Outdoor Adventures

[Dirk Diggler]

A lot of us live in some incredible places, I thought it would be cool to have a place to show the REAL nature of the places we live. Feel free to post any stories and/or pictures.

 

 

I live in a small town called Grover Beach, halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, right on the coast. A stretch of the beach/dune area is open to OHV use, while the northern and southern parts are state beaches. I had been wanting to go exploring down the beach for some time, so I decided I would do it one weekend.

 

The red line on the map shows the path I took down the coast

 

I set out from my house (about 12 blocks from the beach) at 9 am with a backpack, sleeping bag, tent, food, water, a knife, lighter, weed, and a hatchet. I brought along my phone for emergencies and to take some pictures. The first few miles of my trip were along the populated areas of the beach. By the time I hit the sand I already had taken off my socks and shoes and strapped them to my backpack. I didnt put them back on until I got home 2 days later. Most of the people driving on the beach were giving me weird looks, but I probably looked pretty strange/homeless so I didnt think anything of it.

 

Around noon I had reached the boundry of the OHV area and was now on a stretch of the beach that was only accessible by foot, and after a few miles walk. That was the last time I saw another human being for the next day. The beach here was amazing, it was a total different world than the beach I had just been at. Drift wood scattered the beach, while the water was to my right and some dunes to my left. It was amazing the things I found on the beach. Trash, clothing, 60 foot trees that had been logged, I even found 2 electrical poles with the metal pieces (dont know the name) on the top of them. I came across a styrofoam box with a few switches on it, with a Lockheed Martin label. Turns out it was a transmitter for a weather balloon.

 

I continued down the beach until around 5 pm when the sun was about to go down. I headed up into the dunes for a ways to find a good place to camp. There were signs posted every mile or so stating that camping was prohibited, so I wanted to make sure I was out of sight in case any kind of ranger patrolled the beach at night. I found a nice high flat spot with dunes all around me, but hidden from view of the beach, and decided that was a good place to stay. I set up my tent and explored my surroundings, gather pine cones, trash, and some drift wood. I came across a lot of snake, rabbit, and deer tracks, and also a large number of coyote tracks. I headed back to the tent to start a fire and call it a night. The following photos are from the first days camp:

 

Facing West

 

Facing South

 

Facing East

 

Facing North. The dim lights in the center are home

 

A few sunset shots and other shots

 

 

 

 

 

That night was the worst I have slept in my life. It was cold, the ground was hard, and it was windy. Sometime in the early morning I awoke to a rustling sound at my head and something pressing and jabbing against my head. My first thought were coyotes, I had beef jerky in my tent and figured they could smell it. I layed still for a few minutes, hoping whatever it was would lose interest and leave. I slept with my knife and hatchet next to me, so I slowly grabbed them and layed still. I was just starting to think that whatever was outside had left, when my tent started to cave in on me and something was on top of me. I jumped up yelling, punching, and swinging the blunt end of my hatchet around. I didnt connect with anything, so I crouched down and kept silent trying to listen. I was peeking outside the mesh of my tent to see if I could see anything, and when I was sure there was nothing there, I went outside ready to kick some ass. The moon was full, and the sand was white so I was able to see pretty far into the distance. I couldnt see or hear anything, so I went back to the tent and checked around it. I didnt see any tracks or disturbances on the ground, and discovered what had happened. I didnt stake down the corners of my tent, and when the wind picked up it was blowing the tent against me. The tent rubbing against my sleeping bag sounded like a dog smelling something, and it was blowing hard enough for it to feel like something was pressing against me. I dont know if I was too high or tired, but I really thought I was being attacked that night. Looking back on it, I wish I had some cameras set up like Man VS Wild so I could see myself thrashing around in the tent :D

[Dirk Diggler]

I woke up that morning around 6 am and packed everything up. I walked back down to the beach and this is what I saw

 

I continued walking for a few hours, taking in the sights and enjoying some home made jerky. I came across a nature preserve sign showing where I was

 

A few miles later, a small lake came into view on the side. This lake feeds from about 12 other small lakes back in the dunes area, and is known as Oso Flaco. The water is all fresh water, so I went for a swim and to rinse off

 

By this time the sand dropped off sharply where the water met it, and the waves practically crashed onto the sand.

