enough to be still snowy. 

The next day, we drove all day because we wanted to reach Redwood Forest National Park. Fortunately, the 101 is as beautiful as ever, running parallel to the rugged coastline of Oregon. All along the coast, there are weird rock formations which rise tens of meters from the water up to a kilometre from shore. Obviously, driving along such a coastline is a treat J. We reached Crescent City late in the afternoon and we stayed at a State Camping in the Redwoods. For only 10 bucks a night, we could park the Hoff and I was able to pitch my new tent for the first time and sleep in the forest. 

Yesterday, the weather forecast was very gloomy; we felt like it would be a great waste not to take a hike in Redwood NP and we planned a tour of some 25 kilometres despite the impending downpours. Our courage, determination and enthusiasm paid off: the sky stayed clear all day! The hike was wonderful, we first walked down in a valley which was covered with streams, ferns and enormous Redwoods, trees which live up to 3000 years, can grow to 80 meters and have a stem diameter of several metres. After a while, we ascended a ridge which ran above the landscape and we had wonderful views of the Redwoods on either side of the crest. Eventually, we reached the ocean where the forest gave way to steep cliffs and a wide beach where really large waves reached the shore. We met a local Earth Sciences teacher who had lost his flock of children and we got some tips for our further journey. When we reached the Hoff at 6 pm, we could even take a shower (yay!) and after having a gorgeous meal of pork, rice, carrot and onion we drove for another hour to deliver Sander to the McDonalds for his skypedate with Kaylee. Today we’ll drive another 200 km and hopefully, we’ll be in San Fransisco tomorrow.

See you next time! 


PS: For all our pictures we decided to put online visit: https://picasaweb.google.com/thehoffmeister42