kaolin fire presents :: photo gallery

Austin Creek State Park w'Amy

What a long, strange trip it's been. Of course, that's always the case, except when it's a short trip, or perfectly ordinary. Those sorts of things don't tend to get lots of pictures taken of them, though. I hereby present you with a bunch of pictures of a (actually, kinda short) trip up to the Austin Creek State Recreation Area. One of the best things about this place, IMHO, is that they don't take reservations. So they aren't booked for years in advance. First come, first served.

Amy and I went on a shopping spree at REI getting last minute goodies to make our trip easier. (possible, really -- backpacks, water purifier, water bottles, clif bars...) ...

We headed out early Saturday morning (well, we made it onto the highway properly on our way by about 9:30 or 10:00 -- I'd been hoping to get around 8:30. That was okay, though. And then we stopped for some fast food on the way because we forgot to get breakfast, and didn't want to break into our camping supplies (shouldn't have let that worry us, we only ate half the clif bars we brought). We had a rather uneventful trip up to Guerneville, and up the main camp road, and made it there around ... 11:30.

They were booked full, both park-n-camp and the "primitive" hiking trails. But everything was due to clear up the next day, pretty much, the next day being Sunday. We zipped out, found a not-so-elcheapo camp site to crash at for one night, and then wandered around hunting down my memories of five years before.

Five years before I'd been introduced to this selfsame camp spot that I was aiming to get to, and on the way two places imprinted themselves on me. One was a particular stretch of beach and one was a particular indian restaraunt. We found both.

There was a herd of sea lions at the beach, along with gulls, and Amy and I scrambled down the craggy clifflike area down to try to sneak around to them and get a better picture. (we didn't succeed in the picture, but I did manage to scare myself climbing around, and we did get to the bottom (not necessarily in that order -- I managed to scare myself on an entirely different piece of rock that was actually jutting up and out even close to the sea lions ... but not close enough. I need an external 2x optical zoom for my camera!)) Climbing around in the sand was fun, and we looked at remnants of a raging beach fire (that I'd been there for 5 years ago, the entire beach ablaze...), and dead crabs, a dead starfish, and gulls (lots and lots of gulls).

Eventually we climbed back up, took a couple parting shots, and went to have a small meal at the Tandoori restaraunt. I *really* wanted some of their chai, and it was as good as I remembered it. They didn't really like the fact that we split a single lunch entree, but they dealt with it. It was rather expensive to eat there.

On the way back, Amy was jonesing for a tuna noodle casserole sort of thing, so we picked up ingredients at a convenience store sort of thing. While we were there, we decided to try and help eachother check our spending and come up with budgets and such. This came on the tail (ish) of a fair amount of eating out (sharing favorite restaraunts), seeing movies (just because), and stuff like that. Not to mention buying all the stuff for this camping trip...

Back at the camp, we moved the picnic table to make a more comfortable spot for the tent, set up the tent, and took a nap. Then we wandered about the campgrounds a bit -- I tried to follow a trail to somewhere interesting, but it became monotonous. We ate dinner and prepared for the next day.

At 7:30 (or so), we woke up, got stuff together, and headed to the ranger station thingamy. They gave us our pass (for $7 a night -- try and find a hotel that cheap!) and told us where to park and all that business. We drive in (a long, windy road at 5-10mph) and eventually find the spot to park, load up our packs, psyche ourselves up, and trudge the first .2 miles uphill to get to the trail head.

It's 10:30am, give or take, hot as all getout, we're already a bit tired (first wind? what first wind?), and we're just making it to the trail head.

The first 1.5 miles is a twisty, sunny (hot, hot, hot! Why did we do this in the middle of the day?) romp downhill. We pass a couple of folks on the way down that keep wanting to know how much further it is -- some good natured, some more tired than that.

At the bottom, we make it to our first refilling point. We just went from about 1400 feet to about 600 feet, and we're at a creek. We drink what we can, refill our bottles, exchange a little banter with a family-ish-unit gathering their strength for the way up, and trudge on.

The next bit is about 1.2 miles over a little hill. Up about 400 feet and back down, give or take. Part of it is in the shade and that is a welcome respite. We stop at the top of the hill (a little over half of the 1.2 miles, I think) and have lunch. This is where Amy is introduced to the wonder that is Clif bars. She's not quite hungry enough to appreciate them. That changes. We get up and trudge on.

The next waypoint is really just a trail branching off -- and .7 miles to go to the next waypoint. Just a couple hundred feet from that is another creek, but we're doing fine on water and we just want to get to where we're going, already. Trudge, trudge, trudge. We're getting to mostly flat trail, but our energy has been sapped by the first hill and the sun. The sun is a powerful killer.

Another .7 miles after the next point (which is just another crossing of trails), and we're at our site (practically -- we have to cross the river, which isn't really that difficult. A bit difficult to do without getting wet... but we succed). We take off our packs and I collapse on the convenient park bench.

We set up our tents and spend the rest of the evening and the next day relaxing. We play cards, we read our books and magazines, we avoid the throng of bees and flies, we think of things to bring next time that we forgot or discarded, things to do differently, enjoy eachother's company...

We did have a couple of visitors, over time. First, I think, a guy came by, utterly lost. He was looking, basically, for the ranger's station. He wasn't carrying anything but a water bottle and had come the exact trail we took. What he'd needed to do was go down the road we drove up, or take a trail that somewhat paralleled that. We showed him the map we purchased for fifty cents at the ranger's station, discussed it a little with him, and sent him on his way.

Later, a lady on a white horse came by, passed the stream by us, disappeared for a while, passed the stream back, and disappeared for good. About an hour and a half after she disappeared going back, another lady came by looking for her (also on a horse, dappled gray). She went off on her merry way as well.

The only other external disturbance was a large white SUV. The folks in it got out and surveyed the river a bit, picked out a path to take, and drove across it. I think they went to the other campsite around the bend some. We didn't look. Some of them came down to the river again later and filled some buckets with water.

The first night, strange noises kept us up. It really sounded like something gnawing on wood, but we couldn't place it. My best guess was a squirrel, but Amy suggested it might be a raccoon hassling with our stuff. I got out of the tent, looked around, couldn't find anything, and went back in. About twenty minutes later the sounds came back. I got out again, more quietly, without the light. I couldn't see anything moving... but I could localize the sounds a little better. They were apparently coming from the box (provided with and attached to the picnic table) we'd stored our food in. Cautiously, I unlatched it, and opened it (bracing for a fifteen pound raccoon to come barreling out through me) to discover two mice. They were very cute. They disturbed our Chex mix and one package of dried apples, so I let them be (after relocating the rest of the food). I went back to sleep. When morning rolled around, they'd also attacked our roll of toilet paper, using it for bedding.

The last night we were there (second night, monday night), we went to bed early. We woke up at 5am and were packed up by 6:30. It was still twilight out. Most importantly, it was still cool out. We made good time all the way back, basically, practically finding it easier to return than to go. Not being out under the sun the whole way made a huge difference. Just before we made the last point before the trek all the way up the huge hill I noticed I'd left my glasses back up at the top of the middle hill. I actually had enough energy to jog and walk most of the way up and then run and jog most of the way back [with Amy watching our gear]. (the jostling of the running actually managed to massage some very tight muscles).

And that was basically it. We made it back to the car, drove home, took showers, and ate lots of spaghetti.