 

The southernmost visible point of the coastline from my house is called Point Sal. By 2 pm I was a few miles from Point Sal. Point Sal has a HUGE dune that climbs up into the mountain range, visible in the left of this picture

 

Coming up to Point Sal I came across another small lake that was where the Santa Maria river fed into the Pacific Ocean.

 

I continued up the beach and was amazed at what I saw. The beach and sand the extended for miles east turned into huge sand cliffs. Over the years people had scaled up the cliffs and carved their named into the hard dirt faces. I climbed up and carved my name next to another that read "Mark and Shannon P, 1989"

 

Protruding from these cliffs were the strangest rock formations. Most of them looked like man made walls, while others looked like they would have been a foundation for some type of structure. The passage between these two roack walls led back to the sand cliffs, then cut back and had another small passage/cave that extended down into the ground about 6 feet.

 

A few hundred feet further down the beach, I came across a small cove with the same man made looking rock walls around it. The face was a huge dune, I later found out from my father that back in the 80s you were able to drive all the way down to this cove, and people would try to climb up the dune in their 4x4s.

 

At this point the waves were breaking against cliffs, so I had to head up hill. I made my way up the giant sand dune and along the edge of the cliffs and was blown away at the view. Looking back towards home, I could barely make out where I had started out. Facing south, I saw small and large cliffs along the coast, some of them having small beaches between them that were visible only at low tide.

 

Facing Home

 

South

 

Looking down from a cliff

 

I sat on the edge of a cliff and snacked on some jerky and cornbread for a few hours, then decided to find a good place to set up camp. I hiked down to one of the small cliff ledges to the south and found a grassy area to set up the tent at. I set up the tent on the green ledge to the left/middle of this photo (where you can see people fishing)

 

By this time my phone had died from taking pictures, so I did not get any more pictures from that point. This time I staked down the corners of my tent, built a small fire, and had a good nights sleep. The feeling of having a 40 foot cliff above you, a 20 foot drop below you, and waves crashing underneath was incredible, I cant even begin to describe it. I never felt more at peace in my life.

 

I awoke the next morning very early and started my trip back home. I made it down Point Sal about a mile up the beach when I came across a guy fishing. I stopped for a while and chatted, and ended up trading some of my home made jerky for a fish he had caught a few minutes earlier, a barred surfperch. While talking to the man, I learned that he had immigrated here from Cozumel, Mexico after retiring. He told me he spends every morning fishing, then takes his catch home to his wife, who does all of the gardening and farming. They live in a small house in the hills, with no running water or electricity, and provide all of their own food by fishing, hunting, and farming. He invited me to fish with him, telling me that he is there every morning at 4 am, and that I was welcome at his house anytime. I thanked the man for the fish and started walking. A few miles later I found a nice spot out of the wind and built a small fire and placed a large rock in the center. I cleaned and gutted the fish and cooked it on the rock once it was hot. It was great tasting considering I cooked it with drift wood and a rock.

 

I was tired of walking and wanted to get home and take a hot shower as soon as possible. I decided to walk straight home and not camp out another night, and ended up getting into town around 10 PM. I took a nice hot shower and went straight to bed, and ended up sleeping for 14 hours.

 

I plan on going out again on the same course, but this time I plan to go further south into what is known as Paradise Beach. I also plan on meeting the fisherman I met and seeing how he lives his life from day to day, which will be a whole other post for me.

[DAT510]

that's an epic adventure. ill post mine tomorrow after school -_-

[jefe de jefes]

Cool man. Must be nice to just get away. Take extra batteries next time.

Thanks for sharing.

[Jennifer]

awesomee storyy ( I lovee storiess :frantics: !!! i wish i lived near the beacchh :lol:

[Dirk Diggler]

Thanks guys. I have about a hundred or more pictures from other excursions I have taken, with a lot more planned in the future (grand canyon coughing it :D), I will be posting the ones I have as I get extra time. Anyone is welcome to share stories, pics or not.

[turboHLS30]

Very nice story, I also love the pics. How long did it take you to do the whole trip? (Roundtrip)

[Dirk Diggler]

I left Friday morning and got back on Sunday night. It was close to 40 miles round trip

[DREWSDIME]

Thats some man vs wild shit right there! How much did all your gear weigh?

 

 

[Dirk Diggler]

Thats some man vs wild shit right there! How much did all your gear weigh?

My other trips are more man vs wild, ie killing and eating rattle snake. I'd say my backpack about 2 pounds, food about 2 pounds, water about 5 pounds, tent and sleeping.g bag about 5 pounds, knives and hatchet about 3 pounds, weed 1/4 pound lol. About 20 pounds total, I travel light.

[DAT510]

man vs wild?

[murderwagon]

this is awesome. i will be checking this out for sure

[Dirk Diggler]

About 45 minutes drive on a really nice country road leads to Lopez Lake. It is a man made lake, caused by the building of a dam on a small stream. It is open to the public for day use and camping, we like to go every weekend to either camp or just fool around.

 

A few months ago I headed up for the night with a buddy of mine that I went to high school with. We loaded up his truck with all of our gear and set out really early in the morning. We got to the park around 6 am and headed straight for the water. We brought a kayak with us, and loaded up some fishing equipment. We found a spot that was easy to launch off of ( the grassy area in the left/middle of the picture), and started paddling out into the water. The lake is usually around 60-70% full, but with the heavy rains this year the lake was at 95%+. We noticed a small dock across the lake, so we decided that would be a good place to head to. We hooked a few trawling lines to the kayak and let them trail about 25 feet behind up. Small mouth and large mouth bass are the most common fish in the lake, and trawling is a great way to catch them, however by the time we reached the other side the only thing we had caught was a buzz.

 

 

We brought along a trot line and some crawfish traps that we set along the shore and explored the woods around the area. We came across a few turkeys, some mallard ducks, and 4 wild boar, however we didnt bring any guns and it wasnt exactly hunting season. We took a walk up to the top of the mountain to stake out some good places to come back to later and had a few beers while we rested.

 

 

 

After taking in the sights and screwing around for a few hours, we set off back to the kayak and to check our lines and traps. Again, the only thing we managed to catch was a buzz. We decided that with the recent rise in water level and the amount of live plants that were now under water, that the fish hadnt come up from their usual depths, at least that made us feel better for not catching anything. We paddled back across the lake and went to scope out a camp site. We found a perfect spot, back against a small ravine with a little stream running through it and a few game trails. It had started to rain, but we werent ready to set up camp yet, so in a drunken stupor, we started a fire and I made a canopy out of tent poles, rope, and my tent cover.

 

 

After the rain died down and our 12 pack had died down, we went for a hike up a trail behind some other camp sites. Not 3 minutes before we walked up, a group of 4 kids around 7-12 years old started up the trail ahead of us. We walked about 50 feet up the trail and I just about stepped on this

 

 

Rattle Snakes are a somewhat protected animal in the park. They are not legally protected, but the killing of one is frowned upon. My buddy and I stood and watched it for a while as it was not irritated and was just sun bathing. Out of no where one of the kids comes running down the trail right at the snake. My buddy yelled at him to stop, and the snake started rattling and coiled up, facing the kid. A few people from the campsites heard my buddy yell and came up the trail behind us to see what was going on. I didnt feel comfortable with a rattle snake being so close to a bunch of children, so I broke a long branch off a bush and pinned it down and cut off the head with a knife. I felt bad at first, but afterwards all of the parents were thanking us and saying if we werent there that one of their kids could have been bit. A mexican lady was talking to my friend (hes moved here from Cancun in high school so he is fluent in spanish) and said that a natural healer had told her to feed her daughter rattle snake to help with an illness she had. We told her we would clean it for them and bring her some. This is my buddy holding it right after I killed it

 

 

I didnt want to hang around with the amount of buzz it was creating in the camp sites, so I threw the snake around my neck and we moved to a different camp site. When we got there I strung it up on a tree to let it bleed out.

 

 

I come from a huge family of hunters and have gained a respect for wild animals. I do not agree with the killing of an animal for sport, and anything I kill I use every part that I can. Well our new campsite was at the top of a hill and had a game trail running right next to it. We are both avid hunters and when I go camping, I rough it. The only provisions we brought were water, whiskey, eggs for the morning and beer. We didnt bring any food at all, so we decided it would be a good time to set out and see what we could get. We grabbed our .22 pellet guns and followed the game trail back into the hills for a few miles until we started to come across wild life. We came across a few deer, however we did not have the desire nor fire power to take down a deer.

 

 

We came across a large group of quail and decided that is what we would have for dinner. The bad thing about quail, is that it is illegal to shoot a quail unless it is flying. The other bad thing, is that we both had single shot pellet guns. We spent about an hour hunting quail, and ended up with 5 good sized ones. We went back out a few hours later and got another 5, plus 3 large gray squirrel.

 

 

When we got back I took down the snake that was tied up on the tree and put it on ice. My buddy and I then started the task of cleaning the quail. As you can see, it is a pretty messy process...

 

 

 

 

After we had all of the quail cleaned we threw them on ice to keep them fresh. While my buddy got the whiskey ready, I decided to start gutting the snake I had killed.

 

 

 

After I had the snake cleaned, I cut off about a third of it and wrapped it in plastic and we took it to the woman who asked for some. As I said before, I do not believe in wasting any part of an animal that can be used, so my buddy and I started to stretch out the snake skin and tack it down to the bench using hooks.

 

 

We scraped all of the fat off and covered the skin in salt to dry it out and preserve it. My buddy made a really nice belt out of it by wrapping the skin around a leather belt he already had. He took the rattler and encased it in some resin and made a belt buckle to go with it.

 

 

The gray squirrel I skinned, gutted, and fried. It has a surprisingly nice taste, a little gamey but not bad. I salted the pelts the same way that we did the snake and I left them out to sit over night. That ended up being a bad idea, as some animal (probably a raccoon) stole 2 of them in the night. I am planning on using the remaining one to make a pouch that I can attach to a belt.

 

 

 

My wife met us out there after she got off work so we went for another hike.

 

 

When we got back it was time to start the food, so I fashioned a rotisserie out of 2 Y shaped branches and a metal rod and started the snake. A guy camping next to us was blasting Charlie Daniels, so we got to talking and he was telling us he was from Kentucky. We offered him a few quail, and in return he gave us some fresh sweet corn and a red onion

 

 

We ended up drinking 2 bottles of Johnny Walker Black with our Kentucky friend and having a good night. My wife was trying to cook in the dark with no light and brought out the headlight I bought her

 

 

My buddy and my wife sotally tober

 

 

The following morning we packed up our stuff, drove home, got a different vehicle, and headed out to a road behind the lake. That will be a whole other post, but here are some teaser pics

 

The drive out there

 

One of many water falls that empties into a pool. In the summer months the water is very refreshing and we hike up to them to go swimming all the time. This particular one is about 30 feet deep and has ledges just as high that you can jump from. This picture is taken from the highest ledge

 

My buddy and wife setting up a turtle trap to throw in one of the pools

[Burabuda]

respect for the handling of the rattler

 

i was driving by an elementary school, and some dumb kids were messing with a dying gopher snake

they claimed it randomly started bleeding, but my guess is they smacked it a few times with a pole

[Dirk Diggler]

Ya I learned my lesson as a kid. I killed a bull frog I found and my mom found out. She made me gut it, cook it, and eat it. Since then I've never killed an animal I didn't eat, and if its not trying to kill me I will leave it alone. I did shoot a mountain lion that was going after one of our horses once, but I didn't eat it because the liver had spots. I did keep the skull, claws, and pelt though. It seems these days kids have no respect for wild life.

[Ooph!]

I really enjoyed the stories, the beach camping alone is something special.

[Wide14u]

reading this make me want to go camping thanks for the story's

[Jennifer]

made a 4 hour trip to monterey/ big sur! planned to hike but the mountain was foggy .. that and my datsun don't mix so i enjoyed the scenery.. here are some oics :D pics don't do justice.. its amazing in person!! big sur has awesome hiking trails and scenery!! look it up :) bigsurcalifornia.org

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

me and my car :)

 

 

bixby bridgee

 

 

at marina state beachh.. i seen this so i decided to take a picturee

 

 

 

[Jayden71]

made a 4 hour trip to monterey/ big sur! planned to hike but the mountain was foggy .. that and my datsun don't mix so i enjoyed the scenery.. here are some oics :D pics don't do justice.. its amazing in person!! big sur has awesome hiking trails and scenery!! look it up :) bigsurcalifornia.org

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

me and my car :)

 

 

bixby bridgee

 

 

at marina state beachh.. i seen this so i decided to take a picturee

 

 

 

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JENN!!!!!!!!

[Figbuck]

Nice photos of the Central Coast. Makes me homesick as hell. I never knew how lucky I was to live next to the Pacific Ocean until I moved. I don't think most people realize how big a place California is. That stretch of Coast from SLO up to Carmel is pretty remote and there are some desolate places back up in the Los Padres National Forest. Big Sur is place you have to go many times to even see a little of it.

 

When I was a teenager it was still legal to drive, camp and have fires on the beach. It totally sucked when they changed the law. The only California law that ever sucked more is the way they decide where to put double yellow lines on the state highways.

 

I was stationed at Fort Ord in the Army. Our unit had to go down onto Hunter Ligget Military Reservation a few times. That is where they have secret war games and develop new battlefield weapons. There were a group of Light Fighter Infantry Officers that used to go down there once a month to hunt wild boars with bayonets. They did too! Big ones with bigg-azzed fangs!

 

If you never sat on the cliffs and watched the sun melt into the Pacific Ocean... your life is a little incomplete...

 

 

[Tristin]

If you never sat on the cliffs and watched the sun melt into the Pacific Ocean... your life is a little incomplete...

 

True that. Im originally from Cali and am a HUGE overnight backpacker. The only thing that topped watching the sun set on the Sierra Nevadas was watching the sunrise onboard the USS Ohio (a submarine) off the coast of [deleted] with no land in site... Gorgeous. That or on the same boat, we were on the surface driving into Australia at about 3am. No boats, no airplanes, no land in site... Just the stars above and the sound of the waves crashing around the boat going through the water. At about 430am dolphins decided to ride our bow wake... Epic. I have some other crazy backpacking stories for later.

 

Heres a few pictures of one of my latest trips through the the Hoh Rainforest:

 

 

 

[Jennifer]

Nice photos of the Central Coast. Makes me homesick as hell. I never knew how lucky I was to live next to the Pacific Ocean until I moved. I don't think most people realize how big a place California is. That stretch of Coast from SLO up to Carmel is pretty remote and there are some desolate places back up in the Los Padres National Forest. Big Sur is place you have to go many times to even see a little of it.

 

When I was a teenager it was still legal to drive, camp and have fires on the beach. It totally sucked when they changed the law. The only California law that ever sucked more is the way they decide where to put double yellow lines on the state highways.

 

I was stationed at Fort Ord in the Army. Our unit had to go down onto Hunter Ligget Military Reservation a few times. That is where they have secret war games and develop new battlefield weapons. There were a group of Light Fighter Infantry Officers that used to go down there once a month to hunt wild boars with bayonets. They did too! Big ones with bigg-azzed fangs!

 

If you never sat on the cliffs and watched the sun melt into the Pacific Ocean... your life is a little incomplete...

 

That's awesome! I was hoping you would see this :) It was definitely wonderful ... my uncle tells me wild boars taste the yummiest!

[Figbuck]

I was driving back to Poortland from SF, on 101 up by the Eel River, and decided to take the old senic highway called the Avenue of the Giants. It was a week day and there was virtually no traffic. It's off season and the campgrounds are closed. I stopped in the middle of the road, got out and shot some photos. I walked up the road a ways and shot this photo.

 

 

A second later a small 4x4 like a Ranger or Yota or something, jacked up four feet in the air, comes flying up the road... It's way down there in the shot. It's a fucking cartoon character of a guy driving the thing. Some obnoxious metal music is blaring from the horrible stereo and this thing is beat to shit. It's a work truck or just transportation out in the country I guess. The guy makes a big point of stopping, putting it in reverse and backing up to where I'm starting to walk back.

 

He starts ranting about me being a stupid tourist leaving my truck in the middle of the road. I said, well i didn't want to be really stupid, pull off and get it stuck. He keep on ranting and I'm getting really pissed. Fucking flat landers, hippies!! It takes all the energy that I have not to do bad things to him and I walk away.

 

Like a little kid that isn't getting enough attention, he starts to leave, but threatens to kill me if he sees me around again. Wonderful. One minute I'm blissing out in the most serene place in the world, and the next minute I'm in the middle of a bad episode of Redneck Pot Farmers of Humbolt County on the Discovery Channel. Skinny white boy, with long greasy hair, smoking a cigarette, wearing a folded up John Deere hat. This guy was what Don Genaro the Brujo told Carlos Castenada about encountering people out in the wilds... a ghost... not a real person. Surreal as it gets.

 

I drove way up past Eureka almost to Crescent City and slept in back of my truck. There is a place I found where they built a big interchange... part of it goes into the forest and stops. Great place to spend the night. Never been bothered or ever seen anybody. Get up first thing in the morning and drive right into the Drury Senic Parkway.

 

 

This place is alive. The trees are so big they have a presence.

 

There ain't a hell of a lot going on out here. After a while you begin to become attuned to a completely different wave length and frequency. I've been through this place for years and years. Every time I try to go to a different spot. I have been wondering about who Newton B. Drury was so I read about him. I decided to go see the tree he saved and they named after him.

 

 

The sun was just coming up and it was having a hard time burning the fog off. It was warm but still kind of wet and drippy in the forest. I took my horn and found the Newton B Tree. What a monster. It is not that tall but a fat sucker!! He is like two thousand years old.

 

 

 

 

So I broke out my horn and played for an hour until I got hungry. I was so in the 'zone'. I was just channeling straight from the unconscious. It was a trip. Like a waking dream, where I could play anything I wanted to hear. I know this probably sounds weird but I could sure feel a kind of presence standing next to old Newt. Some kind of resonant frequency was at work there...

 

 

304 feet tall and 21 feet in diameter...

 

[Tristin]

For some reason I look "tougher" than I really am, but Im on the left, a co-worker is in the middle, and the far right is a co-worker and usually the guy I go backpacking with the most. He and I have started a blog detailing our trips and how to be a backpacking photographer.

 

 

Hey Fig, maybe some time we can come down and see what your area has to offer for trails. Anything you recommend?- the season is about to start where its not constanly crappy up here so Im itching to get out.

 

[Jennifer]

ive reach my + quotas :( awesome pictures tristin! :thumbup: