Cosmic

Coastal
Chronicles
Adventures along the West
Coast
By: Meade Fischer

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 CH. 1
THE BIG SUR COAST: MISTY, MYTHIC
MAJESTY

Driving through the rolling hills of California’s central

coast during the luxuriously long spring of 1993, I watched
the scatters of violet lupine on the hillsides and the poppies,
like veins of gold ore along the road. This was the spring
that ran to months rather than the usual weeks and created
an illusion of permanence among the patterns of transient
color. Lost in the sensory flood, I couldn’t help think of a
line from Wallace Stevens’Adagia: “Life is an affair of peo-
ple not of places. But for me life is an affair of places, and
that is the trouble.”
I was on the road alone again, as I’ve often been since I
fell totally in love with every facet of the magnificent world
around me. Often alone, I’m seldom lonley. The experi-
ences I collect fill spaces in my heart that can’t be reached
simply by the company of another.
My old Toyota pick up droned steadily over the undulat-
ing hills past green waves of artichokes, toward Moss
Landing and on to Santa Cruz and the promise of surf at
Pleasure Point. A kayak was strapped to the top, mountain
bike hung on the back, and surf gear stashed under the
camper shell.
Many times, during summers and weekends, this sturdy
little truck, faded and rusty, has been my home. The long
bed accommodates my long frame. A mat from a patio
lounge fits between the wheel wells. The built-in, carpet-
ed compartments give me storage and shelf space. My pil-
low is stuffed against the back of the cab, and a long, thick
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sleeping bag is rolled and ready. A battery powered lantern
is stowed in a compartment along with a pup tent, mask and
snorkel and assorted gear I’ve been too lazy to unload. A
good book is always stuffed under the sleeping bag in case
I spend the night in some scenic turn out along the road.
Naturally a bottle opener and a cork screw are in the glove
box at all times. I’d rather not drink twist off beer or screw
top wine.
Each of these trips adds to the growing collage, the ongo-
ing coastal trip. Slowly, I was starting to fathom that these
trips were more than isolated experiences, unrelated islands
of joy. They were signposts, stepping stones, a trail of
crumbs through the forest of my life. They were all per-
sonal miracles, as numerous as stars in the night sky. Some
were as big and dramatic as the sun, while others were like
the glow of a nebula in a distant corner of the universe.
Each one, whether my first art sale, reaching the almost
mythical waves I’d dreamed of, or watching a fall leaf
silently drop into a calm and dappled forest pool, were infi-
nitely valuable events on the path my life was taking. I was
on the road to discovering the full measure of what it means
to be alive and aware, a road that may take lifetimes to
travel.
I remember a night two years earlier when I went down
to the San Simeon area for a long weekend. It was the year
when almost all the year’s rain fell in March. Big Sur was
so green that it was probably, at that moment, the most per-
fect stretch of coast on the planet, and the usually tiny
creeks were raging torrents, with Yosemite-like waterfalls
dropping from the narrow, vertical, redwood-choked
canyons. I passed through Big Sur to check out Pico creek
at San Simeon and Moonstone Beach in Cambria.
Sunset found me on the San Luis Obispo coast. I think
of this as the gentle coast, with its wide turn-outs beside

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rocky little beaches, slapped by perfectly starched little
waves. The view inland is of Hearst Castle and smooth,
rolling hills, like mounds of melting coffee ice cream.
There are big RVs with smiling retirees for neighbors.
Further north, past Ragged Point at Big Sur, the landscape
erupts skyward. This is a coast of narrow turn-outs perched
on cloud-high cliffs, with people stranger than myself
parked in odd busses under the shadow of trees, plotting
bizarre cures for mankind’s ills while chanting mantras
and smoking copious amounts of pot.
It had started to rain at sunset, so stopping for the night
sounded cozy and comfortable. The sunset was a cauldron
of fermenting color, a recipe for heady dreams. I’d stopped
in San Simeon for a bottle of wine after dinner at the walk-
up grill at Ragged Point. At a good spot above a small
cove, I parked at the edge of the head-high bluff that
dropped down a yard or two to the perfect little crescent
beach. After removing my bicycle from the back and chain-
ing it to the bumper, I put the surf gear in the cab, leaving
the shell with nothing but my narrow bed, book, lantern and
bottle of wine.
Curled up with my pillow propped against the back of the
cab, I uncorked the wine, tipped it to my lips and opened
the book, The Holographic Universe, about the Physics of
the hew age.
The storm kicked up; the rain buffeted the truck, rocking
it back and forth on the suspension. Lightening flashed,
while sheets of water rolled off all the windows. Why the
old shell didn’t leak was incomprehensible. Tilting the bot-
tle back for a sip, I saw between the gushes of water, the
regular pulse of Peidras Blancas light house just two miles
north. Surrounded by darkness, and for all I could see,
totally alone in a wild and surreal world, I read and imag-
ined a primordial land where we all were privy to this rush

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that touches the human psyche at its most primitive and
abstract level. When, a couple of chapters and the bottle
gone, I slid off to sleep, rocked by the benign power of
nature, I was more at peace than I’d been in years.
Awakening in the wee hours to a still and star-blazed sky
only added to the magic.
The next morning was clear. Glassy, tiny waves still
lapped the beach, and the two huge rock islands off shore
glistened in the morning light. The image stuck in my
mind, waiting for the right time to germinate.
There is something about islands that draw me, fascinate
me. Now that I have a kayak, I can follow my impulses to
get close to them. One of those impulses overcame me one
day more than a year later at the very spot I’d spent that
stormy night. This time it was summer, a beautiful day with
hardly a breeze and just enough white puffs overhead to
give the sky some depth. It was as close to a photograph as
nature gets, art in the raw; the stillness of the scene marred
only by the regular swells, emerging soft and plump from
deep water to lap with a gentle tongue at the warm sand.
Those two stone islands stood dark and quiet about a mile
from shore. I had to get to them. I spun a quick U turn and
pulled off the road just above the little beach. Within min-
utes my kayak was off the truck and on the sand. I pushed
out between the little waves and made for the mouth of the
miniature bay, toward open water.
A very gentle swell bobbed me ever so slightly as I
dipped my paddle, drawing ever closer to the dark shapes.
In fifteen minutes I was looking up at smooth granite sur-
faces rising thirty or forty feet above me. The dark stone
gave way to the white of guano deposits from the hundreds
or maybe thousands of birds that used the rocks as an apart-
ment house. From water level I could hear the fussing and
fuming that naturally follows high density living.

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 I paddled around the back of the biggest rock, and for a
few moments the mainland disappeared. The smaller rock
angled gently down to the water, and the surges from each
swell washed over it, creating eddies and transparent layers
of water that shimmered in teal and white and glowed as if
on fire. Paddling with the surge, I slipped between the
rocks, lost for a second in their shade. Then turning around
for one last look at the ancient, aloof and implacable mono-
liths, I started back toward shore and the toy truck on the
distant beach.
These islands have infected me like malaria. They call to
me wherever I roam. I have my eye on many other islands.
One of these is out at Goat Rock by the mouth of the
Russian River near Jenner, a huge rock with a natural arch
in the middle. One calm summer day I’ll go out and paddle
through that arch, which may be, when I get close, five, ten
or even thirty feet wide. Why do I plan to do it? Just, I sup-
pose, for the experience of being one with the surge under
or inside this great rock far from the rugged shore. Also,
there are rocks at La Push I should have kayaked around,
wooded islets that will haunt my days until I’m along side
of them, looking up in awe.
What is it about islands that draws me so and fires my
imagination. I assume that others must feel the same way.
I’ve thought about this fascination with islands since I
began to explore them with a passion.
For me an island is a metaphor for the human condition.
We seem to be separate individuals, forever unconnected to
others around us; like these islands, seemingly isolated even
from their partners only yards away, by a totally different
and fluid medium. Yet, this is an illusion. They don’t bob
about in the water unattached. Below the surface every
island is rooted in the same great crustal plate as the conti-
nent they surround. Look beneath the water and there are

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no islands, only one great piece of land with peaks and val-
leys. So it is with the continent of mankind. I look out at
others, individuals with their own thoughts and feelings and
lives, and only occasionally do I realize that we are like
those islands, each a peak, a sunny hill top on the vast
topography of the giant continent of humanity.
Those two massive rocks a mile offshore and only twen-
ty feet apart are not lovers forever doomed to long for each
other without a chance of exchanging a loving touch. They
are mated through the ages, intertwined at their bases,
below thirty feet of surging ocean, forever touching, for-
ever merged.
It is impossible for me to think of the stretch of coast
between Morro Bay and Carmel without the image of Sand
Dollar Beach coming to mind like a slide forever projected
on the threshold of memory. It is impossible for me to drive
through Big Sur without stopping at Sand Dollar. Arguably
the most beautiful beach on the planet, it sits along the
southern Big Sur coast, just south of Pacific Valley.
My favorite memory of Sand Dollar is from a brilliant,
blue-white early summer day. The ocean was an undulating
mass of emeralds and sapphires. Long, lazy waves welled
up from a quarter mile off shore, giving long board riders an
easy, casual cruise toward shore. The giant, apartment
house-sized boulders on the south end created eddies of
translucent foam at their bases. People wandered the beach,
sunning, throwing Frisbees, peaking into the tide pools at
the extreme south, and making platonic love along the
cliffs. About fifty yards from the knot of surfers, a small
pod of dolphins played lazily, star bursts and liquid gem-
stones bounced and flickered off their backs at they
emerged wet and joyful from a playful dive. Totally
absorbed in their group rituals, the surfers and dolphins
seemed unaware of each other. In this world, this micro-

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cosm called Sand Dollar Beach, all manner of beings are
able to exist in peace.
Out on the horizon sat the fog, always patiently wait-
ing, always ready to slip silently in with a curtain of dream-
like mystery, always poised to bring down the curtain of the
day. At times like that, perched above the beach, checking
the surf and the beauty, I feel as intimately bound with all
life, animal, vegetable and mineral, as is possible for some-
one located within the shell of a jealous ego.
From around Morro Bay to as far north as I’ve wan-
dered, and from the edge of the ocean inland to where the
cool redwood forests give way to charred shrub and the
occasional oak is the land that my psyche recognizes as
home. Within my spacious home is fog-bound San
Francisco, the rolling hills of Marin, the Santa Cruz moun-
tains, the valley of the Eel River. It is also the seemingly
endless Oregon coast, the perfection of the Smith River, the
lush palate of the Olympic Peninsula and the endless water-
ways and peaks of British Columbia. This is more than a
stretch of coastline, it is a poem of cosmic proportions and
infinite shades of meaning. Like some super fractal design,
each millimeter of this land offers a universe of shape,
color, movement and mood . The raw, visceral meaning of
life is encoded in every fallen leaf and in every microscop-
ic gully carved by every individual rain drop. Each great
cliff dropping hundreds of feet to the sea is the product of
an almost infinite number of fragments of cliffs each drop-
ping one to another. Like a painting or like life itself, this
structure is built up of layers placed upon endless layers,
each adding some tiny bit of information, some piece of a
puzzle so complex, so unfathomable as to perhaps be syn-
onymous with the concept of god, whatever that may be.
Sometimes, standing high on a coastal hill, above some
place as magnificent as San Dollar Beach, I am overcome

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with the beauty, the joy, the ancient cellular and atomic
memory of the earth. Feeling the damp, salty breeze on my
face and watching the liquid diamonds on the ocean surface,
like stars dancing out to the horizon, brings tears of happi-
ness and gratitude to my eyes.
This feeling, this opening of my heart like a flower to the
wonder of life can surprise me at any turn. It can arise from
the gentle heartbreak of finding myself alone on Gibson
Beach, north of Big Sur at Point Lobos. The perfection of
the scene calls the stranger to end the painful isolation and
join in the common heart of the place. Faces of curious sea
lions bobbing in the waves, gulls standing above water on
the blanket of golden-green kelp, and rhythmic tidal surges
through the tiny sea arch combine in a tender communion of
animal, plant and rock.
This nameless rush of pure emotion can also contain a
moment of universal consciousness such as the one that
came upon me suddenly years ago an the high bluffs of
Palos Verdes Cove near L.A. While checking the surf from
the bluff, the view from the bluff was suddenly replaced by
the view, pulled from memory, of the bluff seen from a surf-
board out in the cove. And in that superimposed view, I saw
myself looking down at myself, looking up at myself; and
for a moment that could not be measured in time at all, the
world opened up, exploded, and the entire history of the
planet appeared instantaneously before me, like a universe
emerging from a big bang. This wasn’t as a picture exter-
nal to me, but as a deep memory, as if I were somehow
identical to this earth and every thing that has ever been or
will ever be upon it. It was a flash of personal memory. It
was me knowing every facet of me, remembering that
which is eternal but hidden in us all.
For want of that feeling again, to be able to summon it
at will, I try to create some clumsy art, some static picture

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of the dynamic process that moves on the periphery of my
senses and just below the surface of normal awareness. I try
desperately to create something in stone or paint or words
that will show me those extra sensory memories, those per-
sonal connections to everything around me. In the process,
I hope these manufactured artifacts will trigger something
in another, so that for a brief moment we can look on these
things and see each other, ourselves and every speck of cos-
mic dust and every drop of protoplasm adrift on the vast-
ness of the sea.
To me Big Sur will always be a place of awesome beau-
ty, spiritual insights, and art. It has been a place of inspi-
ration and a studio for creation.
I suppose 1 should back up just a bit to trace the unusual
events that led me to start sculpting. It was during the sum-
mer of 1990, the summer I moved to central California,
after living in the Southland and in the Bay Area. Big Sur
had always held a mystical attraction for me, and now it was
my closest open coastal area, and I was spending three or
four days a week there. I was prepared to enjoy it all inti-
mately. My bedroll was in the back of the truck, along with
all my surf. snorkel and photography gear. My bike was
hanging on the back bumper, and I kept a full canteen and a
pair of hiking boots for a spontaneous excursion up the
wooded canyons and to the windswept hills.
I’d been down as far as Morro Bay, enjoying the soft sum-
mer day and hoping for some good waves. The windows
were down and the stereo turned up. I hadn’t a care. Every
detail of my surroundings was imprinting on my mind, cre-
ating an intimacy, an illusion of being a local. I’d pulled into
the Pacific Valley store to pick up some snacks, and I was
driving down the ramp to head back north. At the bottom of
the ramp was someone who looked like a mountain man. He
had on old jeans, an animal hide coat, and a droopy felt hat.

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His hair and beard hung down to the middle of his chest and
back, and he was carrying a dirty bucket with burlap sticking
out the top. He looked to be hitching a ride. I stopped.
He hopped in and told me his name was Ewing, and that
he lived up the road at a scenic turnout in an old van. I
asked him what was in the bag, and he pulled out a rock,
said it was soapstone and that he’d mined it at a local beach.
Sharing a joint with him got him talkative, and he
explained how he carved pot pipes for the surfers and hip-
pie types. He made enough from this to buy food and gas,
and that was pretty much all he wanted beyond just being
able to live at Big Sur.
Back at his van, which was broken down and hadn’t
moved for days or weeks, we talked a bit longer; and he
showed me some of his work. Realizing that I was fasci-
nated by it all, he gave me a five or six pound block of dark
green stone, telling me to try my luck at it. I drove off with
the rock in the back of the truck. I wasn’t to see him again
for a year.
A month or so later I pulled up at Fuller’s beach in Big
Sur, a couple of miles south of Nepenthe, determined to
climb down the trail and try the waves there. There were a
dozen or more surfers already parked, and the overhead
waves were fairly crowded.
I saw a strange looking old guy in the parking area, next
to the road, sitting on a five gallon white bucket and appar-
ently carving something. I carefully hid my wallet and
climbed out. He shouted to me that he was watching the
cars, keeping them from being broken into, and that for a
couple of bucks he’d watch mine. It sounded like a protec-
tion racket to me, that he was saving my truck from being
broken into by him. I declined, and started down the cliff
wondering what I’d find when I came back.
After climbing out into the surf through the boulders and

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making a poor showing of myself in fast overhead surf that
demanded considerable talent, I made the four or five
hundred foot climb up the steep trail. The old bum was still
there, and my truck was untouched. There was a twinge of
guilt. This was probably the only way the old guy had of
making a buck.
Too late to pay him to watch my stuff, and just a bit curi-
ous about what he was doing, I recalled the six pack I had
in the cooler in back, the one I was going to enjoy at my
campsite later that afternoon. I pulled a U turn, stopping
along side the guy. I offered him a beer, and he invited me
to sit a spell with him. So I fished out my tattered lawn
chair and joined him.
The two of us were facing the highway, sipping a beer,
and he told me his story, how he’d lived there for years,
since coming back from the Korean War, how he lived in an
old tent in a secret spot right off the highway just a mile
south of there, how he made food and booze money from
watching cars and from carving little stone pipes like the
one he had in his hand. I remembered Ewing and the piece
of stone and scratched around the back of my truck until I
found it. Ewing was a friend of his, like just about every-
one who hung around Big Sur. In fact, he had taught Ewing
to carve just months before, when the younger man first
arrived. I offered him another beer, and he introduced him-
self. He went by the name of Robot. The name came from
some tricks he would do to entertain people.
Before we finished the beer, he had explained how to
carve a pipe. Before I left, he gave me an old file, claiming
he had another and couldn’t use more than one at a time.
That was a start of a friendship that lasted a couple of
years, until he moved down the beach to a place I’ve yet to
locate. He shared the secrets of Big Sur and the delightful
stories of his life and adventures, and I more often than not,

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provided the beer, some epoxy from town and sometimes a
“loan” of five or ten bucks.
I took my piece of stone, along with a small piece of
Minnesota pipe stone Robot gave me, and I carved a couple
of pipes. They turned out very well, and soon I was giving
pipes to my pot smoking friends.
Just making pipes got boring after a short time, as much
as I went out of my way to vary the design. The artist in me
craved more expression. I carved a dolphin, which turned
out almost perfect. People liked it, and I was hooked. Soon
I found a place in Oakland—Renaissance Stone— where I
could buy bulk stone, and I was carving all sorts of things
occasionally bringing pieces of stone down to Robot at his
twin tent compound on a cliff overlooking Fuller’s beach.
My second Summer carving found me confident enough to
try to sell. I’d long had a fantasy about being one of the
“local” artists whose stuff sold in the eclectic collection at
the Phoenix Shop at Nepenthe. One day I summoned my
courage, while on a camp trip, and came, dusty and
unkempt, out of the forest to show pictures of my work to
the buyer. She saw a piece that interested her, and I told
her I’d bring it down on my next trip, a week later.
On that next trip, I had promised my oldest pal, Jim,
down in Seal Beach that I’d come down for a visit. And,
after a couple of days of beer, memories and smoke, I
missed the open spaces and started north, up 101 to San
Luis Obispo, and up highway 1 to Big Sur. I walked into
the buyer’s office and placed the piece, an abstract of two
people hugging, on her desk. She liked it, we agreed on a
selling price, and I left, elated.
In less than two weeks, it sold, and in a very small way I
became both a professional artist and a Big Sur local.
From that day on Big Sur started to feel like home. I’d
get into conversations with locals over breakfast or over an

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afternoon beer. I’d sit by the side of the road with the
mobile artisans. A lot of hanging out went on, and I became
part of the scenery.
There is a kind of regional wisdom that goes along with
becoming a local. Part of that wisdom is road savvy. I
learned over the years that there are places I will pick I up
a hitch hiker, and there are places I will not. I will rarely
consider it in the city.
Why? I’m not sure. Perhaps because in the city there
are other ways to get around, so hitching becomes synony-
mous with bums and criminals. Naturally, not every urban
hitcher fits that mold, but enough do to be off-putting. On
a major highway I tend to play it by mood. If I’m in the
right place and the guy doesn’t look like he’s packing or
covered with lice maybe I’ll stop. In areas Iike Big Sur I
almost always stop. Hitching is normal there, as it is in
some mountain areas and probably out in the desert. If
there isn’t a phone, a restaurant, or a gas station for dozens
of miles, the person standing by the side of the road isn’t
there for some spurious reason. In Big Sur the worst I’ve
picked up were the panhandlers.
Many years ago I made my first roadside stop in the Big
Sur Area. I was still in San Luis Obispo County, but almost
into Monterey County. I was planning to camp at Pfeiffer
State Park, along the river in a thick stand of redwoods.
That was back when you didn’t need to reserve 17 years in
advance through a computerized ticket agency. I was think-
ing of wooded hiking trails and deep swimming holes when
I noticed a stalled car. Along side the road two young
women were standing by their car, obviously broken down.
It was late afternoon, with darkness a scant hour or two
away. I knew from driving the road that there wasn’t a
damn thing for miles. I stopped.
Their car had quit running for some reason that escapes

14
me now, and the women didn’t really know the area. I did,
and knew that they didn’t need to be stranded out there after
dark. I drove them back fifteen miles or so to a gas station
around San Simeon. I don’t remember now if I left them
there to get a tow or if I brought them back to the car with
what they needed. That was probably twenty five years
ago, and I was a Southern Californian then, which means
that roadside manners were new to me. They made it to
their destination, and I still managed to make the state park
in time to get a site and set up a tent before total darkness.
Call it karma., or call it selective memory, but it seems
that the next time I made that trip it was I who was stuck by
the side of the road. This time the little pin that connected
the shifting shaft to the transmission in my old VW bug had
broken. There wasn’t a VW dealer for a hundred miles, no
auto supply for fifty. A couple in a late model sedan came
by. They had one of those clothes rods that went across the
back from door to door, and it was hung with all the nicely
pressed duds they’d need in Carmel or Monterey or wher-
ever they were headed. They stopped and asked if they
could take me to a phone or whatever. I thought about it for
a moment, and then one of those “out of the blue” flashes of
insight hit me. I saw the coat hangers in the back of their
car and asked if they could spare one. it was a strange long
shot. They handed me a wire coat hanger and asked if they
should hang around in case my plan didn’t work. Oddly
confident, 1 told them to go on ahead, that I’d be OK. I
really didn’t know if I’d be OK or not.
By the side of the road, flashlight in hand, I pulled out the
back seat, twisted the coat hanger into a pretzel-like pin,
and secured the linkage. I limped into Big Sur making the
loosest and noisiest shifts imaginable, each one a breath-
holding adventure. Some luck or some magic resided along
that coast, and I had caught it or it had caught me. Either

15
way, I was hooked, and I suspect that my eventual exile
from Southern California was set in motion that weekend.
From a VW that constantly needs creative attention to a
Toyota pick up that rarely quits is only a matter of attitude.
One gets a real job because one gets tired of being so
bogged down in the little maintenance details of life that the
whole point, the goal of the trip is somehow lost.
Judgment? Justification? Not really. It’s just a different
focus. I’ve done the mechanical challenge of getting there,
and I’ve extracted all the adventure and romance I could
from it. Now my focus has shifted, and I’m exploring the
adventure and romance of other aspects of the trip.
Naturally, the trip is everything, be it Big Sur, the high
Sierra, or Africa. Once you’re there, you re there. You’ve
done what you came to do, and you go back. Like they say
about sport, “It’s not whether you win or lose, but how you
play the game.” You can say much the same about life. The
end of life is death, not something you are necessarily work-
ing toward. The point of the exercise is that trip you take
from birth to death. As in life or on the road, you’ve got
your highways, byways, and trails. if you don’t know which
you should take, try them all. Each one has value and
insights. You can walk, hitch, struggle along in an old car,
or cruise in a new BMW. Highway one or 101, always the
same road objectively, but it is radically different subjec-
tively. Still, I’ve watched a banana slug inching along a
trail, and I’m convinced that you never know a road until
you’ve crawled, nose on the ground, along it at twenty feet
per day.
Once you made the trip, the big trip, It begets side trips,
like a tree trunk begets limbs and branches. Each of these is
its own adventure, with its own moods and magic. For
example, Cooper Point at Molera State Park, near the
northern end of Big Sur, is a bubbling, joyful place. It’s that

16
way in just about any weather, any time of the year except
in the spring. In spring the place is like champagne, fancy
wrapped gifts, and children’s laughter. I’d wanted to surf
Molera for a very long time, but I’d never hit it at a good
time. Molera is fussy about what kind of swell it takes.
One gorgeous Spring day I found my perfect surf.
Since the beach is a mile from the highway, there are only
two ways to check the surf. You can park and walk, or you
can drive about a half mile up the Old Coast Road to an
overlook point. Since that puts you almost two miles from
the beach, you need a pair of binoculars, which most trav-
eling surfers carry. It took only a quick look to tell me the
time was right.
I pulled off the highway at the trail that leads straight off
down the hill to the old Cooper’s cabin, the oldest building
in Big Sur. It had recently rained, and everything was
exploding in tender-shoot green and budding flower pastels.
The meadow had awakened and was celebrating the start of
a new cycle. I had my body board in a carrying bag along
with the fins and wet suit. I slipped it on like an awkward
backpack and started off. The air was so thick with bird-
song it seemed almost liquid. The wildflowers reached
almost to my waist. The great, annual rebirth worked its
magic on me; I almost skipped down the trail. I was light
as a feather, and I felt all of sixteen.
There were a few campers and day hikers around, and I
exchanged a lilting “good morning” with everyone I passed
on the wide trail from the campground to the beach. I was
almost dancing when I entered the little forest, coming in
range of the ocean’s music. I emerged from the forest and
onto the beach. The river was full and flowing fast and
clear. There was the perfect gravel bottom, ready to seduce
spawning steelhead trout. A party of ladies were taking off
their shoes, hoisting their skirts and testing the water with

17
their bare feet. I had on sandals, so I just stomped into the
river and straight for the other side. It was still far too early
in the season for the summer footbridge over the river. The
rain swollen river would have washed it out to sea.
Six or eight guys were out in the water. The wind was
howling on shore as it usually does, and shoulder to head
high waves were bending around the point. Further up the
coast I’d passed big, unruly, pounding waves, unridable liq-
uid bombs, exploding on the shore in shades of frothy gray
and military green. But in Molera’s protected cove, the
hooked, rocky point shields against the wind and allows the
waves to stretch and smooth out. They peeled neatly off to
the right and were almost perfect.
While I pulled on my wet suit, I watched the sightseers
walk along the beach or crawl behind the Protection of the
stacked driftwood logs. Chilled surfers had been stacking
these logs for years to gain a respite from the hard wind.
The Big Sur river pumped into the surf, over the rocks that
were half hidden in the surf line. The Water’s surface in the
little cove was almost smooth, but outside, beyond the hook
of the point, white caps danced to the horizon.
I paddled out to where a few guys sat. Two aggressive
surfers were hugging the rocks, ready to grab the bigger
waves as they bounced off the point. I maneuvered out to
line up with the second peak. And, for the next hour and a
half I slipped into a series of great, steep rights that peeled
off as if generated by some video game. The two guys
inside paddled in to the tiny notch beach at the point, and
I slipped into their spot. It was a day where there were
waves enough for twenty, but we were less than eight.
The tide was dropping, causing the waves to get better
and better, until it dropped beyond a critical point. Then the
shallow bottom caused the waves to start sectioning off,
shortening the rides to almost nothing. As the perfection

18
slipped away, others came, swelling the crowd. No matter,
I was almost ready to make the long trip back.
Almost sated, before paddling in I paused to just gaze
shoreward at the natural art that unfolded before me. The
point with its driftwood littered beach was cut by the river
and backed by the little forest, the Big Sur river’s riparian
corridor. Above the forest the rolling hills rose, adorned
with newly sprung grass. The steeper, distant hills were cut
by deep redwood canyons that climbed upward almost to
the dark, wooded peaks. It was a fairy tale panorama,
nature’s wonderland, the playground perhaps of centaurs,
unicorns, and elves, a great gift to the imagination.
This endless variety of shapes formed by mountains
gradually gives pieces of itself back to the sea with every
drop of rain and wisp of wind. The complex patterns of
vegetation gain footholds and prepare the way for genera-
tions to come. The perfect interplay of all the elements,
physical and ethereal were all spread out before me like the
meaning of life written in the most passionate and vivid
poetry. I experienced one of those moments of happiness in
which everything in the world, from a speck of dust to the
entire human race, was incredibly dear to me.
I caught a wave to the beach, quickly changed and
washed my surfing gear in the clear river. I felt so damned
good that I could have hugged and kissed everyone on the
beach. I still had a mile walk with a heavy, wet neoprene
wet suit on my back. Then there was an hour’s drive just to
get back to Monterey. It would be another hour and a half
on the highway before I reached home, shower and food,
but time and distance didn’t matter one whit. Every
moment of the walk up the trail, past the cabin, through the
wildflowers, below that ceiling of hungry song birds, was a
golden experience, one to be savored and filed away. Every
curve of the drive home, every song on the radio, every

19
familiar building, every inviting food smell, every motorist
on the way to every private adventure was greeted like an
old and cherished friend. A stop for a six pack and snacks
was done as if it were a sacrament. Even the mundane film
on the TV that night brought a special warmth to my heart.
This was love, the love of a perfect day in a perfect world.
As all these pictures, these memories, well up in my
mind, they bring with them a train of related images.
According to the cosmology of some native American peo-
ple, Big Sur is just one long power place. It weaves a spe-
cial magic, even when one isn’t expecting it. Sometimes
this is simply a matter of light. One early morning, after
climbing out of the back of the truck, with time to kill
before the Big Sur Inn opened for breakfast. I took a walk
on Pfeiffer Beach. Walking south past the people in sleep-
ing bags propped against the hill. I came to a small canyon
that climbs steeply through some trees onto someone’s land.
Where the canyon met the beach, there was a broad tree, its
limbs stretched out in a hundred-handed prayer. The sun
was streaming through the branches, making brilliant
beams of yellow-white, beams so bright that I could barely
see past them. It was a perfect fan of light, imbuing the tree
with some supernatural glow. Everything around it was in
shadow, and it stood in its own light like a divine messen-
ger.
We are all creatures of energy, radiating energy, touched
by energy. The energy around that tree invaded my being,
healing the doubts and sorrows of the night.
Was it that same morning after breakfast or another day?
Perfect days seem to run together like mountain streams. I
walked out again on Pfeiffer Beach, where usually a driving
wind chops the ocean to a frenzy. That morning was differ-
ent; no wind. A couple of surfers were out in the narrow.,
washing machine-like spot between the southern cliff and

20
the huge rock stack with the sea arch in it. There is eighty
to a hundred feet of beach exposed between the rocks, and
the waves push and cram and often tumble over themselves
to reach the shore. These guys were catching waves, so I
suited up and paddled out.
It took me the longest time to get the crazy surf wired.
They caught rides, and I was always in the wrong spot.
Then suddenly I got into the rhythm and feel of the place,
and I simply dropped into every wave that came my way. It
was a wonderful feeling, starting out by the rock and letting
the wave funnel me toward the shore.
The half dozen early sunbathers were casting occasional
looks of half curiosity at the three men playing in the water.
With each ride my senses were heightened. I listened to
waves booming through the sea arch, watched birds circling
overhead and glimpsed puffs of clouds peering over the
high cliffs. The world of traffic, phones, drudgery and
stress was a million miles away.

21
 CH. 2
RIDGES OF BIG SUR: INNER SPACES,,
OUTER VISTAS

From any of dozens of turn-outs along the Big Sur coast,

a trail disappears into the woods, usually along some steep
creek, only to emerge from the thick forest higher up the hill
on some grassy ridgeline, beyond the reach of human tin-
kering. After a long, lazy Spring day at the head of a
canyon, above a densely forested creek, it’s hard to fathom
the frantic and contradictory rhythms of modern society.
Up on the ridge the ocean breeze is in your face, and the
hills roll away in the distance like thunder that has erupted
and cooled in mid-rumble. Big Sur, reaching for the clouds
and stretching to the limits of the imagination, puts our
daily lives in perspective.
We scratch and plot to find work, yet most people hate
their jobs, and with good reason. So many jobs have been
so structured as to drain them of creativity, or your creativ-
ity is channeled toward a cutthroat world of survival, where
your ability to make money for the organization is all that
keeps the people just below you from having you for lunch.
And there’s the hours. You are supposed to turn the juices
on at a certain time and keep them on until a certain time.
Then you are supposed to shut it off and go home.
Sounds unnatural to me. Always has. At least over in
Europe they have enough respect for the workers to give
them a vacation that isn’t a joke. Once when teaching jobs
were hard to come by, I went to work for a company where
they proudly announced that they gave a half dozen holi-
22
days and two weeks vacation. To wait fifty weeks to expe-
rience what I was experiencing on that grassy, wind-swept
hillside, in no hurry nor concerned about how much time I
had, and to cram it all, with time to buy stuff and tune the
car, into only two weeks is nothing less than an insult. In
fact, I told the boss just that when I gave my two weeks
notice, about nine months from my starting date. I decided
that I’d rather grab work as and when I found it than to be
put in chains for a modicum of security.
These thoughts crossed my mind as I watched the squir-
rels scamper up and down the trees and the shy deer eat with
one eye turned my way. A flock of birds argued enthusias-
tically in the tree above me while the world of man was
reduced to a thin line of cars passing far below.
I saw how much of a hurry each of those cars seemed to
be in. We all seem to be in some kind of hurry, myself
included. Life moves fast these days, and if you slow down,
you become unessential, uninformed, unemployed, uncool,
and generally an anachronism. We live in a busy age.
Actually, we live in the information age, but no one has
taken the time to really explain just which information is
important and why. The world is crammed full of informa-
tion, more that I can begin to retain, and I am supposed to
have—according to the tests—a higher ability to absorb
data than the average person. It is actually much more than
I can even expose myself to, even if I do nothing all day and
night but access information. This, of course, would give
me no time at all to use the information for any purpose,
assuming most of it has a purpose. After all, a computer can
work in the nanoseconds—I think it’s even faster now, and
it still takes me days to really read, think about and absorb
a truly good book. Our screens are constantly flashing new
information, whether we are watching or not.
And then we have the TV. Once a half dozen channels of

23
news, comedy, drama, fine arts and sports were all we had.
Now we have cable and dozens of channels of everything.
I can’t watch that much TV. Even if I gave up working,
leaving the house and sleeping, I still couldn’t watch that
much TV. And if I could, what would I get? There are sta-
tions that broadcast commercial dramas and comedies,
hastily made and generally mediocre because of it. There
are stations that broadcast reruns of the same kind of stuff,
just as mediocre but comfortably familiar. There is constant
news, more than you can absorb. And do those people who
watch all that news do a thing to solve the problems and
right the wrongs that are presented to them? In most cases,
I doubt it. There are lots of nature programs, which are
good, but not nearly as good as getting in the car and going
out to where you can take a real stroll in the natural world.
The comfortable patch of tall grass under the sprawling
live oak, up on the ridge, above the rugged, always dynam-
ic coast of Big Sur provides more of nature than a hundred
nature shows, with their carefully selected images. But
these electronic images are supposed to capture reality.
Getting reality from TV! What an interesting notion.
And now the concept of virtual reality is coming to us. We
can become so occupied with forms of virtual reality that
we don’t have the time to experience real reality. Am I the
only one who thinks this is odd?
But information, particularly electronic information, is
knowledge. This equation has become axiomatic. By that
definition sitting under a tree up on a wind-blown coastal
ridge is a vacation from real knowledge, perhaps from real-
ity itself. Yet up on that hill, I never felt like a vacationer.
Rather than escape, I always felt connected to a great flood
of valuable information, knowledge, and wisdom,
unorgnized but highly coherent.
Good God, we civilized types know a lot! We know one

24
hell of a lot more than anyone who has lived before us. That
being the case, why can’t we handle some of our basic
societal problems? Why can’t we keep people employed,
husband our resources, govern ourselves or interact without
resorting to some level of war? I don’t seriously think more
and more information or knowledge is the answer. I think
we need to resort to an ancient concept, wisdom.
The elderly used to be the repository of wisdom, and
maybe they still are in some societies. I don’t think it’s the
case in ours any longer. The generation preceding mine,
my parent’s generation, is now solidly in the senior citizen
camp, so I have some experience with the elderly.
Generally, the young people don’t pay much attention to
them and what they say any longer. Part of that is the fault
of the young, and part of it is that many of our senior citi-
zens, instead of spending a lifetime accumulating wisdom,
spent it accumulating money, property, security, and a thou-
sand unexamined biases. Forty years of punching the same
time clock, paying the same bills, watching the same TV
shows, and having the same conversations doesn’t make
one wise, just old.
Too many of our elderly play bingo, and take those bus
trips to Reno or Las Vegas, just as too many of our kids play
those pointless video games and shop for name brand
sneakers, and whatever else they do to fill the hours. The
young adults, while no more wise, have less hours to fill,
between work, kids, and keeping up the house.
I don’t want anyone to think that I’m nostalgic for a sim-
pler time. I do not see our modern society as particularly
complex. Most things we deal with have a simple order, in
mathematical terms. We have social scientists who devise
equations to explain individual behavior, political patterns,
social interactions, and international affairs. To some crude
degree, these formulations explain us to us

25
 However, real complexity, orders of such high magnitude
that they fall into the realm of chaos theory, are all around
me up on this hill. The patterns of weather are among these,
as is the slope and curvature of all these hills and valleys.
Just the patterns made by a flock of birds, undulating in for-
mation above me, are enough to, if really attended to, push
one into an altered level of consciousness. For order of
immense complexity, watch clouds go by. we, as social
beings, as builders of things and systems, are still stacking
blocks in comparison. Our problem isn’t orders that are too
complex, but rather a contradictory mass of simple orders
that are discordant with each other. The thought of it makes
me dread the hike down the hill to my car and what we
humans arrogantly call the real world.
I guess I was lucky as a young man to stumble upon wis-
dom writers. people who nourished the inner me. Once
exposed to those people, it was easy to go from one to
another until I was fortified against all the nonsense that life
has thrown at me. I’m thankful that I was that lucky. Had
I not had generations of thinking minds to bolster me, there
were times in my life that would have ruined me.
As best I remember, the first of these writers was Henry
Miller. Picking up Tropic of Cancer as a very young man,
the book finally available in this country, I was touched by
something that made me feel that in spite of what went on
around me, I could somehow put it in perspective and
emerge somewhat rational. Besides giving me some per-
spective on my society, he introduced me to other writers
who then introduced me to other writers, etc, etc. At this
point in my life, I have a lot of dead friends whom I’ve
never met.
But even the best of books pale compared to this coastal
hill, the secrets of nature playing hide and seek with me, and
the massive Pacific Ocean singing songs that I will never

26
fully understand. I know that all the insights that wash sub-
liminally over me up here will fade as I go once again back
to the world of routine and man-made experience.
I know that with all the years of thinking and reading and
accumulating brain ammunition, I still lack the simple wis-
dom of a deer grazing on the next hill. unlike me. she does-
n’t eat too much or drink too much wine. She isn’t over-
weight or troubled by issues that she has no control over.
Her mind, body and emotions seem to be in step with each
other. She’s comfortable with her place, her role in the
greater scheme of things.
It humbles me. Less than three miles from a highway, I
still have to have a canteen of water with me. I don’t know
how I could spend the night without a sleeping bag. I’m not
even capable of catching tomorrow’s breakfast. It’s hard to
feel superior out of the comfort of a city, with electricty,
forced air hearing, grocery stores and automobiles.
The important thing for me is to not think so much about
it. Thinking just complicates it all. My advice to me—and
it may not be suitable for you—is to just live it, experience
it, feel it, be part of it, like the deer and the redwood tree.
Thinking puts experience in the past. it cuts you off from
the full effects of what is washing over you at that exact
moment. Thinking is for later, reflecting, sitting at the
computer, remembering and sorting it all out, defining it all
in human terms.
As humans, we seem to need to find a reason, a greater
purpose for everything, a natural law that causes it all to
make sense to us. I’m beginning to suspect that there realy
isn’t anything like that out there, that the order we discov-
er is a product of our own minds. Even the wonderful con-
cept of ecology may be rooted in our persistent need for
order and reason. Life is probably reason enough for life.
The purpose of my existence may simply be in the experi-

27
ence. Do natural systems work harmoniously, or do they
appear harmonious because they work? God may be
simply an answer to the persistent “why” that refuses to go
away until we answer it. Or again, god may just be the sum
total of all the life energy in the universe moving together
in a great, complex, interrelated wave of interaction, like the
infinite dance of chaos continually discovering itself. Or I
may just be another foolish little human trying to compre-
hend things that are incomprehensible. I only know that
there is something out there that touches me at levels that
defy words, that takes me beyond this physical self and
links me with feelings too profound to communicate, and I
seem to feel closer to it up on a coastal hill than back in the
city.
The big dramatic, life altering events are as memorable as
they are rare, but it’s the little, private, seemingly unimpor-
tant accomplishments that, piled one upon another, add up
to a life one is glad to own. Should this book end up in print
and become popular, my life would change, and many of
my fondest dreams would probably come true. But, I would
still be the same person I was the day before, save for the
fact that I’d accomplished some personal triumph. I would
have grown by one large brick. Yet, sitting here, unknown,
unpublished, and unpaid, I can look back over the last few
years, and I can’t count all the tiny bricks that have brought
me slow and undramatic, but incredible growth.
Some monthss ago a small brick was added. A year
earlier I had started on a hike out of Garrapata State Park,
between Carmel and Big Sur. I had partied late the night
before, and running late in the morning, I’d left home with
only a light snack. After two plus hours of motorcycling, I
met up with the others and started up the hill.
It was mid day and the coast was in the middle of Indian
summer. Temperatures were in the high 80s. A few min-

28
utes hiking and scarcely out of Sobrantes Canyon, I was
tired, and my feet felt like they were made of lead. The
others, Sierra Club mountain mashers, marched on without
losing a beat. Half way up the steep ridge section., they
pulled ahead, and I found myself stopping often, sweat
pouring down my face. Finally, the others urged me to quit,
offering me some fruit to give me the energy to get back
down. The fruit helped, and I descended, feeling van-
quished. This was not a major mountain. The experience
stuck in my craw, butting heads with my self image as
someone totally comfortable doing vigorous outdoor activ-
ities.
A year later, Indian summer again. a bit more rested and
a bit better fed, I was driving by the same place. It was
time. I parked, slipped my canteen on my belt and started
up the canyon. Walking through the redwoods was cool and
lovely, but at every clearing I could feel the heat pulling at
me. I do not do well in heat and am at my best when it is
foggy, damp and windy. I stopped just before entering the
clearing at the base of that steep ridge. Taking a long pull
on the canteen, I started up the ridge. Hot, tired and breath-
ing hard, I passed the spot where I’d turned back the year
before. Soon I was past the ridge and into a gentler saddle
between two ridge lines. The view started to expand to
reveal epic-making scenery. The coast range, while only
about 5000 feet at best, is every bit as impressive as the
Sierra, whose I0,000 foot peaks rise from 5000 foot valleys.
These shorter mountains rise directly from sea level, right
out of the Pacific, like the passionate fists of mighty
Neptune.
One more short ridge found me at the top, looking down
at Point Lobos and Carmel, and even on to Moss Landing,
blinking on and off in the shifting fog. No longer a bit tired,
I roamed along the ridge line, checking the view from sev-

29
eral vantage points, exchanging expressions of joy with the
few other hikers I came upon. Finally, walking up to the
high spot on the ridge where I could scan the coast below
and the coast range south to what looked like Mt. Carmel
and Mt. Manual, I saw the fog claim first Carmel, then Point
Lobos. It was time to start down, fulfilled once again by
one of the little things that add up to make a life filled with
joy and almost empty of regrets.
On pausing for a moment to take in the distant peaks, I
thought about all the times I tried to paint mountains rising
up beyond the immediate. In my distorted logic, I ignored
the visual evidence. I’d assumed that the foreground colors
simply darkened with distance. So I’d tried different ways
to darken the colors. I finally realized that these distant
peaks really were “purple mountains majesty.” So, to hell
with mixing colors. Purple is purple, and once I slapped it
on the canvas liberally, my mountains became the moun-
tains I was seeing from this windy ridge. To fully take in a
hundred miles of purple peaks is to dance naked with the
gods.

30
 CH 3
MONTEREY BAY: GEM OF THE
PACIFIC

A lover will naturally become incensed when someone

attempts to violate his beloved. I’m no different basically.
The major difference is that my beloved is much larger than
average. She is 10 to l00 miles wide and a couple of thou-
sand miles long. In some cases my passion for this seduc-
tive lover has been well spent, and at other times it has
become the stuff of situation comedies.
Recently, I came nobly to the defense of my love. I was
on the Monterey coast and suddenly decided to walk around
Point Lobos Reserve, billed as the most beautiful meeting of
land and sea, probably a bit of an exaggeration but at least in
the honorable mention range. I parked, crossed the highway
and entered the park. The first trail off the road was to the
left, just past the entrance station, so off I went. It was late
summer and very dry. The Spanish Moss hung limply, and
the grass was brown. I made short work of the gentle ups
and downs until I was well away from the highway and into
the rocky area that is just back from the beach. Suddenly I
came upon Gibson Beach for the first time. I was stunned.
It was as perfect as a fine seascape painting, but it had the
dynamic tension, the energy of the passionately real, like a
moment of repose before an explosion of experience. I
could feel the high level of vibration, the raw, natural ener-
gy pulsing from the place. The tide was high, and the beach
deserted. I walked down the steps in a state of awe. Sea
lions were peering out from just off shore and sea birds
stood watchfully on a mat of kelp. A plover paced nervous-

31
ly along the beach. Walking down the beach, I realized that
there was a small sea arch in the rocks. I wished I could push
my kayak out into this liquid dreamscape, this portal to a
world behind the looking glass. With a sweet longing I
climbed the steps to be an my way.
Further along the path I saw bird island. white with
guano, pulsing with avian life. Finally I came to the areas
where the tide pools are accessible. People around every
pool were squatting down to watch the great drama that
unfolds four times a day in the intertidal zone. Primitive,
delicate, little animals have learned to survive in conditions
that would be impossible to most living things. The balance
of nature here is incredible. One needs only to stand on a
rock and look down into a filled depression in the rock to
see life without the filters that render it distant and imper-
sonal. One can look at each creature and instantly see the
urgency and exultation of its life. One doesn’t disturb these
tide pools out of respect for the passionate struggle for life
there. One doesn’t disturb it because of the demands of
basic compassion, and one doesn’t disturb it because it is
protected by law.
However. there are assholes in this world. A person who
would meddle with this fragile tide pool life would throw
ink on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, carve their name
into the Washington Monument., or steal food from
orphans. As I walked carefully along the rocks. enjoying
the dance of life and the appreciation of the onlookers, I saw
a family pulling things off the rocks and putting them into
containers, where they would surely die in a day or so. I
tried to reason with them, explaining that it was against the
law and that they could get fined. They said they didn’t
care. I mentioned that if everyone did that, there would be
nothing left but bare rocks. They said they didn’t care. I
insulted them, and they said they didn’t care. The man and

32
his wife were setting an example for their children that was
unthinkable, setting them up to carry on the role of junior
assholes when they grew up.
I flagged a passing car and asked them to send the first
ranger they found. Pacing the road, afraid the asshole fam-
ily would get away with their deed, time seemed to stand
still. Finally a ranger arrived, and as I was telling him the
story, the asshole family came up out of the tide pools head-
ed for the car, obviously having figured out what was going
on. I pointed them out. However, by then they had dumped
the creatures out and had only wet containers. Mr. Asshole
tipped his hand, though, by going on the defensive with me,
accusing me of putting my nose where it didn’t belong,
while all they were trying to do was to show their kids an
interesting time. We yelled at each other until the ranger
took charge of the situation. He thanked me and started to
give the asshole family a dressing down. I turned away to
applause from the other nature lovers in the park. My day
had been made. It would have been just a bit better if I had
thrown Mr. Asshole in the ocean right in front of his wife
and kids. Next time, maybe.
Then there was the comedy, the weird fish hatchery expe-
rience. It was I believe, my first hike through Henry Cowell
Redwoods, at the other end of Monterey Bay, just above
Santa Cruz. It was a day of getting my deep redwood for-
est fix. There hadn’t been surf worth suiting up for in Santa
Cruz, so I decided to take a hike. I drove up highway 9 to
Felton and pulled into Cowell state park.
Adjoining the parking lot is the first section of trail, a flat
wide path for non-hikers. This trail loops through some
magnificent giants, trees solemn, massive and aloof, trees
with layers of cross wrapped bark patterns. Close to a foot
deep, these layers of bark are touched by every color imag-
inable. There are all the hues of red, dust red, rust red, sun-

33
set red, and beet red. The reds contrast with the various pale
gray-greens of the lichen, moss and other damp-loving
plants that burrow into the spaces made by these porous
canyons of bark. There are more shades of blue and blue-
green in redwoods than in the ocean. When you add the
oranges, yellows, browns and the charred blacks from
ancient fires, one redwood tree could become the Iife’s
work for a painter. In fact, I haven’t the guts to take on the
Herculean task of trying to paint them.
Had I unlimited time, I could have spent the day in this
one grove, with its soft and silent, fern choked floor. But I
wanted to explore the park. Past the end of the grove the
trail ran between the river and a paved road. This was a nar-
row pass with the paved road doing sharply up toward the
camp ground at the upper end of the park. Staying to the
lower, hiking trail, I walked along the river to where the
trail branched. One trail climbed a ridge above the river,
and the other followed Eagle Creek, along silent redwood
columns and tiny waterfalls, past fallen logs and ferns cling-
ing to deep, stream-cut, damp-smelling banks. Before start-
ing up one of those trails, I walked down to the river. It was
starting to drizzle as if often does in the very early spring,
when rains can change from light mist to downpour and
back for days at a time.
Near the top of the bank I found a round tank, protected
by a couple of layers of chain link fencing. The sign said
that it was a fish hatchery project and that it helped keep the
stream populated with stealhead and the like. Wonderful, I
thought. Then I walked down to the bank and looked
maybe ten yards down stream. I saw in a swirling eddy a
mass of froth, like suds in a washer. It was about the size of
a laundry basket, so I stood there in the light drizzle to see
if it would move, disappear, or change size. Nothing hap-
pened, and that bothered me. It looked like it could have

34
been some pollutant. With all the houses along the river in
Felton and the adjoining communities, it could have been
from someone washing the car, cleaning a driveway or any
of a dozen other causes. My days as a park docent up in
San Pedro Valley Park made me wary. I’d seen chemical
discharges kill a generation of fingerling trout, a few
moments of carelessness on the part of one human almost
destroying a beautiful, viable creek. But the odd thing was
that this foam was right at a point where the discharge from
the hatchery tank probably came out. I decided to ask about
it.
But not yet. There was a deeply shaded trail that climbed
to who knows where, the fecundity of the dark earth push-
ing up my nose like champagne bubbles, wild mushrooms
popping through the layers of rotting vegetation, creating an
almost mythic landscape on the forest floor. I walked along
a musical stream called Eagle Creek, that splashed and
bounced over every log, twig and rock on its way to the
river, singing a joyful song at every turn and drop. Finally,
at the top of the hill, a sign pointed toward some over-look
place, so I turned south. Gradually I moved out of red-
woods to small deciduous trees to a thick tree-like shrub
forest, thick with glossy, reddish manzanita bushes.
Coming out of the woods on the top of the hill, I found a
platform, walked up the steps and over to the railing on the
side that faced down the hill toward Santa Cruz. I was
alone, and as I stood there, a great silence overtook me. I
was motionless and face to face with the harmonious, nat-
ural world. No talking, no cars, not even the sound of my
heavy breathing and footsteps. Silence, real silence, but
only momentary. As my ears got used to the quiet, subtle
sounds exploded. The wind played the trees like bass fid-
dles; the insect song rose and fell with an unexplainable
rhythm. Then bird songs seemed to punctuate the regular

35
patterns like a lead guitar coming in over the bass line. The
hawks made lazy figure eight’s in the air before me, over
the tops of the trees that marched down the twisting canyon
and below the hills that gradually dropped off on both sides
until they left a gap large enough to reveal a patch of shin-
ing water that pulsed like a living gem on the horizon.
I stood there transfixed, losing all track of time, staring
off to the southwest, not thinking, just letting it all come to
me and flow over me like the rising tide. Suddenly I saw
the point of contact between matter and energy, the point
that is always there but almost always invisible. Waves of
energy came off each of the thousands of tress, as if the top
branches had started to flap their wings. and gradually lift
off, becoming less and less like branches, less and less like
wings and more like the heat waves that throb ever upward
just above a fire. I could literally feel as well as see the
ambient vibration of the world, the frequency at which mat-
ter and energy become indistinguishable. At that point,
nothing, not even myself seemed solid or definable in terms
of physical laws. I could have and would have floated away
to join the universe but for the intense joy of being both part
of it and an observer at the same time.
When I finally got back down the hill, I found an infor-
mation center that had exhibits, sold cards and posters. I
asked the docent about the fish hatchery, and she said.
“Fish hatchery? What fish hatchery”? It was, it seemed to
me, a glassy-eyed, hypnotized kind of look, and it spooked
me. I explained that it was right off the main trail, not a half
mile down river, but I could have been talking about some
place on Mars from her expression.
Confused. I walked through the non-hiker’s grove to the
main visitor’s center, where a man in his late teens, wear-
ing what looked like a ranger outfit was behind the desk. I
asked him the same question and got the same answer and

36
look. This was weird. You could not walk past the flat,
paved grove without passing right by the hatchery. I mean,
this was my first time and I’d bumped right into it. I was
getting concerned, like those guys who worked out all those
conspiracy theories about JFK. So I got in my car and
drove to the gate, where a serious-Iooking woman who was
obviously a real ranger was taking the money and answer-
ing questions. If you think I got the same answer to the
same question, you’re pretty much right, minus the glazed,
spaced out look. At that point I figured that the entire park
was involved in some massive cover up that centered
around some chemical pollutant that originated at the fish
hatchery.
It took a couple of phone calls to put the matter to rest.
I even got a complete report, with environmental impact
information and an invitation to get a guided tour of the
entire county-wide hatchery project. It seems that the
foamy stuff was from who knows where, somone’s home or
whatever and it had just lodged by the hatchery. A fluke.
Still, the strange reaction of the people in the park haunted
me for a long time. By the time I’d left the park, I was con-
vinced that I could have run into a person leaning up against
the tank, right next to the sign, and that person would have
given me a glassy look and would have said, “Fish hatch-
ery? What fish hatchery?”
With Point Lobos and Carmel at the south end and Santa
Cruz at the north, the Monterey Bay area is one of the most
beautiful recreational areas I know of. In that fifty mile
stretch there is great surfing, magnificent ocean kayaking,
hundreds of miles of mountain biking, and world class
scuba diving. There are also a vast number of places to eat,
drink, and enjoy great entertainment. Unfortunately, the
Monterey Peninsula is a long way from where I’ve been liv-
ing, better than an hour and a half. In spite of the distance,

37
more than any other place over the last couple of years, this
area is associated with pleasure and with a warm familiari-
ty.
I probably feel so good about the area because of the
almost perfect summer day. Just after buying my first
kayak, the inflatable, I designed my almost perfect summer
day. Since the beach was so far from home, I wanted to
always be prepared for whatever the day had to offer. I car-
ried my surfing stuff and the kayak. My mountain bike was
always swinging from the back bumper. A mask, snorkel
and a pair of hiking boots were stashed permanently in one
of the compartments. And, I usually toss in my camera and
paints just in case. No matter what the conditions, I couln’t
help having a wonderful day.
I evolved my almost perfect summer day out of my pas-
sion to squeeze the last drop of nectar from each unfolding
moment. I’d hit the beach in the morning and catch some
waves if there were any. Then I’d put my kayak in near
Lover’s Point or Fisherman’s Wharf and paddle out into
lake-like calm Summer seas. The water was often so clear
that I could look over the side and down through layers of
different shades of green and blue to a bottom covered with
multicolored kelp and dazzling starfish. Otters played
around me in the kelp beds, and puppy-eyed seals watched
my movements from every rock outcropping. Monarch
butterflies darted among the profusion of flowers along the
shore, and little ground squirrels would come out of their
holes to beg a treat.
That section of shore along Pacific Grove and Monterey
bustles with unbelievable life and activity, while the meet-
ing of rocky shore and sea creates the feeling of eternity, as
if the scene unfolding there has emerged eons ago and has
remained unchanged. Everything about the area is as heady
as good wine and as rich as french pastry.

38
 I would paddle out in this wonderland for an hour or so,
playing among the kelp, rocks and sea creatures. After
putting up the boat, I’d pull off the bike and take a nice ride
along the scenic coast sometimes along the 17 mile drive to
Carmel. During the ride, I’d find some restaurant with a
view of the water and stop for some chowder and a chilled
salad. One of my favorite stops is now called Bubba Gump
Shrimp Co. on Cannery Row. I seem to remember it being
called Steinbeck’s Grotto, and I only hope the crisp salad on
a chilled plate and thick chowder are still the same. I know
the view is still worth stopping for. I’d get a window table
and look out at where I’d been a few minutes earlier, in the
sparkling Pacific. From my window table I’d look straight
down through the water at the waving forest of kelp, the
colorful starfish and anemones, the playful seals, and the
curious scuba divers.
After the bike ride, I’d end the afternoon snorkeling
among the tide pools, poking in and around the rocks, sur-
prising the schools of shimmering fish, petting the multi-
tude of rock-bound creatures, and playing hide and seek in
the hula dance of the iridescent kelp. Then I’d dry off,
change, and go to a local pub, like Doc Rickett’s Iab or the
London Bridge, that had a band, have a few beers and lis-
ten to the music. Depending on conditions, sometimes I’d
opt for a solitary hike in the hills, or I’d set up my canvas
and attempt the painting of a seascape.
Those almost perfect summer days had a bit of every-
thing: exercise, fresh air, sunshine, a physical rush, the
enjoyment of the beauty of nature, opportunities for deep
reflection, communion with wild creatures, good food, the
proximity of people really enjoying life, a mystical experi-
ence, and the feeling that I was as totally alive as any human
being can be. During the summer I’d have perhaps three
days like that each week.

39
 It’s winter now, a time for big waves, good skiing, and
majestic stormy days with clouds that hang like smoke in
the mountain canyons, but nothing really quite serves the
whole man like an almost perfect summer day.
Since buying my new kaayak, a Prism, from Monterey
Bay Kayaks near Fisherman’s Wharf, I’ve taken to joining
their Friday night group paddles from their store to Lover’s
Point and back. These summer evening trips depart when
the shop closes and return at dusk. Often the return is
accompanied by sunsets that are artistic masterpieces.
On one of those evening kayak trips with other enthusi-
asts, the fog gently descended, causing the setting sun to fill
the western sky with a soft orange-pink haze. The mast of
the sailboats stood black against the glowing sky. The color
of a harvest moon flowed out in all directions. Someone
made a mental association and mentioned kayaking Elkhorn
Slough by the full moon. The image got hold of me,
worked into my mind like a virus and infected my day-
dreams. I was unable make the trip right away, but by the
beginning of fall, the full moon coincided with the begin-
ning of a weekend. I took off after work to find out what it
was like to paddle the dark, silent waters without the aide of
sunshine or man-made illumination.
Pulling into the parking lot at Moss Landing, half way
between Monterey and Santa Cruz, I found a few cars but
no other people. It had been dark for at least an hour, and
the moon was surrounded by a glowing ring of haze left
over from the fog that was still clearing. As I’d left
Monterey, I’d been concerned that the thick layer of fog
might obscure the moon and ruin my trip, but at Moss
Landing the sky burst through with the kind of clarity usu-
ally seen only after a rain.
I pushed off, not really knowing if I’d be able to find my
way in the dark. Still, I’d hiked wooded trails in the dark,

40
and in a boat at least I wouldn’t trip and fall down a hill into
a mass of brambles or poison oak.
Elkhorn Slough winds miles inland almost to
Watsonville. Where it empties into the ocean the sea floor
quickly drops off into an undersea canyon that dwarfs the
Grand Canyon. Draw a line between Santa Cruz and
Pacific Grove, and at about the mid point the canyon is well
over a mile deep. Marine biologists use unmanned sub-
marines to transmit pictures of one of the planet’s last fron-
tiers.
Paddling past Skipper’s sea food restaurant, it was invig-
orating to realize that some of the people eating would spec-
ulate on my trip and secretly wish they could also do it.
Seeing that rapt, spectator look, just adds to the rush of the
trip. Many of us entertain the fantasy of trying this or that,
but too many keep these ideas securely in the world of fan-
tasy. To me, if it is worth fantasizing about, it is worth giv-
ing it at least one try. With a level head and some basic
situational savvy, most things carry only a minimal risk and
a minimal discomfort. The only hard part is getting by the
barrier between fantasy and standing there, equipment in
hand and ready to go. Once you’ve gone that far, the deed
is as good as done. The inner trip is made, and you only
have to go through that experience and add it to the universe
of experiences that is you.
A sudden darkness under the bridge of Highway One, and
I was officially out of the harbor and in the slough. Even
though I still was in sight of all the lights of Moss Landing,
the night had a mystical, errie quality to it. To make it even
more errie and mystical, I filled my stone pipe and took a
few hits. The silence became profound, as the dark, velvet-
like water purred under me like a massive cat I was petting
with every stroke. After a few minutes, I saw shapes com-
ing toward me, backlighted against the rising moon. And

41
then sounds, ones that finally became voices. It was a group
of kayakers returning from a sunset cruise. Comments
exchanged, they disappeared into the unlit darkness behind
me, while I headed into the shimmering moonlight.
Then the magic began. Suddenly there was almost no
artificial light, only the distant house lights of rural south
Monterey County. The moon, low in the east, cast a broad
avenue of ghostly white that led me ever onward. The low
banks on either side were shifting, dark shapes, and nothing
appeared solid, real and identifiable. The night plays tricks
on the mind; it makes the real unreal. Practically all spooky
and supernatural stories are set at night, a time when noth-
ing remains itself, but constantly threatens to become some-
thing different, something conjured up from deep within the
imagination, from the collective psyche. At that point, I
wished that old C. J. Jung was along side me in another
boat.
And the water was digital. The light breeze raised a
slight chop, maybe four to six inches high, and each of the
crests of these regular little wavelets were brightly illumi-
nated by the moon, while each of the throughs on my side
were in shadow and somewhere between black and mid-
night blue. The human eye, being what it is, attends
mainly to the light. Yet at that slow speed and with con-
centration. I was able to focus on both the brilliant light and
the matching dark. It was like some vast CD, that if I could
play it, would create the music of the night, the music that
was first composed in the days of the primordial swamp
when the only life on earth was the earth itself and its sim-
mering soup of amino acids.
Then off to the left, deep in the north bank that melts into
a maze of side channels, I heard voices, strange voices that
cut the night like electric saws. Then I saw the dim lights
of boats, quietly plying the water, motors so cut back that

42
they didn’t make a sound, moving no faster than I. Moving
invisibly in the darkness, I passed unseen and moved into
the inner slough, finally alone and caught in an unimagin-
able world, dark, silent and private.
Following the moon, I touched the water lightly, making
not a splash, so entranced that I almost ran up on some
sleeping marine mammal, a sea lion I think, surprised out of
my reverie by its sudden splash as it ducked out of my way.
Finally, in the middle of the slough where it makes a sudden
northward turn, I stopped, pulling my paddle inboard. The
world stopped. All sounds ended, and the silence was as
vast as the star-filled night. I could have been alone deep in
space or in a personal universe where I could play the role
of god, planet, saint and sinner. The silence washed over
me Iike an orgasm pulsing in geological time.
Seconds became hours, became lifetimes, and then the
cold of the damp night drove me to start back to the launch-
ing ramp. I followed the northern shore, resisting the temp-
tation to slip into one of the many side channels that might
only serve to get me stuck in the mud.
Almost back to the bridge. I suddenly heard the voices
of fisherman warning me off. I turned away from the shore,
but too late. I was caught in two lines. I was being pulled
back. Finally, almost to shore, I asked them to cut their
lines, while hoping they wouldn’t start pelting me with
rocks for ruining their fishing gear. After pulling me close
enough to save the bulk of their line, they cut me loose, and
I paddled free with deep scratches in my pride.
After fighting the current under the highway bridge, I
rounded the docks and pulled into the harbor. Skipper’s
was closed and dark. Approaching the dock, I looked
toward where my truck was parked. In the parking lot one
suspicious looking person was shambling around, moving
toward my truck. Intently watching this person and not

43
paying attention to where I was going, I ran into the side of
the dock, realizing my mistake only seconds before making
a loud “thunk” that rattled the night. Sheepishly, I backed
up, rounded the end of the dock and landed. The person
was only someone waiting for other boaters. We chatted as
I loaded up, warmed by another kayaking fantasy realized.

44
 CH 4
PACIFICA: A SHAMELESS LOVE
AFFAIR

I had pretty much stopped surfing before I’d left Orange

County for the Bay Area. I guess I’d gotten too involved
with other things, and perhaps I’d just burned out on crowd-
ed beaches, crowded parking lots, crowded waves, and
crowded highways. Maybe I’d gotten in a rut with the same
friends, the same problems, and the same places to go.
Looking back, my life was like that same endless city that
stretched ever further and further, slowly giving up bits and
pieces of its character for the dull uniformity that busy,
desensitized. greedy people somehow manage to create.
Whatever the reason, my spirit of adventure was locked in
the safe deposit vault of routine. All that changed the
moment I left Southern California for the Bay Area.
Even the trip up north on the motorcycle, clothes and per-
sonal items for a couple of weeks strapped on the luggage
rack was irregular. Armed with the excuse of looking for
teaching jobs, I crossed back and forth from highway 1 to
101, and in the process, taking roads I’d never traveled,
some I’d never even heard of. In fact, it was on this maid-
en voyage to my new home that I first crossed Hecker Pass,
between Gilroy and Watsonville.
From the east the road follows a stream flanked with a
lush redwood forest. Coming out of the woods at the top of
the pass, I passed Mount Madonna County Park, rounded a
curve. and the awesome Pajaro Valley was suddenly spread
out before me. Rich, verdant farms surrounded the little
town of Watsonville and stretched out to the glistening blue
Pacific. It was an image so strong that I can still close my

45
eyes and see every detail, experience every rush of emotion,
even though that trip has since become routine for me.
On that trip north, my task was to find a place to live and
a teaching job or some likelihood of one. To that end, I
explored the Bay Area in detail. After six weeks of explo-
ration, I knew it better than many lifetime residents. I prob-
ably stopped at every school district in San Mateo, Marin,
Sonoma, San Francisco, Alameda and Contra Costa
Counties. I priced housing in any town worth living in, and
I traveled the back roads in and out of every community in
the area. I ate at the coffee shops, drank in the pubs, talked
to the people an the streets and checked out the beaches and
wildlife preserves. It was only after becoming intimate with
the whole area, that I chose Pacificia as my home. It was, I
can honestly say, love at first sight. It had the beaches, the
little tucked away communities, the woods, hills for hiking,
and weather that never got boring.
After moving to Pacifica, I started hiking the coastal hills
on almost a weekly basis. On that spine that runs from San
Francisco to Santa Cruz, there are enough wooded trails to
keep a hiker happy for years. Along those coastal, wooded
trails, cool and damp from the perpetual shade, there are
banana slugs, like huge yellow snails without a shell.
They’re a sight unknown in the southland. Even though
they turned up more often than door to door salesmen, I
never tired of them. To me they symbolized the Pacific
northwest, and I always stopped, squatted down and
watched them intently. After all you can’t help show some
respect for the mascot of U.C. Santa Cruz.
I guess I’m lucky. Many people have to plan for months,
spend a fortune, hire guides, and trek for days into Africa to
catch sight of a lion or elephant in order to get that wildlife
rush. Fifty cents worth of gas, a pair of hiking boots, a
couple of free hours, and a freshly rolled joint, and I get the

46
same wildlife rush from a slug. These wildlife adventures
are analogous to the thrill of gambling. Some folks have to
drop thousands at the baccarat table, and others get the same
thrill at the nickel slots.
Life’s a gamble anyway. Just taking off for a short trip
can be quite a risk. One weekend I decided to take a trip
from Pacifica to Big Sur, with the goal of camping and surf-
ing. At the time, my transportation was the motorcycle. So
I packed a sleeping bag, tent and a body board with its relat-
ed gear. I got as far as Santa Cruz where I stopped for
snacks and drinks at a market along the highway. The bike
wouldn’t start. Once upon a time they had kick starters on
bikes, and then they took them off for reasons I cannot
fathom. Now a dead battery is a real problem.
After pushing the bike up and down the parking lot for a
while, jumping on and popping the clutch, the bike finally
started. The intelligent thing would have been to head
straight back as quickly as possible, but quite often I’m not
very intelligent at all. Feeling cheated that I’d come to far
for nothing, and seeing that there was a couple of hours of
light left, I decided to take the scenic route through part of
the Santa Cruz mountains on the way back home.
I found that I don’t know those mountains as well as I’d
like to think. The road that was supposed to take me
through Bonny Doon and back to highway 1, actually dead
ended at some private camp. As soon as I idled down to
make a U turn, it stalled. Now I was out in the middle of
nowhere, in front of an apparently empty summer camp that
had signs that warned about the horrible things that would
happen to trespassers. And it would be dark in less than an
hour.
I finally pushed the bike up a slight rise, turned it around
and rolled to a jump start. With it revved way up, I spun
around and got on it through the curves until I came down

47
again to the highway.
It was twilight and fifty miles to go and the headlight was
down to a dull orange glow, like a dinner candle to lead my
way. I think I set some kind of record getting to Half Moon
Bay, never dropping below seventy until I saw the first sig-
nal.
When I pulled into my driveway the bike naturally quit
and didn’t start again until I replaced the burned out alter-
nator. And during the entire trip, I never thought about
being stuck somewhere. My concern was about leaving my
bike unattended with all my valuable toys on it.
The silliness of my materialistic, American mind! We
aren’t brought down by illness, hunger or old age; we’re
brought down by the weight of all our stuff. To save my
very first surfboard, I threw myself between the board and
the rocks, figuring that my cuts and abrasions would heal,
but the board cost money. I could have killed myself
driving over seventy with scarcely a headlight rather than
leave my stuff on the highway.
Someone might wonder why I’d bothered to haul surfing
gear for miles when I lived on the beach. Surfers like
safaris. You might have great waves right outside your
door, but you’ve just gotta drive a hundred miles or so to a
spot that you’ve heard of just to see if it’s really that good.
Most of the time, it isn’t or you don’t happen to hit it at the
right tide or the right swell, or the wind is wrong. Even
though I’ve always liked to get on the road, I had good surf
in my backyard the whole time I lived in Pacifica.
At the foot of Paloma Avenue in Pacifica— which is an
off ramp from highway I— there is a tiny pocket beach.
The rest of that section has been filled with rock as a bolster
against the encroaching ocean that is going to claim that
entire beach no matter how clever we humans think we are.
From Paloma north past the pier, the beach has been filled

48
to keep the road from washing away. To the south, homes
back up to the beach, and many have lost their yards and
have their back doors opening to empty space twenty feet
above the waves. Between those two places there’s a beach
about twenty feet wide that disappears at high tide. I would
walk the two blocks to that spot, climb down the rocks and
paddle out for some excellent surf. Sometimes the tide
would come in, and I’d have no beach to paddle back to.
Once while getting ready to go out. l sat on a rock while
I pulled on my surf boots. The tide was rising, and a sneak-
er wave came in and knocked me off the rock. In less than
a four by four space between rocks, the wave spun me
around a couple of times and then sucked me out between
the rocks. I got my head above water and my eyes open just
in time to find myself being pulled into another breaking
wave that sloshed me around the rocks again, barely giving
me time to mouth “oh shit!” Finally getting to my feet, I
was amazed that I wasn’t bounced over, slammed into and
lacerated by the sharp rocks, and I was shaken by the
thought that I could have been knocked cold by a rock and
drowned. Besides loving a good safari, surfers tend to be
lucky.
My favorite surfing spot in Pacifica, in fact my favorite
in the Bay Area was Rockaway Beach. The beach is less
than a half mile wide, between two rocky points. A channel
through the reef at the south end leads to a line up you can
paddle around. You can slip into position without getting in
the way of someone taking off on a wave. The place breaks
from two or three foot waves, until it closes out, which can
be double overhead at times.
Rockaway also has a big rock outcropping just off the
southern point, and the waves crash into that point before
reaching the line up, so you can watch that indicator for a
big one before it hits.

49
 The narrow channel along the rocks has a riptide that runs
whenever there are waves, so paddling out is a breeze. The
rip dissipates just to one side of the take off spot, and it
takes only a couple of minutes to get out and get lined up.
It’s like taking an escalator rather than the stairs. The waves
can break hard and fast, but they always shoulder off as they
approach the channel. It makes for great surfing, which
unfortunately makes for crowds on good days. Also the
rocky headland makes a lovely backdrop to watch while
waiting for waves.
A walk out on that headland is a lesson on what the ocean
can do and is doing to the west coast. Once upon a time the
old coast road followed the shore line, and in doing so, went
around that headland. The new road follows a straight, deep
cut in the ridge line, a quarter mile in from the headland.
One can walk along what is left of the old road. There’s
maybe a couple of hundred feet of the road left, and much
of that has hunks missing, places where a pie shaped slice
drops down to the water’s edge. Try to walk around the
point on that old road, and you are left to climb up the side
of the hill when the flat road bed suddenly ends.
Actually that whole section of coast shows the remains of
that old road. In fact, the road isn’t that old, but I didn’t
move to the area until the eighties, and it had been history
for over twenty years at the time.
Another spot that still has sections of the road is the
stretch from Thornton State Beach in Daly city to the north-
ern end of Pacifica. At one time, commuters routinely
drove the narrow road, perched on an unstable sandy cliff,
a road almost always shrouded in fog, save for a short time
in winter and early spring when it rained like crazy.
There isn’t much left of Thornton Beach or the road, most
of it having collapsed. You can hike down, pick, up the
road, and follow it a couple of miles south into Daly City.

50
It is grown over with weeds, and in places it’s no wider than
a foot trail, but it maintains the sense of a roadway perhaps
a hundred feet above the sand. At a steep canyon that drops
from the highest point in Daly City, the road abruptly ends.
The canyon yawns where once the road continued, and
there is no choice but to slip and slide down the sandy
slump to the beach. The rest of the walk north is on the
beach.
Now this is a beautiful beach, along Daly City. It’s bet-
ter than four miles long and in the heart of an urban area,
and almost nobody uses it, simply because it requires some
effort to get there. At times even the surf is good. Millions
of people crowd on sections of beach, kicking sand in each
other’s faces, putting up with everyone else’s choice in
music, feeling like they haven’t escaped the urban jungle,
while miles of beautiful sand await the person who is will-
ing to hike for fifteen or twenty minutes for some solitude.
Even on the Pacifica end of that beach, the high cliffs
keep all but a few from using the northern two miles. The
bluffs, hundreds of feet high at Daly City, slope quickly
down to thirty or forty feet high at Pacifica’s Manor
District. Along Pacifica’s northern two miles. two or three
people at a surf spot is a crowd. Along the sandy bluff, hang
gliders and parasailers jump off the cliff, showing complete
contempt for the stupid laws that supposedly restrict them
to Fort Funston, five miles north in San Francisco. Here is
the spot where I painted my first watercolor, which hangs
on my wall and makes my heart ache with longing.
There is a small park on the bluff, at the highest point in
Daly City, at the top of that canyon that drops straight down
to the beach. It’s in an area of town off Skyline Drive, that
was immortalized by the song about, “little houses on the
hillside, made of ticky tacky, and they all look just the
same.” In the summer you can stand at the rail in that park

51
and look down toward the beach, and it’s like looking into
the cold bowels of hell. The visibility is just about zero, and
the fog blows strong and cold almost straight up into your
face, and without a heavy jacket, you can only stand there
for five minutes in the middle of August.
It was during my stay in Pacifica that I became an active
environmentalist. I learned a valuable lesson during my
association with the volunteers in Pacifica’s San Pedro
Valley Park. When, during the steelhead spawning season,
Denise and I used to sit by the creek, cold and damp, up and
out early on days off to guard some fish from poachers, I
felt more important and more useful than I ever had at some
desk, phone in hand, handling tons of company money and
making a fat paycheck.
I’d gotten to love those silly fish, even though I’d never
even seen a steelhead before moving from the L.A.
megaslopolis to Pacifica. During those days, I’d walk in the
park as if it were mine, not as property, but as my home, my
responsibility, my environment, my dance in the musical
comedy of modern life.
Working with others in several local organizations, we
helped save lovely Melagra ridge, magnificent Mori point,
San Pedro Creek, a viable stream, and hopefully McNee
state park. A pocket beach is still relatively undisturbed in
Pacifica. Wildlife still has a place to live and bring up
young. Kids can still walk in a lovely wood rather than
hang out on a busy corner, dodging drive by bullets. I will
always love Pacifica, even though I lived there for only four
years. It will always be home, rather than Southern
California with my decades of personal history and monu-
mental ennui.
Even after several years I’m still totally awestruck when
I enter Pacifica, particularly from the north, from Daly City,
over the top of the hill on Highway One. Each time I do it,

52
it’s a different scene, a different town, a different world. It
is a place where the light and fog play with each other to
make a cauldron of endless change. These views of
Pacifica make me think of art and music.
Coming down the hill from the north, in late afternoon, is
like coming upon one of those stylized paintings with col-
ors so vivid as to seem unreal or perhaps super real. It’s a
study in color and perspective, and it’s a study in angles.
The colors give the illusion of that artificial depth that
emerges from a well rendered painting. The immensity of
the scene and of the shadows it creates convinces the eye
that the amazing depth has been created by the deft use of
lines and shading. The topography builds from soft, low,
rolling hills to higher, more angular hills, to hills that seem
to have sharp edges and hints of peaks, and finally to the
jagged spines of formations that are more than hills, but not
exactly mountains. Each is neatly superimposed on the
other, as if nothing which is blocked from view actually
exists. The lines between each successive geological shape
are less like lines than subtle shifts in color. The greens,
blue-greens and patches of brown in the foreground give
way to various shades of deeper blues and blue-grays, final-
ly ending in a deep violet that obscures all detail—a back-
ground barely discernible from the fading sky. Each shift in
color seems to grow from the one below it.
Along the seemingly broken line formed by the shore
meeting the ocean, the line that seems to appear and disap-
pear with the intrusion of each ridge line, there is that color
that always appears slightly impossible when seen on a can-
vas. It’s that strange overlay of grays, greens—sometimes
mixed with yellow and white—a spectrum of blues, and
splashes of silver that give the impression of light coming
from below the surface. It is an ocean of the imagination,
shimmering and undulating hauntingly in the glow of an

53
unseen sun. A color is created at the juncture of land and
sea that makes one think that the hills are not actually solid
at all, that they are made of flowing lava that burns on first
contact with water like some mixture of gold, jade and
phosphorus.
Each hill, with its suggestion of a valley, traces its own
path downward from left to right, each rising occasionally,
yet steadily and finally falling to the ocean. The glowing
line of water moves sharply to the left, loses itself behind
another line of hills and emerges again to make another,
shallower bend to the left. The ocean as it moves to the
foreground gradually asserts its preeminence over the gen-
tler, less obtrusive land. One sees the dramatic points of
land with their off-shore outcroppings of wave-battered,
orphaned rocks, but one only senses the presence of the hid-
den coves.
And the great San Pedro point, once considered the
southern end of San Francisco Bay, deep in the right
extreme of the background, slowly comes alive in the dying
light with twinkling lights, like stars in some distant,
invented sky.
The evening haze makes the deep colors of the short end
of the spectrum seem musical. The violins of the fore-
ground blend into the mournful French horns and the plain-
tive woodwinds and finally into the basses and the timpani’s
of the far, darkened ridges, disappearing into the gathering
night.
On the days when the evening fog begins its assault on the
land, another transformation takes place. The dark and
muted colors stand in sharp contrast to the shimmering
gray/white of the octopus-like fog fingers that gently explore
each valley in search of a passage to the high ground. It
moves like a curious animal, sniffing and groping its way
along the easiest path, gradually gathering courage and

54
strength in its desire to claim the entire landscape. The scene
becomes surreal, hilltops seeming to float in a ghostly tide.
When during those magic, late hours, the haze lifts along
the horizon, an outcropping of rock, perhaps the top of an
island, appears at a distance impossible to estimate, an
occasional Brigadoon of the imagination.
The lines of deep pacific swells move gradually into the
field of this late and almost unnatural light, creating alter-
nate pulses of light and dark —alpha wave resonance deep
within the careful observer. It invokes joy and pathos and
deep reflection. It can make one cry without knowing why.
Those magnificent ridge lines were almost covered with
condos and a convention center. The beautiful Vallemar
district was almost severed by a massive freeway, and
McNee State park was almost bisected by a new super high-
way replacement for Highway One. The San Francisco
garter snake almost lost its last habitat to fill from a massive
project. San Pedro Creek was almost rendered dead.
Pacifica almost became another victim, like poor Daly City.
Some dedicated people worked long and hard to keep those
things from happening, and my association with those good
people was one of the finest endeavors of my life.
Sometimes I feel I must keep all these wonders in mind,
that without loving attention they will fade away, will erode
into the banal places where we try to accommodate the life
of our heart’s desire to the life pressed upon us by society’s
incessant demands. These places and activities that exist
both as inner and outer experience are a sacred trust. We are
responsible for maintaining them, not just by money or
effort, but by the love they engender, by the archetypical
symbols they evoke. It is an unpopular idea in a world filled
with rights but bereft of the responsibilities that mirror them,
like up with down, right with left. bad with good, and joy
with sorrow. We are responsible, totally and completely

55
responsible for our places of drudgery and places of joy.
An interesting example used in chaos theory says that a
butterfly flapping its wings in some place like Katmandu,
can ultimately generate a storm in California. You kick a
pebble on the road, and a million years from now the land-
scape is totally different than it would have been if you had
let it be. You throw a candy wrapper on the highway, and in
2174 a child starves. You ignore a beautiful sunset, and
someday poetry ceases to exist. You hold back a tear of joy,
and the mighty Mississippi dries up. I am personally
responsible for everything that happens in the universe,
every moment of happiness, every cry of pain. I am respon-
sible for that, and so are you. Every breath that each and
every one of us takes is the most important and most
poignant act in all of eternity. With that in mind, how can
any of us willingly live even a single moment in unaware-
ness, absently going about life as if it were some mindless
chore to struggle through?
All the moments of my life that I’ve used and abused
might have, if used properly, created a heaven on earth, if
not literally, than perhaps just for me. My tenancy is to slip
into regret, to feel sorry for all the moments wasted, but that
only adds more of them, and this life isn’t going to last for-
ever. There was a time some fifteen years ago when
moments of awareness and joy were separated by weeks
and months of zombie-like lassitude and sadness. I’ve
moved light years since then, but I’ve got light years to go
before I live life at the level I wish.
Each touch of a paddle to water, each puff of breeze in my
hair, each drop of spray off a breaking wave, each splash of
color from a wildflower, each smile returned to me adds
something incredible and eternal to my life. At times I catch
a glimmer of insight. True freedom comes, I suspect, when
you so love life and everything in it that you no longer have

56
even the most secret desire to be separate from it in any way.

CH 5
SUMMER DREAM TIME IN THE
NORTH BAY

There are probably a hundred reasons why I’m not

touched or impressed by rows of cotton or corn, even
though those crops are a daily part of my life. Yet, riding
through the gently rolling coastal hills, thickly, darkly green
with artichokes makes me sentimental and poetic. I have
actually scribbled poems on a fast food bag while driving
through those fields. Perhaps I’ve formed a mental associ-
ation between these coastal fields and the constant search
for surf. Artichokes only grow along the coast from
Monterey to Mendocino Counties. Actually, I can’t even
relate the feelings that come over me as I pass through those
fields. There is a mix of warmth, friendship, home, relax-
ation, and freedom. But that’s just a crude list for all the
subtle interplays that are triggered in my inner universe.
The same kind of thing kicks in the minute I get into wine
country, but that doesn’t connect directly with beach activi-
ties, even though just about everything in my life has some
symbolic connection to the beach, even, of all things, ski-
ing, which I think of as surfing on frozen waves.
The wine country is ripe with easy travel images, of lazy
days spent in no hurry, with no concerns about chores and
obligations waiting for me, with long bike rides in the
Valley of the Moon, where spring colors are so rich that
they make one dizzy and cause hallucinations, with trips up
the almost mythical Highway 101 past all the wonderful

57
wineries and the fabulous brewery in Hopland, the home of
Red Tail Ale.
The wine country is walks in Jack London State Park
with his ghost as a guide. It’s lunch at an outside table, by
Sonoma Creek in Glen Elen, with a glass of cabernet and a
delightful conversationalist. It’s the Fourth of July in
Sonoma--small town America with just a touch of class. It’s
catching the hint that blows in with the afternoon breeze,
the knowledge that the true secret of immortality is to live
every moment of life to the fullest, as if it were the one and
only moment that has ever been or will ever be. It’s the
windows down, the air thick as syrup and redolent of wild-
flowers and the stereo turned up with some rock band play-
ing with wild abandon and animal vitality. It’s making love
in the sunshine, deep in a field of green grass. It’s love cast
in the basic elements, the protons, neutrons and electrons of
our symbolic, multidimensional, holographic world.
When I think of the wine country, it’s in terms of being
self-indulgent. Wine country days are days that start with
fresh clothes and a sumptuous breakfast at any of the many
classy cafes in Sonoma. They are days of just enough activ-
ity, surrounded by bouts of good food, wine and conversa-
tion. They are also days that end with a hot shower fol-
lowed by a relaxing evening and a night’s sleep as deep as
a coma. The wine country is the one place I pamper myself
shamelessly.
Marin County is just a short drive from Sonoma, and I
also tend to pamper myself in East Marin, the place where
the affluent demonstrate that they really how to savor life.
Along the US 101 corridor through Sausalito, Larkspur,
Corte Madera, San Anselmo, Fairfax and the like, people
balance the lovely, almost majestic outdoor world with the
amenities and the luxuries that permeate the area. An East
Marin bike ride often ends with a gourmet lunch and fine

58
wine. I offer the comfort and riches of east Marin to myself
as a reward for times when I feel so damn good about
myself that I think I deserve to spoil the hell out of myself.
However, the Marin I’m really drawn to, the Marin that
infects my spirit and sends my imagination into convulsions
of rapture, is West Marin. A breathless wonder overtakes
me at the unfolding of every West Marin vista. The place
has the same mythic effect on me as Camalot or Atlantis has
for others. However, the effects are subtle. Unlike Big Sur,
west Marin doesn’t bowl you over at first glance. Rather, it
gradually works its way into your brain like a fever, until
your mind starts creating paintings of pure light on the
subtle panorama that flows by and through you.
One of these west Marin places is so etched in my mind
that it plays like a big screen movie at the mere thought of
it. This is Tomales Point at Point Reyes National Seashore.
Just driving around Tomales Bay and out on the penninsula
through Inverness makes you think you are entering a dif-
ferent country, a different continent perhaps.
On my first trip to the point, I’d only intended to take a
bike ride, off the road, along some trail. I drove to the roads
end at McClures Beach and the trail head at the old ranch
site. I thought I’d bike out to the end of Tomales Point, but
the sign said that bikes weren’t allowed. Well, I wasn’t
going to spend the damn day driving around, so I locked the
bike on the truck and took off walking into one of the most
incredible hikes imaginable, and I’ve also hiked Yosemite’s
high country.
The trail started out behind the historical old ranch. I
stepped off, and within a minute the ranch had vanished in
the blowing fog. If you like sunshine and good visability,
take this hike in any season except Summer. Summer is fog
season and the warm land sucks it in with awesome force.
The result out on these unprotected coastal bluffs is fog that

59
blows onshore so hard that one has to lean into it at times.
And it comes in giant waves, sometimes so thick that you
can’t see thirty feet in any direction. But at times it will
suddenly clear, giving a momentary panorama that has the
effect of a photo, a stroboscopic scene flash frozen in your
mind for life.
While I still had on the shorts I’d worn constantly for the
two weeks that I’d been wandering the coast, I slipped my
nylon windbreaker over a heavy, long sleaved, tee shirt. I
also wore a hat, pulled down hard to keep it from blowing
away.
Walking along, I caught occasional bright flashes of the
scenery, exploding out of the fog, only to be engulfed again.
Sometimes the views would be of the steep cliffs and
pounding surf on the ocean side, and other times I’d be
looking down the gentle, rolling hills to the deep blue calm
of Tomales Bay.
In a way this is more than a hike, it’s an excursion into
the very nature of the human thinking process. Since we
have a left and a right side to our brains, we tend to mental-
ly cut things in two: right and wrong, black and white, poor
and rich, civilized and wild, etc. Tomales Point acts as a
symbol of that human tendency. The land narrows down
until finally coming to a point, a point which juts north right
at the margin of two huge tectonic plates. Tomales point
and the huge crustal plate it rides on plows its way north at
two inches a year, leading a strip of land that includes Los
Angeles and Baja California. Along the entire walk, one is
confronted with opposites. On the bay side, those gentle
hills slope down to calm inlets and absolutely still beaches.
On the ocean side the land crumbles away, creating rugged
cliffs that hang out in space before plunging to pocket
beaches constantly ravaged by a restless surf. The inland
side is done in brown and tan, while the ocean side has

60
rocks coated with bright crimson and orange and lime
green.
Then there’s the constant flow of the fog which blows
like slow and massive waves or glacial ghosts over the
point. Walking along, you look off toward where the water
might be and you see swirling fog. But in that fog you can
find faint lines like the light pencil traces that can be found
below the color in watercolor paintings. Then, just as you
think the hint of some natural shape is playing hide and seek
with you, the fog lifts for a moment, and a beautiful piece
of coast, complete with beaches, waves, rocks, sea birds and
off shore islands stands brilliantly illuminated in the sun.
Then you blink or look away, and it’s gone, only to be
replaced a moment later by another scene on the bay side.
The result is a world of unreal images, a dreamscape that
resembles the labyrinth of the subsconscious.
And the animals! You see, there is very little natural
cover. There are a few rocks and a small stand of trees at
the one low spot half way out. Other than that, it is mostly
waist high grasses and sage, all waving wildly in the wind.
The constant motion of the grass and the dense fog serve as
hiding places for the animals. In a forest, as you approach,
the animals start to back away, taking refuge behind trees or
boulders. You can’t sneak up on them, and when you see
them, it is a fleeting look at a nervous thing. However, out
on the point the weather is cover, so the creatures are going
about their daily lives just a few yards from you, safe in the
knowledge that everything is blended into the mass of
swirling gray. When those moments come and the fog
clears briefly, everything becomes crystal clear. Then you
catch them all in the act, naked and engaged in whatever
they’d be doing if no one was around. It’s like taking a
strobe light into the wilds.
The scenery is seductive, pulling you further and further in.

61
There is one deep canyon leading way down to a deserted
beach on the ocean side, a great erroded canyon that spirals
down in deep greens, blues and oranges into steep and dark
walls, cliffs that drop to the beach. It’s like a fractal. No, a
fractal is a poor math generated approximation of the wonders
of a canyon. The complexity, instead of decreasing or stay-
ing the same as you get closer, increases. The total is a deep,
intricate, wonderous maze.
But moving into it, the depth and complexity grows and
grows, each piece a whole unto itself, like looking at the
milky way through more and more powerful telescopes.
The most seductive part is that the canyon seems much
too steep to climb down into, but you can walk a few yards
to the edge for a better view. Those few yards reveal a trail,
not too steep, to follow down to the next edge. The next
edge you walk to reveals another section of the trail, wind-
ing down to yet another apparent dead end. That pattern
repeats until you find yourself deep in the canyon, the walls
towering above and the beach only a few yards below. The
indentations you saw from above are now deep caves in the
canyon wall above you, the only shelter big enough for the
local mountain lions and coyotes. The ground is wet from
the tiny streamlet that trickles down from the canyon’s
head.
All along the trail out to Tomales Point, there are those
opposites, the tamed, calm, gentle, civilized, predictable
bay side, and the wild, unknown, steep, mysterious ocean
side, just like the two opposing forces that pull the human
being. And all along the way each side beckons in turn,
each with its own charm. You wonder which side will
prevail. Will the trail’s end bring you to the bay or the
ocean? It’s like asking which side of the human condition
will prevail.
Finally you reach the end, the big, sandy nose that points

62
longingly toward Alaska and its future reunion. Standing
up on that sandy bluff brings it all together. You can see
both sides from there, the calm bay and the angry ocean.
You can look north to Bodega Head, emerging faintly from
the gray. It’s then you feel like you’re on a massive ship, an
irresistable force of nature, the tip of thousands of miles of
earth moving relentlessly and deliberately north at an amaz-
ing two inches a year, cutting through the waves like the
prow of a ship of dreams.
But the end of the point, the last piece of land, was still
down a sandy hill. And the bay and ocean drew closer and
closer. Looking from right to left was like playing ping
pong with the eternal principles of yin and yang. By then,
I was obsessed. I had to know what was there. Was there a
place that was neither bay or ocean or perhaps both?
Would I end up on one of those gentle bay beaches or
climbing down a cliff to a stormy, ocean cov? The trail
dropped steadly. Finally the point was only a few yards
wide, and the trail, deeply cut, dropped suddenly. A few
yards walk, left me on a rise, maybe fifteen feet above the
water. Here the trail split, dropping almost straight down to
the bay and also to the ocean, the two opposities unresolved
to the bitter end. And straight ahead, separating the two
sides was a slab of rock right at water level, a dark slab
maybe twenty by thirty feet. Great waves from the west
crashed against it. sometimes almost washing over it.
Hundreds of birds, gulls and cormorants, huddled and
fussed and dodged the ocean spray. The point of contact
between two unimaginably huge tectonic plates, the point
where rocks are subducted and ground to molten pulp, one
of the most wind blown and storm tossed places on the
coast, and to these feathered creatures it was home, just as
my warm house with its roaring fire is home to me.
In the great cosmic painting that is our earth, this point is

63
a watercolor. Woods and mountains look as if they had
been done by a god who works in oil. But Point Reyes was
painted by a god whose medium is watercolors, misty wash-
es and flowing colors, Turneresque and elusive, phantasm-
goric and fluid.
Along the trail back I happened to look down and saw
what looked like the sky reflected in tiny mirror finish sun-
glasses. There were dozens of little beetles trudging down
the trail. Each of the little guys was a highly polished blue-
black mirror, and the fog swirled on their sturdy little backs.
As I continued up the trail, something caught my eye
from off to one side. Within the sea of swirling grasses,
there was a patch of grass too dark and too billowy to be
normal grass. I looked, but I couldn’t make it out. I took a
couple more steps, turned. and looked again. There it was,
looking more like fauna than flora. I stepped off the trail,
and suddenly this patch moved against the wind. A few
more steps and it emerged from the fog as a skunk’s tail.
Inching closer, I saw the animal lift his head, acknowledg-
ing my presence. It’s tail moved furiously, a warning that a
nasty spray awaited the animal foolish enough to venture
closer. Barely fifteen feet from this beautiful, big animal, I
realized that the wind was blowing perhaps thirty miles an
hour, and I was upwind of the skunk.
Grabbing the rare opportunity, I moved to about ten feet
from him. His movements bordered on panic as he realized
that I should have been repelled by now. It was not the fear
of being sprayed, but the fear of upsetting this gentle
creature that caused me to turn away and find the trail again.
This was his home, and I was only a visitor.
Back at the car, I looked up the hill to see a large herd of
tule elk. I watched them for awhile as I relaxed and got out
of my muddy hiking boots. A flock of birds made a pattern
like notes of a symphony as they passed behind the black

64
phone lines strung over the road. Marshall, across Tomales
Bay, emerged momentarily from the fog, and a young couple
came off the trail smiling broadly. An unimaginably light
and spiritual feeling carried me, through the rush hour traffic,
over the Golden Gate Bridge and all the way to the dinner
waiting for me at the home of good friends in the Richmond
District of San Francisco.
Going south on Highway One through Marin County, one
must pass Tomales Bay for perhaps a dozen miles, past the
little fishing town of Marshall and on to Point Reyes
Station, where a decision must be made. One can turn right
to Point Reyes with its wonderful hiking and biking but
probably no ridable surf, or one can continue to the towns
of Bolinas and Stinson Beach where surfers abound.
Occasionally the draw of Tomales Bay is too strong and the
trip is aborted. These are days when the bay is calm and
deep blue, and the far side sits silent, inviting and foreign.
One can look across the water and feel that this slice of blue
is a time machine, and the only way to know when, not
where, the opposite shore is located is to make the trip.
Just before Highway One curves down the hill to skirt
Tomales Bay, the highway follows Keys Creek, a tidal
creek, shallow, placid and teeming with aquatic birds. On a
straight line out into Tomales Bay from Keys Creek, and
almost to the Point Reyes shore, is fascinating, wooded Hog
Island. I’ve never passed it without thinking that I’d like to
visit it. Last summer I had my chance.
There was no surf at Salmon Creek, near Bodega Bay,
and I was working my way south. Along Keys Creek, I
found a parking lot which I guessed was mostly for fisher-
men. I stopped and walked down the short trail to the creek.
It looked at least deep enough for a kayak, so I unloaded my
boat and hauled it down to the water.
I paddled down the creek toward Tomales Bay, leaving

65
nervous herons and egrets in my wake. The creek spread
out as it merged with the bay. At the creek’s mouth was a
mass of birds, pelicans, gulls and more. They seemed to be
just standing on the water. As I approach, I realized that
they were standing in the water, which was only inches
deep. I was almost aground. I turned hard left and had to
pole myself through the mud with my paddle for a few
yards before I gained the freedom of the open bay.
Then straight ahead of me was Hog Island, so I made for
it, catching a hard wind in mid channel that broke wavelets
over the side of my kayak and on to my chilled, bare legs.
The going was pretty sloppy out in the middle, and the pass-
ing fishing and speed boat wakes didn’t help. The island
drew closer only very slowly.
Finally in the wind shade of the island, I saw a short
sandy beach. Where the beach met the little bluff, there was
the remains of an old stone building. I paddled to a
scrunchy stop in the coarse sand.
Pulling my boat up from the encroaching tide, I set out to
explore. The old building was roofless and might have been
a cabin at one time. Behind it, a trail led up the bluff to the
main part of the island, a flat, wooded area somewhat less
than an acre. Walking among the thick trees, I was assault-
ed by the irate protests of a thousand birds, decrying the
violation of their otherwise peaceful home. I was the only
mammal on the place.
A quick stroll satisfied my curiosity, and I headed back to
the beach. From the beach I could see the bay’s entrance,
between Tomales Point and Dillon Beach, with the eternal-
ly marching wind chop and the promise of an early fog. I
stood there and thought of Sechelt Inlet in British
Columbia, wind whipping up the channel, deserted beaches
and the feeling of being alone while only a mile or so from
signs of civilization.

66
 I paddled the rest of the way to the peninsula, into White
Gulch, past a boat, either deserted or filled with late sleepers,
to a pocket beach, probably almost inaccessible from the
Tamales Point Trail, because of the steep cliff and the dense
overgrowth. I quickly explored the solitary beach before
starting back across the bay.
To avoid the mud flat by the slightly submerged bird
island, I swung north and came in past what looked like
crustacean traps. I should have swung further and come in
right along the steep bank where I’m now sure the only deep
channel was. Instead I grounded, forcing me to walk in
some seriously deep mud for several yards.
A painful lesson kayakers learn quickly if they navigate
estuaries is to be very careful not to ground in the mud.
These tidal mudflats are the consistency of tar mixed with
Elmer’s glue and are often eighteen inches deep. The mud
grabs and holds on hard, making each step a slow motion
comedy. Mud gets all over the kayaker, the kayak, clothing,
everything. I’ve destroyed two pair of sport sandals pulling
them out of this super mud. One is now a fossil in Bolinas
Lagoon.
The bay narrowed entering Keys Creek. The egrets and
herons again flapped with fright, and that peculiar tidal
creek calm overtook me again as I moved silently up toward
my truck.
Like songs, one Marin adventure brings a dozen more to
mind. I remember another early summer day in west Marin
during my first season in the bay area, air so clear that given
enough mirrors, one could see around the world. I had
stopped in Santa Rosa and then Sebastopol to put in my
application at the various school districts. It being too late
to go to another district, I stopped at a friend’s place back in
the hills. After a short visit, it was time to head back to
where I was staying in San Francisco. Feeling loose, joy-

67
ful, full of summer, and unemployed, I decided to take
Highway One back.
The big 1100cc motorcycle came alive an the narrow,
gently curving road, taking each curve like a polished belly
dancer, shifting and bobbing with the rhythm of the road,
slowing only to go through the little towns: Marshall,
Tomalas, and stopping once at the deli in Point Rayes
Station for a snack and a beer before pressing on toward
Stinson beach. The road and cars rushed to meet me and
disappeared behind me like images in some absurd virtual
reality game, gone in a second as if they were never there,
the stands of trees, browning hills, occasional half-hidden
creeks, and the heady smell of the ocean the only constants.
Humanity’s cares and accomplishments seemed insignifi-
cant as the wonder of west Marin unfolded in front of me,
like complex music that arises spontaneously from the sub-
conscious.
I can’t remember if this was the first time I made a stop
at Bolinas? I can’t be sure. Bolinas has the effect of disre-
garding chronology, as if it had always been a part of my
life. Bolinas is a special place, a lost world hidden from the
cancer that has claimed the majority of the towns in
California. At the time, and it may still be true, every time
Caltrans put up a sign on Highway One indicating the
Bolinas turn-off, someone from the town would come out,
probably deep in the night to cut it down. How could one
not like a town like that.
Pulling into town—mostly two streets at right angles—
the first realization is that this isn’t a passing through place,
but a destination. All roads end at the beach. Dogs and kids
play in the streets, and nothing moves much faster than 20
MPH. People with Iong hair, boots or sandals, faded jeans
and all the time in the world stroll in and out of the little
cafes and pubs.

68
 There are no chain stores of any kind in Bolinas, and I
hope that there never will be, that any attempt to put up one
of those plastic eating or shopping places will be answered
with gasoline and matches, dynamite and matches, hurri-
canes, tidal waves. earthquakes, cataclysms, and catastro-
phes. I would rather see the town torn down board by board
and brick by brick than to see a K-mart, McDonalds, Taco
Bell, Walmart, Blockbuster Video or any of those other
obscenities that turn lovely towns into Barbie Doll stage
sets. If I could have my way, all those corner mini-malls
that are the same from Cape Cod to Point Loma would be
erased from the face of this country for all time.
All of the days I’ve surfed Bolinas, walked Bolinas,
stood in awe at the massive, stepping stone rocks at
Duxbury Point, or kayaked Bolinas Lagoon have been gold-
en experiences, medicine that I could call upon to get me
through dreary days of mindless chores and ennui, get me
through not only alive but still sane.
One full day in Bolinas and you want to go to work,
unzip your fly, and piss, in careful script, “I quit” across the
papers strewn on your desk.
Getting to Duxbury reef takes some driving back up the
bluff from the main part of Bolinas. You just have to go up
the hill to the north and drive around town until the road
ends. Then you hike up the short hill to the cliff and look
down and out to sea. At low tide the great slabs of dark rock
seem to just keep going, slowly dropping beneath the sur-
face. This is a great meeting of land and sea, a place where
the magic of the ever-changing earth creates a show pro-
found in its antiquity. At some time in the dim past, this
point must have extended miles out to sea. Looking at what
remains of the ancient point, reminds one of the power of
the great Pacific.
Bolinas isn’t the only place where wonders like this

69
greet you. Reefs and surprise beaches abound when you
get north of the manicured areas that most people go to with
picnic lunches, coolers, kids and no expectations save
killing a warm day. Look beyond the parking lots, the pub-
lic restrooms, the clearly marked trails, the snack bars and
the comfort of others of your kind and discover the coast as
it was meant to be seen, down a four hundred foot cliff
along the lost coast, along a creek and down a deep canyon,
at an obscure, small reef just a couple of miles north of
Bolinas, or at a makeshift lean-to miles up a lonely Big Sur
beach. Those who go to church for a taste of the divine
have missed the finest cathedrals. That god you seek, the
one who can give you joy and hope and a promise of for-
ever isn’t crammed into one of those houses of phobia and
guilt. He, she. or it, is out there at the deserted beaches, the
trickling streams, the snowy mountain tops, rejoicing and
celebrating the simple marvel of existence.
Looking back now, there is a strange continuity of events
and sensations in my life, a great movement of self-discov-
ery, a movement north as well as inward. From my first
wide-eyed experience of Big Sur to the prolonged sunset at
La Push, I’ve been on a journey of exploration into the
mythic structure of the psyche, the psyche that molded the
world and is modeled after it.
A painting on the wall of the gift shop in La Push shows
a rather dramatic scene of a dugout full of Indians rowing
madly for shore through ten to fifteen foot storm surf. The
conditions look catastrophic, and the expressions on the
faces look determined. To use a word from the works of
Carlos Castanada, these Indians had focused their intent on
the goal of reaching shore. The intensity in the faces and
the intensity of the surroundings made me certain that, had
I been born an Indian a century ago, I would have wanted
to have been born there, although I have no idea what life

70
was really like back then.
I doubt that life was as compartmentalized as it is now.
For instance, there is the intensity I feel when I’m out there
living the experiences I love, and there is the intensity I feel
now, sitting behind an old computer, in a little box of a
house writing about it. In a perfect world, there would be
no division between the experience and the sharing of it. In
a perfect world. there would be no need to share it.
Everyone would share all intense experiences as they hap-
pen. A long chain of events has fallen into place from the
moment of the experience to the sharing of it with you.
Perhaps another chain will ensue between the reading until
you actually end up at one of the same places, doing one of
the same things, and feeling one of the same feelings I’ve
shared here. Through this complex chain, one that only
appears to be taking place in time, we are connected, and
through this connection we have experienced what it’s like
to be part of the divine order. The writing and the reading
are meaningless by themselves. Together they create a
world of meaning.

71
 CH. 6
INLAND: ENDLESS HILLs, DISTANT
MOUNTAINS

While I lived in Pacifica, I explored the chain of state and

county parks that stretched along the coastal hills from
Sonoma County to Santa Cruz. Within minutes, I could be
in any of a dozen parks along the great spine of the penin-
sula that rises up just south of San Francisco and drops
again to the Pajaro River valley near Watsonville.
Through San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties, these
parks can be reached from Skyline Drive, also known as
Highway 35. This is a mountain road, a redwood forest
road, a fantastic motorcycling road (if you don’t get a tick-
et), and the jumping off place to parks that are as delightful
as any you can name. The center of the area, around
Woodside, is only a few minutes drive from most of the bay
area. You can get up early drive the highway to Skylonda,
have breakfast at Alice’s Restaurant. and pick a park to hike
in.
Most of these parks are dark, damp and thick with red-
woods. Montebello Open Space, however, is open, warm,
filled with brilliant light and deciduous for the most part.
Montebello Open Space is a far cry from the fog of Daly
City. It sits on the ridge at Skyline Drive and Page Mill
Road in Santa Clara County, just a cannon shot from Palo
Alto and Stanford University. If you park at the Page Mill
lot, you walk onto a trail that divides almost as soon as you
start out. To the left is the warm, round and rolling hills,
72
places with views, places for picnics, the main trail and path
to Saratoga Gap, eight miles south. To the right you drop
quickly to the headwaters of Stevens Creek, which
eventually winds up in Silicon Valley by the boulevard
named after it. It is damp and cool as you follow the gentle
birthing of the creek, mud on your shoes, moss cushioning
your hand as you make your way through the trees. It was
down in that valley, somewhere along that creek where I
first stepped off the trail to find out that ladybug beetles
swarmed by the millions in certain seasons. It was in that
canyon where a friend and I sprawled out under a mighty
oak and discussed the vagaries of life and love and watched
the remarkable pattern made by the overhanging limbs of an
ancient oak as it interacted with the soft billows of white
that floated past its branches. It’s only a hike, after all, and
the Parthenon is only an old building, after all.
Some people measure milestones in their lives by the
songs that were popular. Some do it by the TV shows they
watched, and some do it by the rung they’d reached on the
career ladder. I measure mine by the hills I’ve hiked, the
places I’ve surfed, the sights I’ve seen, and the moments of
contemplation and unrestrained joy I’ve experienced. It
makes it difficult to place events in chronological order in
the average conversation. But then, I’m inept at the aver-
age conversation.
To many the natural world out there isn’t personal. It’s
all just places, some fun places, some boring places. It’s
hard to really explain, logically, why it’s so different to me.
Perhaps it stems from a way of looking at the world.
In the classical physics world view, we learn that what
goes up must come down, that every action has an equal and
opposite reaction, that a body in motion tends to stay in
motion and one at rest tends to stay at rest. Einstein came
along and showed us that all this motion and action is rela-

73
tive to the observers position and motion. Then quantum
mechanics deduced that we can only play with all these
little vectors to determine the probability that one thing or
the other will happen before, after or at the same time as
something else. The holographic model postulates a non
local universe where things can affect other things simulta-
neously regardless of distance, that the universe is just
waves of energy causing interference patterns, and that the
whole damn thing can be reproduced from any small part of
it. Some mystical traditions claim that all lives are happen-
ing at once and that we are living in an infinite number of
parallel universes. At the end of these chains of thought,
one can only say for certain that something’s happening, an
event in the here and now. Since I’m experiencing this
something, it is happening for me.
So there you have it. I just happen to have this beauti-
ful, custom made, personal universe. All that energy doing
all that shifting, interfacing, bobbing and weaving, is being
filtered through this perception that is me, and it comes out
a universe with sunlight, cool breezes, perfect surf, singing
birds, furry little animals, rich fragrances, brilliant sunsets,
delicious food, fine wine, smiling faces, dramatic music.
and a billion little details that all blend together to create the
effect of something very close to perfection. And it’s mine.
Out of the infinite probabilities inherent in infinite univers-
es, this glorious panorama emerges just for me to experi-
ence and enjoy at exactly this moment. And that, I suppose,
is the reason why it seems so personal to me.
In this personal and altogether magical universe, wonders
can happen at any time. I’ve just returned from Point Reyes
Station in West Marin County where an art gallery that han-
dles some lovely work, accepted three of my sculptures.
Without adding any qualifying clauses, I can respond to
“what do you do,” with, “I’m an artist.” To me, that’s more

74
important than being famous or rich or good looking. In
this personal and altogether magical universe, I’m defining
myself in terms of who and what I want to be and what I
want to present to the world around me. As the late Alan
Watts might have put it, I’m doing my particular dance
within the great dance of life.
The idea of dancing brings up some fun free associating.
It brings back a memory that goes back maybe thirteen
years. An old girlfriend and I were camping in Yosemite, in
the Wawona area. We took a day hike up a trail by a creek
that leads to a minor waterfall. Part way up the trail, we
decided to abandon the path and bushwhack along the
stream, under the trees, on the soft carpet of generations of
fallen leaves of every color imaginable. For a hot, dusty
hour or two we worked up along the stream until we
reached the bottom of the waterfall. No longer able to bush-
whack, and not really into finding the trail and continuing
upward. we turned back, angling away from the stream with
the intention of eventually reconnecting with the trail.
Once back on the trail, we’d worked up a lather. Off to
one side we spotted a tiny waterfall, scarcely wider than a
shower and maybe fifteen feet high. Without a moment’s
deliberation, we pulled off our clothes and frolicked in the
little, snow-melt cascade, catching our breath at the first
contact. We were clean and cool, but we had no towels, so
we danced in the sunshine like elves at Christmas until we
were dry enough to get dressed.
Weird, these things I recount as if they were just experi-
ences. Looking over them, I see that they’re all symbols.
I’ll risk ridicule and venture that just about anything beyond
basic survival is symbolic for humans. Jobs are more than
work for money. They are symbols of status in a highly
complex web of interacting, interpersonal roles.
Graduating from high school or college is a milestone, a

75
symbol of transition from child to adult, from dependent to
independent. A hike becomes a symbol of perseverance, of
attainment, or even of manly vigor.
My best guess is that all outward experience is a reflec-
tion of an inner, shapeless experience, a quest for some
abstract meaning on a level that is purely energy. The music
is in the head, the heart, and the essential spirit. The dance
is performed in the physical world, just as a work of art is
conceived in the imagination and realized in some physical
medium. I’ll push the concept even further and say that no
act in the physical world has even a modicum of meaning
aside from the inner, symbolic meaning. That said, I con-
fess that this chronicle is not a record of travels along the
west coast of North America. It’s merely a record of the
inner quest of one being to find, explore and define himself.
In that context, La Push isn’t a place in Washington at all.
It’s a state of mind, a feeling tone, an inner blend of ener-
gies that create a series of shapes, colors and impressions.
It’s also a symbol of the part of my nature that is defined by
a quest.
These various symbols define me, generate me from the
generalized background known as humanity, touch me and
create the “I” that makes life personal.
Once I was even touched, defined and moved by fields
of parsley. It’s easy; all you need to do is make the right
associations in the labyrinth of your consciousness.
Actually, it was on a motorcycle camp out weekend. A dear
old friend from Southern California had done several of
these and had been after me to go on one. These trips were
organized by the folks who own the motorcycle camp-
ground. I did attend a couple with her, the ones that were
held over the Labor Day weekend.
I would leave home on a Friday after work, sleeping bag,
tent, and change of clothes bungied on the rack of my

76
Kawasaki 1100. I even brought a body board along for a
surf stop on the return trip. Anyway, I’d get to her house in
the evening and we’d have dinner and then talk and drink
wine until late. Still, the next morning would find us up
early and ready to go, the other member of the party meet-
ing us around nine. We’d check our loads, have breakfast,
gas up and head north on the San Diego Freeway. We’d
branch off at the Santa Monica Freeway and take Pacific
Coast Highway to Topanga Canyon, then up Topanga to
Mulholland. Single file we would bob and twist out
Mulholland until we reached the Rock Store, a small eatery
and beer pub in the Agoura Hills that caters to bikers. And
there we’d stop, hang out with the other bikers, swap stories
and power down a couple or three cold ones.
Next, we’d take a short hop down the hill to the 101 and
north again for a quick freeway run to highway 23 in
Thousand Oaks. The 23 freeway ends after just a few miles,
and that’s where the fun really begins. It’s up and over some
rugged, steep, dry and inhospitable hills that suddenly drop
away almost roller coaster fashion to the Simi Valley. It’s
hard to watch the curves in the road coming swiftly up to
meet you when all you want is to memorize the expanse that
seems to be right below your left foot peg.
Then it’s a dash across the valley to the 126 at Fillmore
and west to the 150 at Santa Paula. Once on the 150, the
L.A. megaslopolis is forgotten as rolling, green, rural hills
give way to sudden mountains at the head of a truly dra-
matic pass.
Interestingly enough, these hills behave like the ones on
the south side of the Simi Valley. They rise slowly, lazily,
through rolling hills dotted with farms and ranches, and at
the head of the pass the topography changes suddenly. Go
around one curve, and rolling hills become steep, moun-
tains. On this second range of hills you look a few hundred

77
feet down the dry slopes to the incredible lushness of the
Ojai Valley, the land of reclusive artists and of the late J.
Krishnamurti. Even a big cruiser is low on gas by now, so
we stop at Ojai, stretch, and gas up.
Just past Ojai on the 33 is Meiners Oak and a great
little beer bar right on the highway. It’s called The Wheeler
Inn because it’s right across the highway from Wheeler Hot
Springs. This is another mandatory motorcycle stop.
The 33 quickly moves into true mountain country, a
biker’s fun zone. Often there is very little auto traffic, and
by then our group has loosened up. Pouring on the throttle.
we dog the tight turns, nose to tail, hunched low in the turns,
taking short, hungry glances at the stark mountains gallop-
ing by.
At the top of the hill on 33 is a funky little pub, appro-
priately named the Half Way House, so far from anything
like a town that it has no phone or electricity. The beer
cooler is run by the generator out back of the outhouse.
This is another unavoidable beer stop.
When this winding, mountain road finally straightens
out, it’s along a wide wash that’s totally dry that late in the
summer. At the end of that long wash, about five miles
before 33 ends at Highway 166, a few signs of civilization
appear again around an area called Ventucopa. Naturally
there’s a small diner and bar on the left, Gail’s place. After
killing an hour or so and checking the waning afternoon, we
make the final sprint to Songdog Ranch in an area known as
Cuyama.
A dirt road leads back into the ranch and then turns
abruptly up a steep hill to a bluff that points west like the
prow of some great ship working it’s way slowly to the
ocean some 60 or 70 miles away. There is a window of time
to pitch camp and watch the sun moving down the long val-
ley, ending up dropping finally over the hills just east of

78
Santa Maria and into the Pacific. Dark shadows reach up
the valley for twenty miles or more, creating the image of a
tunnel so long and deep that it seems to lead to the other end
of the world. And we, tired and happy, sitting on a bluff at
the head of the valley, with a view unrestricted for as far as
the eye can see, sipping a beer and waiting for the dinner
gong, are transported to a place where no words need be
spoken about the view, the day, or the strange camaraderie
shared by motorcyclists.
The fading light shimmered over a pale green that
extended miles down the valley. Asking someone what was
grown in this seemingly high desert, I was told it was pars-
ley. I’ve always like parsley; I like it even more now that it
brings back the image of a 70 mile sunset.
This bike weekend with all the beer stops and the endless
bike talk with other two-wheeled travelers was the essence
of motorcycling for my friend. However, at the end of the
trip, I had something to show her. She wasn’t in a hurry to
get home, so I suggested the Big Sur coast and then inland
to my place. The only problem was her bike. It stalled out
at The Half Way House at the top of the hill, the one with
no phone. After a time of shaking, wiggling and kicking,
we’d determined that it wasn’t going anywhere. The owner
of the place said we could store it for a few days, and he
even offered my friend his small bike for the duration of the
trip.
She had no qualms about taking the little bike all the way
up the coast and bringing it back to the guy several days later.
She lives her life as if she expects solutions to problems to
simply materialize. and they usually do. Now, the little bike
was kind of clunky, but that didn’t really bother her that
much as we worked our way down the long winding valley
toward the coast. After a little apprehension trying to keep
up with traffic on 101, she actually got into it all the way to

79
Pismo Beach. We stopped for gas, food and a couple of
beers. Then she announced that the coastal weather was just
too damn cold for her. I was disappointed. I’d tolerated the
uncomfortable inland, August heat for two days, and I’d
hoped she could take a cool ocean breeze for a few hours.
No use even discussing it. She’s a woman who, once her
mind is made up, clamps it shut.
So once again I took my time rambling up that magnifi-
cent road, sharing it only with the little. anonymous audi-
ence in my head.
I made only one more trip to Songdog after that. This
time neither of us had the time for long coastal wanderings,
so on Sunday morning after breakfast we bid our good-byes
until we’d see each other again a year later in Costa Rica.
She went back up the hill toward Ojai, and I decided to
explore the Carrizo Plain, a place that always jumped up
from my map, hinting wildly of hidden, deserted, unusual
places. My impression of the place was from a photo I’d
seen, the path of the San Andreas Fault cutting straight
across the plain. The San Andreas is the big one that runs
near Los Angeles and through San Francisco, the one
responsible for the big S.F. quake of 1906 as well as most
of the other really heavy shakes. It’s also the same fault that
ends at Tomales Point at Point Reyes. The photo I remem-
bered was taken from the air and clearly showed a long fur-
row. The land was so dry and desolate that the fault stood
out as if it had been made by the plow of Paul Bunyan.
From the mostly gravel road the furrow could not be
seen, being over near one of the hills. What I did
experience is the closest I’ll ever come to traveling on the
moon. This place is a long desert, a flat valley probably
three or more thousand feet high, ringed by mountains,
almost totally devoid of vegetative life. It was as empty,
motionless and timeless as some lunar crater, like a place

80
that has escaped discovery for a billion years. But in the
foreground, there were signs of life, low, brown, almost
gray grass and scattered cattle. I couldn’t imagine how
many acres it takes in a place like that to feed just one
animal.
But the animals and clumps of dead grass were anomalies
here, almost as if someone had come through just minutes
earlier to set it up so I would think that this place was real,
was actually a part of the Earth. Slipping by in the gravel
at no more than thirty miles per hour, everything with a life
span of less than a million years seemed to be illusionary.
Then I came to a small lake, some fences and a paved road,
and the surreal image shattered to reveal the world of every-
day life, of ranch houses, barns and signs of life. But, for
over thirty miles, I was an alien on a alien world, and it was
wonderful.
In the perhaps 19,000 days I’ve lived, I’ve only made the
trip over the Carrizo PIain once. I’ve been to La Push only
once. I’ve yet to see Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. I’ve
never hiked the Alps. This isn’t the way it’s supposed to be
in a sane world. With all the wonderful and personally ful-
filling things to do, I find myself engaged in some of the
most blitheringly, mind-wrenchingly dull activities. For
example, I’ve just paid almost $450 to a major state univer-
sity for the privilege of making an hour and a half round trip
twice a week in order to sit through a total of six hours of
absolute numbing drivel. Why do I do it? Just for the right
to continue doing what I do for a living.
As a special education teacher, I have to get a special cre-
dential for teaching special education. That is not the same
one as the one I have for teaching English or elementary
school. So I have to attend a university a couple of times
per week for two or three years so that I can be fully quali-
fied to do what I’ve done fairly well for over three years.

81
For non teachers, this may stop making sense at any point
now.
The perfect solution to this problem is to find a university
with a quality, intellectually stimulating program that is close
enough to drive to after a day at work and doesn’t cost more
than a good used car. In the major metro areas, this is possi-
ble. Out here in the valley, one must settle for either good,
close, or cheap. I opted for one that wasn’t too expensive and
not too distant. Good options are few within a reasonable
drive.
This particular program is solidly based in adulterated
behaviorism or behavioral science, “science” being used
euphemistically. This behaviorism as learning theory is
B.F. Skinner reanimated by Dr. Frankenstein out of body
parts taken from deceased Cal Trans or Army Corp of
Engineers executives. This fecal material is delivered by
intellectual cultists very like much those bland, robed fig-
ures who used to plague us at airports. These are people
who do clinical studies, which means they control the input
and output and wouldn’t think in a million years of actual-
ly working in a messy, uncontrolled public school.
Since behaviorism is touted as psychology, one might
assume that it is based on human nature. Their model of
human nature is a cybernetic model. You push this button
and the thing does such; push another button and it does
something else. They have all kinds of terms for all this,
terms that are supposed to describe the results of applying
the system. However, the actions and reactions they
describe are the same as their definitions, so everything
comes out just as they say it should. A stimulus is anything
done to the subject. A response is anything the subject does
back, and that pretty much covers anything that can happen.
Does this sound like some kind of a circular argument?
Give them more credit for intelligence. They twist the cir-

82
cular argument into a mobius strip. Since a stimulus is any-
thing done to a subject and a response is anything done by
the subject, their contention that a stimulus elicits a
response can’t really be refuted. If the response isn’t the
one predicted by the stimulus, they remind us that lots of
other stimuli are acting on the subject.
People, as we know, since we are them, are not cyber-
netic, binary response tools. We are complex, multidimen-
sional beings that very well may have a non physical com-
ponent that is commonly known as a soul but is called by
many names in every culture. Anyone with an ounce of
intuitiveness knows this. Intuitive knowledge of self and
human nature is not a prerequisite for being a behaviorist,
any more than common sense is.
This behavioral science isn’t based on real human nature,
and it isn’t really good science. Even the most objective
observer in the most simple, inanimate observation with the
minimum number of variables knows that the experimenter
contaminates the experiment. We also know that one can
bias findings by selecting just the data that confirms what
you expect to find and by making up the terminology that
proves your contention. Try this: a gribbit is anyone who
disagrees with me. A faulty premise results in a gribbit con-
dition. Therefore anyone who disagrees with me is work-
ing from a faulty premise. Gottcha!
There is a indoctrinational thing going on. The
professors say “stimulus,” and the loyal students answer,
“sstimmuuuluus.” “Response,” intones the master.
“Reesspoonnseees” echoes the students. And when you
question the precepts of any of these true believers, they get
this glassy stare and answer, “Fish hatchery? What fish
hatchery?”
I have a theory, as yet unproven. There is a certain type
of person—one of Freud’s best metaphors, “anal reten-

83
tive.”—who grows up either to get lots of college degrees
or to work in the public sector. The former become behav-
ioral scientists, and the latter replace each morning the
Bolinas highway sign that the locals diligently cut down
each night.
And we wonder what’s wrong with education today.
Children are not intellectually sophisticated, but they do
have a natural ability to sense bullshit in adults. They are
also more closely connected to what might be called the
natural state of humans. We push these poor young people
to think and to become like us and we can be pretty damn
scary examples.
What’s going on out there?
Well you can’t take one thing away from these behav-
ioral, clinical types: their old pleasure/pain principle still
works. I’ll go a long way to avoid pain, and I’ll go a long
way for some pleasure. Keeping an income coming in is
pleasure; starving is pain. So I take the classes and try not
to laugh during lectures.

84
 CH 7
TRIP ONE: EXPLORATION NORTH

A couple off summers ago I decided to take a surf safari

to Canada. The plan was to load surf gear, camping equip-
ment, backpack, and my bike onto and into the pick up
truck and head up the coast, no itinerary, no obligations, no
people to see or deadlines to meet.
Once I was over the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco
in the rear view mirror, the trip officially began. I drove 101
north to the brew pub at Hopland for a late lunch and some
wonderful Red Tail Ale. From Hopland south has always
been weekend fare for me, but further north was the topog-
raphy of a true vacation, an adventure in self-experimenta-
tion.
Passing Leggett at the junction of Highway One and 101,
I was overtaken by a weird nostalgia. I’d last passed that
way, with a rest stop at the tree that was made into a store,
a few years earlier on a motorcycle trip to Oregon. I’d
stopped there, not because I’d had any desire to go into a
store carved into the base of a tree, but because several
hours hunched over the handlebars produce an excruciating
back ache. I’d taken the time to look at everything there
while the pain lessened and I could again walk naturally.
Then taking a moment to decide which road to take, I’d
headed down 101 to home.
Had I not been delayed on that last trip, I’d have taken
Highway One and the many hours of pure motorcycling
delight it offered. But, it had been late afternoon, the sun
making long shadows from the tree covered mountains ris-
ing up from the Eel valley.
I’d gotten an early start, having camped at a state beach

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between Crescent City and Eureka, a beach that has since
added a ranger shack at the gate and now charges campers.
At the time, I’d simply pulled in and had thrown my sleep-
ing bag down in the hollow of a dune, on the finest, softest
sand I’d ever felt, and drifted off to sleep, lulled by the
waves pounding not more than thirty feet from my bed.
That next morning had dawned dark and damp, driving
me to quickly pack my bed roll and pull on my heavy jack-
et. After a very early breakfast in Orick, I’d checked my
map and found an unimproved road that had led back to the
Hoopa Valley, to the Indian reservation. I’d roared up the
narrow road, leaning to the tight turns, and in ten minutes
the temperature had risen from the high fifties to over
eighty. The jacket came off first, and soon everything but
shorts and a tee-shirt. After just a few miles the pavement
had ended, leaving me on a logging road, dodging logging
trucks every few minutes.
The dirt had been loose, the road narrow and winding, and
the turns so sharp they’d doubled back on each other. But the
scenery was the same classic mountain kind that you find in
the Trinities or in the Sierra. The strain of fighting the big
1100 CC had made the time seem to slow to a stand still.
Dusty and tired, I’d finally dropped into the Hoopa Valley,
cut wide, sharp, and deep by the Klamath River.
Where this logging road junctioned with highway 96, I’d
stopped at a country store for something cold to drink and
some snacks. Once on 96 I’d followed the river from a
rocky ledge that had been blasted out of sheer rock high
above the KIamath valley, flat and grassy and dotted with
small farms that drew their sustenance from the clear, wide
river.
After a quick trip west to the coast on the 299, I’d
headed south through Eureka and up the hill towards
Fortuna, away from the coast and the fog. Just before

86
reaching Fortuna I’d seen a big Honda Gold Wing broken
down along side the freeway. As one biker to another, I
couldn’t pass them by. They were at the triangle formed by
the freeway and the off ramp. I’d made sure I was fully
inside the white lines of the triangle before dropping the
kickstand. it was downright civilized how they’d pulled lit-
tle folding chairs off the bike and the wife was sitting back
on the highway, drinking a beer and watching her husband
work. They’d had a flat, and bikes don’t carry spares, so one
is dependent on the good will of passers by. I’d been in that
situation, so I knew how relieved he was when I stopped.
He’d offered me a beer, which I’d accepted.
Getting the rear wheel off a Gold Wing involves remov-
ing all that luggage and light bars and exhaust pipes and just
about the entire back half of the bike. Worst of all, it’s real-
ly a one man job, except for the raising of the bike while a
part is wiggled free. So, I’d relaxed with a beer in the other
chair out on the busy freeway, talking with the couple while
the man grunted and cussed and got grease all over his nice,
leather riding clothes. I’d been there at least an hour before
he’d stood up with the wheel in his hand.
He’d climbed on the back of my bike after I’d dropped
my camping gear on the highway, and he’d held the wheel
in one arm while I drove us back down the hill in search of
a motorcycle shop in Eureka.
Naturally the shop had been busy, and it was another half
hour before they could sell him a tire. Once that was
mounted on his wheel, we’d loaded up again and had gone
back up the hill where his wife was half in the bag from
having nothing to do but swill beer all afternoon. The
morning had long since turned to afternoon, and I was still
over three hundred miles from home. So, seeing that I
could do no more to help him in his process of replacing all
the parts that were strewn along the road, I’d wished them

87
well and headed out, having thrown one more chit into the
karmic cookie jar.
Passing Leggett some four years later, the whole scene
played back like a movie. And, oddly, the things that
remain the most vivid are the color and texture of the sand
on the beach where I’d spent the night, the inside of the
store on the Indian reservation, and the look of the KIamath
from the road along the cliff.
This time I didn’t stop at Leggett or the tree store. In mid
summer there are not always camp sites available, so find-
ing a place before dark was a priority. There are a number
of state parks along the Eel, in an area called the Avenue Of
the Giants. I pulled into Richardson Grove. By summer the
Eel is wide, shallow and lazy, perfect for taking a cool dip
on a typical broiling summer day. I camped above the river,
the sites at water’s edge already taken. A swim dispatched
the dust of the road, and a quick trip down the road brought
food and drink. Curled up in the back of the truck, sur-
rounded by towering redwoods, I thought of how long it had
been since I’d camped along the Avenue of the Giants.
There were subtle differences between this area and the red-
woods around Big Sur, just as there were subtle differences
further north in Del Norte County, where the rain forest is
so thick and lush that leaving the trail is sometimes impos-
sible. Even though I was in a state park, the area had the
feel of logging country, as much of the surrounding hills
and mountains still are. This wasn’t a redwood grove like
we have down south. This was a forest, one that once
stretched unbroken for hundreds of miles, where animals
that humans call game numbered in the millions and
perhaps billions. I was looking out my window at the rem-
nants of the forest primeval. Creatures long extinct had
prowled between the grand parents and great grand parents
of these trees. Many of these trees were standing when

88
Caesar was assassinated, and some were saplings when
Socrates was challenging young men’s minds.
Of all living things on this earth, my feeling is that trees
are the most benign. They provide shelter, shade, food, and
anchor for the soil. They teach, by example, patience, peace
and contemplation. Their very silence indicates a wisdom
that our race will never aspire to. Do trees think? They may
well wonder the same thing about us. Do they communi-
cate? Apparently some studies have already proved that.
Do they make good companions? I’ve never been bored in
the company of a tree, particularly a redwood, the philoso-
pher of the tree world. Were I charged with making laws,
cutting down a redwood would be a capital offense.
The following morning, my next stop was Shelter Cove,
the one town on the lost coast, a place that leaps from a road
map to tickle the imagination. The one road to the coast
leaves 101 around Garberville, passes through Redway and
takes twenty or thirty winding, slow miles to arrive, after a
steep and breathtakingly beautiful drop, at Shelter Cove,
vacation home sites, fishing village, surfing spot. The rest
of the lost coast is indeed lost. Much of it is accessible only
by hiking through some of the most rugged country in the
state. This is one place in California’s coast range where
roads are closed in winter due to snow. This is where one
lane dirt roads lead to wild back country, where even the
paved roads lead to places where people are far less com-
mon than deer and even bear.
I’d wanted to surf Shelter Cove, but the waves wouldn’t
cooperate. Having breakfast at the cafe that overlooks the
harbor, I saw some locals walk a couple of miles down the
beach to a spot. Pulling out my binoculars, I couldn’t detect
anything worth the long walk. Surfers, being what they are,
will go surfing when they have a day free to do so, and the
waves be damned.

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 Having checked out all of Shelter Cove by bicycle, I was
ready to move on. Scanning my map, I saw that I could go
back up the road, turn north to Ettersburg, through
Honeydew then west to the next coast access at Punta
Gorda. I was on my way.
For part of the trip the slow, winding road followed the
Mattole river, and I have this irresistible urge when I get
around unspoiled rivers. The Mattole is about as unspoiled
as you get along the coast range. Crossing a wooden bridge
near Ettersburg, I saw a group of kids from some local sum-
mer school having a picnic along the river. I parked and
walked past them to a spot almost to myself, a spot where
the river hugged a steep bank, overhung with mossy trees
and vines, where the water was slow, deep and forest green.
Two local women were there, and we talked a bit while I
swam and played in the cool stream. Splashing lazily
along, I turned quickly to find myself face to face with a
garter snake, which reacted to my face by swimming madly
for cover. That was the final touch. A good river is one you
share with other creatures.
Fill a cool, clear river with fish, reptiles, mammals, birds
and whatever else you have, let it boil and bubble with
teeming life, and give me a running start, and I’ll be in the
midst of the party, whooping it up with the ducks, bears,
alligators, manatees, herons, hippos and all their cousins
and neighbors. Let’s have a Noah’s river, man and beast
cavorting naked and innocent in the old swimming hole.
Let’s never get so damn civilized that we become
uncomfortable sharing our spaces with the wild and won-
derful life around us, the brothers and sisters of our distant
past.
Back in the truck I was still a few miles but many experi-
ences short of Punta Gorda. Before reaching Honeydew,
along the river I passed an open field that had been converted

90
to a large encampment. There were tents and people every-
where, and a big banner proclaimed that it was Earth First! I
pulled in to see what was up.
If you’ve never spent time with the people of Earth First!,
you most likely have some serious misconceptions about
them and their cause. You probably see them as unruly,
irresponsible eco-outlaws. I spent a day with them, and I
found the whole bunch to be dedicated, sincere environ-
mentalists, people who do more than send in their money
and write the occasional letter to their congressmen. I also
found them to be delightful people who have inherited the
spirit of the sixties flower children.
I took the welcome at face value, and was directed to a
place to park and to the camp center where food was being
served and groups were involved in various ecological sem-
inars. Within minutes I blended into the crowd. However I
still hadn’t checked the surf around Punta Gorda, and being
passionately attached to my quest, I couldn’t rest knowing
that great waves may await. So, thinking that the twenty or
so miles would only take a few minutes, I started off.
These were roads designed for twenty miles per hour,
tops. I drove up and down the semi-paved, winding roads,
following the Mattole river and dropping from majestic
views to little stands of woods until I arrived at Petrolia. A
road turned off the main road and headed along the river to
the beach some five miles away. Off I went, pavement soon
giving way to gravel and dirt. And then there was a
parking lot, buffered from the beach by huge drift logs,
arranged to create the feel of camp spots. There was an out-
house type of toilet and one sign, a sign I’ll remember for
the rest of my life.
It was a perfect juxtaposition: the Earth First! encamp-
ment and this most wonderful sign. They were the two
poles of environmentalism, the yin and yang of the deep,

91
human compassion for this benign jewel of a planet that
gave us life and has nurtured us to the point where we have
the power to slay or to save it. Earth First! represents adult
outrage against acts so heinous as to be unthinkable, acts
that must be redressed immediately by whatever means nec-
essary. But the sign was the simple, tender plea of children,
an innocent outpouring of love beyond anything we adults
are capable of. It was a lovely sign, a brightly painted scene
of the beach, complete with pictures of the land and sea
creatures common to the area. The caption read, “We Love
Our Beach; Please Take Care of It.” Below the caption it
stated that the beach was adopted by the second and third
graders of Petrolia School. It even listed their names.
I was touched so deeply I wept. Standing on the clean
sand, wind in my face, great waves of emotion rushed over
me. Somewhere deep inside the remnant of the child I’d
once been before the truth of the adult world eroded my
innocence and trust, awoke for a moment, and I felt life the
way it was supposed to feel, with total compassion instead
of condemnation. I wondered, when I returned to myself, if
there is any industrialist, any greedy corporate raider, any
corrupt politician, any unfeeling slob who dumps household
chemicals into a creek, who would not be touched, who
would not, like Ebenezer Scrooge, experience a life altering
revelation at the sight of that sign. Who could be so heart-
less that they could look into the eyes of a child and tell her
that her precious beach is standing in the way of progress
and must be leveled to make way for a hotel, or some mon-
strous amusement park, or some glutinous shopping mall?
If I had my way every person who seeks to destroy natural
beauty for a profit would be made to come here, alone and
unprepared and stand before that sign.
I finally climbed over the drift logs and onto the beach.
The dark gray, coarse sand was strewn with bleached

92
driftwood, and there wasn’t a footprint, beer can, or candy
wrapper to be seen. Little shore birds darted just ahead of
the lapping water. The overcast was low, perhaps only a
hundred feet. The big rock out at the point disappeared into
the misty ceiling as if it had been topped with a giant knife.
The ocean was the color of the sky, but for the tiny explo-
sions of white created by the onshore wind. The surf was
one to two feet and mushy. I headed back to the encamp-
ment.
All the seminars and meetings were over by the time I
returned. People were visiting and just hanging out, enjoy-
ing the lovely late afternoon. I was wearing a Sierra Club
tee shirt I’d bought in San Francisco on the first day of the
trip. Walking down toward the river, I passed a young
woman, perhaps 17 or 18. She asked with a hint of sarcasm
what a Sierra Club type was doing there. I told her that
there’s lots of ways to save the environment, and I’m inter-
ested in any or all of those ways. She had taken a
Mendicino-type of name, Spirit, a blend of hippie and new
age, back-to-nature. I was impressed by her dedication.
given the apathy demonstrated by most teenagers. Still, I
was disheartened by the divisiveness of her comment. Until
all the various people who want to save our world see each
other as brothers and sisters, the spoilers will always win,
united as they are by greed.
After a brief conversation the afternoon heat drew me
again toward the river. The river was full of frolicking peo-
ple, and swim wear was not part of the program. I pulled
off my dusty shorts and tee shirt and dove into the cool
water. Soon I was laughing and splashing with the rest.
Even a stranger was made to feel at home. Free food was
offered, followed by song and environmental news and
updates around an open fire. We were recruited to write let-
ters to various government people in defense of our ancient

93
forests. Later in the evening, one of the women leaders of
the encampment—named after a warm season of the year—
asked me to join a small group in some late night operation
some two or three days later. I was to be a distraction while
the others did a bit of monkey wrenching, nothing danger-
ous, just something to aggravate the corporate honchos and
their profit timetable. I would have done it if it had been
that night or even the next. But I wanted to go north, and I
didn’t want to hang around for a couple of days only to
wander way back into the woods with strangers, people who
might or might not have been trustworthy. I didn’t want to
be mucking around in the woods with someone who might
be totally irresponsible. Besides, the encampment was
breaking up that afternoon, and only the core people were
remaining. I wasn’t part of that core, and being basically
shy, felt uncomfortable being the new guy, the outsider, for
48 hours.
There were a number of reasons why I turned them
down, but the bottom line was that I wasn’t totally comfort-
able with the whole program. At times I still regret my
decision.
What they did promise was a big publicity thing the next
day over along 101 at the bridge at the north end of the Ave.
of the Giants. They were going to string a banner over the
highway and hand out flyers to motorists. That was more
my style, so I decided to join them.
The next morning I left after breakfast, telling them I’d
rather take my own truck, as I would be heading north after-
ward. I left as they were still packing up, feeling awkward
just hanging around. Everyone seemed to know what to do,
and they worked like a construction team with a history.
Once I got to the spot along 101, I parked and started rid-
ing my bike among the trees and along the river, returning
every few minutes to look for the group. I figured they’d be

94
about an hour behind me. After almost two hours no one
had shown up, so I drove up and down the Avenue of the
Giants, thinking I misunderstood the meeting place.
Nothing. So back I went, rode the bike some more. Still
nothing. Finally, realizing that it had been four hours and
they probably weren’t coming, I loaded my bike up, took a
quick dip in the Eel river, stalling as long as possible, and
took off north. To this day I wonder if they’d arrived just
after I’d left, gone to another spot, or if they’d thought I
would alert the authorities and postponed the operation. I
can only hope my actions or inactions didn’t interfere with
their work. They were some of the most worthy people I’ve
ever met.
From the Avenue of the Giants to Eureka through the lost
coast is a major expedition. but on 101 it’s a short hop.
With the exception of a stretch of beach around Punta
Gorda, Eureka is the next really accessible piece of coast.
So, being the eternal optimist, I figured that maybe I’d catch
some late afternoon waves.
There is a long strand that separates Humboldt Bay from
the ocean. It takes at least a half hour to get out there from
the highway. All along the drive, I checked out the places
to camp for the night, the afternoon rapidly waning. There
were tracks, regularly spaced, going back into the dunes
from both sides of the road. Nestled back in these tracks
and against the dunes were encampments. But these were
not folks in tents and R.V.s out for a weekend or a week at
the beach. These were old busses, cars, lean-tos, and tent
complexes, places that looked like squatters’ camps. There
was junk and trash piles and seedy people with weasel
glances that spoke of desperation and territorialism. I’ve
camped just about everywhere, legally and illegally. I’ve
had all sorts of characters for neighbor, but this place made
me feel like there were some unposted rules, some system

95
for deciding when and where you camp without getting in
the space of someone who would take it as an act of aggres-
sion. The area looked like an unpatroled zone, where the
squatters’ rights and subtle hierarchies prevail.
I wasn’t comfortable with the idea of camping there, not
being a local and all. The feeling along the strand remind-
ed me of how I’d felt in Rio Dell and Scotia, just back up
the hill. I’d pulled into those towns just an hour earlier and
had cruised the main street for a pub or cafe. The big lum-
ber mill dominated the area. All along the road I saw cars
with bumper stickers such as, “Save a logger, eat at spotted
owl.” On some there was a variation on the theme: “Save
a logger, eat an environmentalist.” The people on the
streets were obviously loggers. Now, here I was with stick-
ers on my truck promoting ancient forests, Earth First!,
Sierra Club, Environmental Defense Fund, Greenpeace, and
just about every other pro environment, and by implication,
anti-logger sentiment.
I had a rough idea what would befall a guy with earrings
and a Sierra Club tee-shirt in one of the local bars. Some
fellow the size of an ancient redwood would start an argu-
ment, and all his buddies would shout things like, “kick the
shit out of the goddamn tree hugger.” One of the benefits of
maturity is being able to realize in advance that certain sit-
uations carry almost a guarantee of getting the shit beat out
of you. Another benefit is understanding that being covered
with painful bruises is not a badge of honor on a sign of
manhood. It’s the mark of the foolish. I figured I’d rather
eat in Eureka.
Perhaps I’m biased. I’ve never known loggers personal-
ly. Perhaps they would have ignored me, or maybe they’d
have engaged me in a lively debate about the proper way to
achieve a balance between conservation and employment.
Some might have come up to me and said that they agreed

96
with my position but were compelled by economics to con-
tinue to engage in their traditional occupation. I stereotyped
the whole town and continued on my way. I’m ashamed of
that, but I didn’t get a black eye or a broken nose.
All this was going through my mind as I drove out that
incredibly long sand spit. Finally the sand spit ended, and I
was at the entrance of Humboldt Bay. There was a parking
lot filled with mostly rusty, old cars. There were no surf
racks. There is a look of vehicles that belong to hard core
fishermen, just as there is a look of vehicles that belong to
hard core surfers. This was a fisherman crowd. I parked
and walked over the dunes for a look at the ocean. It was
the color of slate, cold and indifferent. There was a chop
that was almost the size of the waves. The rock jetty, slick
and gray/green, went out a few dozen yards into the mucky
water.
Out there, surrounded by water on three sides, there was
a general dampness that pervaded everything. There was a
soft drizzle, and everything was wet, mildewed or rusty.
Even on a lovely afternoon this surf would have been a
waste. On a day like this, so late in the afternoon and so far
from a meal and a campsite, it wasn’t even worth a
moment’s speculation.
I drove back all the way around the bay to the highway
and toward Eureka.
I don’t how many times I’ve passed the sign that adver-
tises the Samoa Smokehouse, but this time I decided that I’d
take the bridge, check the surf on the north end of the bay
and eat at the famous old place. No surf, naturally, but the
food was great and filling, very family-style and casual.
But I didn’t have time to linger in Eureka. Further up the
coast at Redwood National Park there is a camping area
that’s actually a long parking lane between the highway and
the beach where mostly R.V.s park. It’s cheap, there’s the

97
sensation of having company, and one wakes to a view of
the ocean. I’d picked up a six pack and positioned my truck
near one of the periodic outhouses, not wanting to wander
too far in the middle of the night when the beer clamored for
its freedom. And there I was, mister American camper, by
the side of a scenic highway,, watching the cars press on to
unknown vacation wonders, sipping a beer. and curled up
snug and happy with a good book.
The next morning and an hour further north, I found the
surf shop in Crescent City. It was owned by Rhyn Noll, the
son of surf legend Greg Noll from the old days in Hawaii.
The lady behind the counter was friendly and brought out a
map of the area, marking “X” on every local surf spot.
She gave, me directions and a bit of information. I’d picked
the wrong time to come up here. The locals were, if they
could, going south. Mid summer was usually flat.
I checked the various spots to confirm what I already
knew. I even parked out at Point St. George, hiked over the
dunes and down to the beach where in winter the waves
would likely be eight to ten feet. Children were playing on
the beach. I zipped my nylon windbreaker tight and walked
along the trail, watching the whitecaps bobbing out to the
charcoal horizon. The hardy little plants that cling desper-
ately to the dunes were pressed flat to the sand by the wind.
The sky was so low, you could reach up and run your fin-
gers through it as if it were dirty cotton candy. Old folks
were doing a heel and toe for exercise, and young couples
were walking along the bluffs hand in hand. And as any-
where in the country from 110 degree desert highways to
ice covered Maine byways, there were the joggers in their
standard tee-shirts, nylon shorts and $200 shoes.
Between Point St. George and the protected fishing har-
bor is a stretch of beach that is haunting to look at. While
it was an unfamiliar spot, something about it was familiar as

98
home, but I can’t explain the what and why of it. Perhaps
it’s because it reminds me of the Monterey and Pacific
Grove coast, with calm, glassy water and a great assortment
of dark, jumbled rocks protruding from the ocean. I
stopped to gaze longingly at it, wishing I had a way to go
out on those inviting waters and among those beckoning
islets. The staring at it created a picture postcard in my
mind that stuck tightly, forcing me back there two years
later, on my way home from La Push.
Looking at this spot again two years later, it looked like
an old friend. Once again, with only a tiny surf slapping the
shore and no signs of any currents, this was, while an
exposed beach, bay conditions much like Monterey. There
was a long jumble of rock that constituted Point St. George,
and there were dozens of dark rock stacks all along the
stretch of beach. On that next visit, equipped with a kayak,
I was prepared to sample the water. I dragged the boat
down to the beach. It was only nine in the morning, but the
sky was brilliant, and the air was warming rapidly. I’d spent
the night in the back of the truck in a rest stop in the
mountains, along US 199, on the Oregon, California border,
rising and getting under way at the first hint of light. I wel-
comed the pink and violet dawn along the Smith River, as it
broke in radiant shafts between the redwoods. I was walk-
ing in Smith River State Park, alone with the hungry ani-
mals of morning and the soothing whisper of the water.
But the morning was already aging and had become pure-
ly intoxicating. I pushed out through the small waves and
started to stroke for the point. Before getting close, I could
already hear the rowdy tenement sounds of hundred of
seals, arguing, loving, and generally claiming their pieces of
a seal’s world.
I moved in between the rocks, so close that I could see
the nervous indecision in the seals’ eyes. And then, feeling

99
I’d invaded too deeply into their space, I pulled away from
the play and the din and moved out toward a fishing boat by
the outer sea stacks, over a half mile from shore.
I made polite conversation with two groups of fishermen
as I made an arc around and between the big stacks, over the
gentle surges that bounced like echoes off the rocks. It was
like being on a poster photograph or one of those perfect
television nature shows. The world was indeed a stage, and
I was a star for a moment, delivering my own monologue,
the stage to myself and the lights up in the house.
Riding a small wave to shore, I came around too quick-
ly and was swamped, early in the morning, in shorts and a
tee-shirt, and almost to the Oregon border. I expected to
experience a shock of cold water, but I was refreshed by the
cool sensation. Grabbing my stuff before it floated away
and pulling the boat up on shore, I jumped back in, enjoy-
ing the exhilaration of the unexpected dip.
But back on that first trip, two years earlier, the day was
cold and bleak, and I’d yet to even consider owning a
kayak. Since there was no surf, it was time to head north
through the main part of town and toward Oregon. On the
way through town I spotted a new age, crystal and book
store. I had to take a Iook. I came away with a tape called
“You are Entitled to Miracles,” from a series of expensive
and ponderous books called A Course in Miracles. What a
delightful little tape! It set my mind exploring interesting
and different spaces as I made my way up the road, with its
clearly mystical message couched in traditional religious
jargon. And one thing it did was make me feel the need for
a little human company. I thought of the long drive up the
Oregon coast, a drive that, knowing the way I stop to check
out everything, would take me many days. I also thought
about how every surf spot I’d checked had been crappy.
Then I thought about some friends who live in Ashland,

100
Oregon, and I called them. They would be happy to see
me, as would their little twin girls. I turned inland on
Highway 199.
Up to that time I had kayaked once when a friend had
suggested renting boats in Monterey. I’d enjoyed it, and
she’d bought a used boat. The seed had been planted, but
Oregon turned me into a kayaker.
Up on an Ashland hill overlooking the lights of the town
below and the mountains above, it’s hard to see how life
wouldn’t be good in this idyllic spot. This is where the
Shakespeare Festival happens every year. The area is
scenic to a fault. There is Lithia Park, one of the prettiest
I’ve seen, where ducks and swans beg food in the ponds,
where a little creek wanders by the picnic area, and where
cherubic children play on the swings while their mothers
talk of art and crafts or literature. This is a small town just
filled with wonderful hand-crafted goods and art works.
This is a town that has more delightful little eateries than
one can count. And that’s part of the problem for my
friends. They own one of those places, and life revolves
around the competition for the hungry tourists.
But looking out the windows of their pleasant hillside
home, talking with the wife and watching the twins play
wildly for the benefit of the friend who only comes around
once or twice a year and always pays lots of attention to
them, life takes on a genteel and easy guise. It was good to
get out of the truck, wash some clothes, and finally shower
and shave. It was nice to sit in a chair and drink my wine
out of a wine glass. It was nice also to plan the next day
with the family, a day off for him, and a day’s trip up to
some waterfall along the Rogue River.
And that was what did it for me, the Rogue. We drove up
the river to a spot where we parked and walked along a
lovely trail to a very impressive waterfall and on further to

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some rapids and a deep spot in the river. I took a swim in
the cool water, using the boulders for a water slide. But
what really caught my eye was the place along the river that
rented inflatable kayaks. For twenty bucks, one could rent
a boat, get shuttled up river, and spend half a day coming
back, a trip that included some fun-looking little rapids. I
made a note of it.
On my return trip over a week later, I again called my
friends and headed down for another visit. Remembering
the kayak rental, I planned my trip so that I’d hit the river
late morning. At Sandy Oregon I stopped at the first rental
place I found.
I pulled up to the little store front across the road from the
river, took off everything except trunks, hat and tee-shirt,
and rented a boat. The guy inflated one for me, loaded it on
the flat trailer behind his van, and I climbed in. Ten miles
up river, just below a dam. I put in. He described the
pull-out point and told me to leave the boat there, walk to
the shop, and they’d get the boat. It was as simple as that,
point down river and have fun.
I had no idea what kind of rapids were ahead of me but
figured that they wouldn’t rent boats on a class four river,
what with the liability. I floated for a time, paddling some,
leaning back and looking at the trees and mountains and
appreciating not having a road to watch. The day was hot,
and hanging a foot over the side into the water felt good.
The forest was thick and the signs of life were everywhere,
fish-jump splashes, bird chirps, the scurry of squirrels, and
the occasional scent of skunk. It was green in a way that
only bits and pieces of California are green in mid summer.
The river was lush and seductive. The day hung suspended
as if it were going to last an eternity. I could have stretched
the experience out to the day’s end save for the promise I’d
made to be at my friends’ for dinner.

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 The series of little rapids were just exciting enough to
punctuate the gentleness of the rest of the river, brief
episodes of tension and activity. The challenge was not, like
it is in dangerous rapids, to survive. It was a test for begin-
ners: stay in the boat. The guy who falls overboard loses,
gets very wet, and may lose the boat. It was like a minor
roller coaster to drop into a series of standing waves, quick
drops followed by sudden bobbing back to the top, only to
look down into the next trough.
I was so turned on to the whole thing that I bought a used
boat from the guy. It was beat up, but the price was right.
As I headed back down the hill through Medford, I decided
to check the big sporting goods store, and sure as hell they
had a big sale on just that kind of boat. The new ones were
only slightly higher than the old, beat up one, so I bought it
and planned to return the other.
I talked my friend into going down the river with me the
next day, since the boat was supposed to be a two man craft.
So, after breakfast we loaded up and drove to Medford and
up the river to the place I’d bought the used boat.
After some debate, the man at the boat place gave back
my check and took back his boat. It helped that we paid
him ten bucks to transport us the ten miles to the launch site.
I opened the package that contained the boat and assembled
the foot pump, laced up the front and back aprons, and
pumped up the boat. Hang the instructions, which had
blown away and into the water. After stashing the pump
and personal stuff behind the back seat, we were off.
The term “two man boat” refers to two men about 5’9”
and maybe 140 to 150 lbs. It doesn’t refer to two men over
6’2” and better than 200 lbs. each. We were way over-
loaded, and it was almost impossible to control the kayak.
We hit the first rapid sideways and got thoroughly soaked.
I was surprised we stayed afloat. It got better as we went,

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but we never negotiated a rapid with any degree of exper-
tise, or even with the boat pointed down stream.
There was only one incident. My friend tried to turn by
a sudden back stroke, launching us over the side. I made a
quick grab for the plastic bag with our keys and wallets, and
with the other hand I grabbed my new foot pump. My
friend grabbed his hat, the boat and the paddle. The river
was a lot swifter and colder than it seemed, and we strug-
gled for 60 or 70 yards before we got to the shallows, just
before the next rapids. Luckily the day was hot, and we sun
dried before long. The rest of the trip was a float, relax-
ation, and probably the first stress-free day my friend had
had all year.
But all that was on the return trip, and I’m getting ahead
of myself again. The night following my northward, first
pass through Ashland was spent at beautiful Yachits State
Park on the coast. The park abutted the beach and was set
in a small coastal forest, cut by a tiny creek. Where Ashland
was clear and very hot, the coast was cold, windy and over-
cast, with the threat of rain. I was forced into my sleeping
bag fairly early to read, have, a glass of wine, and savor the
velvet darkness.
The morning found me looking at a day that guaranteed
rain. The visibility was possibly 100 feet. It was one of
those days that was blessed with both fog and a cloud cover,
making the entire day seem like twilight. I wanted to check
for surf, so I walked the beach down to a point a couple of
miles north. I had to walk the whole thing, not being able
to see the waves until I was standing right in front of them,
almost in the water. Naturally, the surf was small and
mushy, so I loaded up and got on my way north.
The guys in the surf shop at Florence told me to check the
jetty (jetties usually produce good waves). It was starting to
rain when I got there, so I slogged through the damp sand to

104
the water’s edge. The only other person on the beach was a
grungy, middle aged guy who was also a surfer. Both his
car and board looked to be as old and rumpled as he was.
We stood in the rain, like old alley cats, for a time, talking
waves and watching the gray lumps wobble in and splatter,
like broken eggs, on the wet sand. We agreed that it wasn’t
worth the trouble.
Standing on an almost deserted beach in the rain is a
special experience. I love the rain and could walk in it for
hours. There is a drama to the ocean on a dark, deserted,
rainy day that cannot be explained to folks who only go to
the ocean on hot sunny days. It is mournful, alien, brood-
ing, and passionate. It is uninviting and impersonal, but
there is something that draws you to go in. It’s like the draw
of strong drink, indifferent lovers, and forbidden vices: the
more your head says no, the more your heart says go. With
water dripping from my nose and my hair limp in my eves.
I crawled back in the truck and headed north. The rain got
worse.
Up around Hug Point things changed for the better. The
rain stopped, and the sun was trying to sneak out. I pulled
off at the state park where cars with surf racks were parked,
the first I’d seen in days. I hiked down the hill through the
thick rain forest to the beach, hopping from rock to rock to
cross the creek. I climbed up on the head high pile of drift-
wood and looked out at a perfect little cove, bordered on
both ends by the steep cliffs of heavily wooded headlands.
The forest grew right up to the sand, like it does in the trop-
ics. There were surfers in the water. Only the long board-
ers were getting rides in the I to 2 foot waves. I stood there
for a long time debating. The sun was out, and the forest
was drying out. The water was a brilliant blue, and the air
was warm and musty. It had been so many days since I’d
surfed, that I wanted to just get wet, waves or not. A local

105
walked up behind me and started a conversation. There is
instant camaraderie between surfers, so we basically told
each other the stories of our surfing lives, that being the
only parts of our lives that mattered to each other.
He was a jolly, expansive guy who had to tell me how he
first got into surfing and about some of the bone chilling
winter days he’d spent in the water. We pretty much divid-
ed the coast between us. I’d surfed the south, up to
California’s north coast, and he’d surfed from there up into
Washington. He explained that there was a fairly small but
dedicated group of surfers in the area, and that they had an
informal network that kept everyone sort of informed about
where and when there were waves. I’d heard a friend from
Pacifica tell about visiting Cannon beach and seeing some
surfers out. Well, this guy said that Cannon was an OK
place but that Seaside was better. As if it had just come to
him, he added that with this particular kind of swell,
Seaside might just have some good surf right then. He said
he lived in Seaside and that he had to cut his lawn before
going out surfing again and that I should follow him to
where, if there was any surf, it would most likely be.
So I jumped into the truck and took off down the road
after this guy, both of us hauling down the highway as if the
devil were hot on our tails. Seaside was fifteen or twenty
miles away, and I hung on to him the whole way. We turned
off the highway, turned again, and ended up in some resi-
dential neighborhood which ended at the beach. The last
part of the road was half gravel and full of pot holes, as most
far north surfing beaches seem to be. This was the south end
of a long crescent shaped beach at the extreme end of
Seaside. Beyond where we pulled off, the road wandered
up into the hills to some homes out on the headland, and
from there it apparently ended, there being no roads around
the headland and over to the next beach. For someone like

106
me, not being able to look around the headland for that per-
fect, secret spot is maddening.
We hopped out of the cars, and he pointed at the dull
gray ocean. Surf! There it was, finall, three to five foot
waves peeling nicely to the left. We were beyond the beach,
along the rocky curve that leads out to the point and the
undrivable headland. There were maybe five or six guys
out, a crowd in Oregon. I suited up and made my way care-
fully through the three or four yards of boulders, slipping
and ouching my way to water deep enough to paddle in.
After a couple of bruises I was out in the surf. Id expected
the water this far north to be freezing, but with my 5/3 mm
wetsuit, gloves and booties, I was comfortable. In fact it
actually seemed warmer than San Francisco surf, which on
a foggy Summer day feels like the coldest water on earth.
I’d been on the road for almost two weeks, and this was
the first good surf I’d found, and I made the most of it.
However, tides are much more extreme in Oregon than in
California, and tidal changes naturally affect the surf more
dramatically. I had maybe an hour and a half of great waves
before the tide dropped so far that the waves turned to
unridable mush. So, almost a thousand miles from home,
catching great waves and shooting the bull with the locals
in the water, I’d found what I’d come for, my first taste of
Oregon surf. And later that afternoon at the Cleanline Surf
Shop, the one local store, the people recognized me as the
stranger in the water, and we stood around swapping stories
and warming up with cups of free coffee.
Standing there with several locals, surrounded by boards
and wetsuits, swapping stories and laughing, I felt perfect-
ly at home. I’d come, surfed, been accepted, and was happy
beyond words.
I hung around Seaside Oregon for a couple more days
before the road called me away again. That strong swell

107
that rolled through that first afternoon was a fluke and did-
n’t last. The surf dropped to less than two foot. The rains
that had almost obscured all of the Oregon coast south of
Seaside were over, probably for the season, and the skies
were almost totally blue, save for the artillery puffs of
clouds that drifted by as if from a neighboring war.
I felt lonely in Seaside. It’s a working class tourist town,
probably serving the greater Portland area. There were lots
of lodges and motels along the gently curving beach and up
through the main part of town. Then there was Broadway,
with all the restaurants, curio shops, tee-shirt palaces, game
arcades and the rest. It was primarily a family place, every-
thing catering to people with kids. Family groups wandered
the street, shopping, looking, and eating. And there I was,
alone and dressed like someone who was camped out,
which I was. My hair was sticky and matted from the salt
water, my cut-offs were wrinkled and faded, and my dirty
feet were stuffed in beat up sandals. I needed a shave and a
shower. I found an inexpensive looking restaurant on
Broadway and got a table for one. After dinner a quick
stroll of the main part of town was enough. I felt out of
place in all that communal interaction.
With the exception of one funky little beer bar called the
Bridgetender, a place filled with locals dressed much as I
was, there wasn’t a place where I felt at home. This rustic
little bar was farther up Broadway, away from all the little
tourist shops.
It sat on the channel next to the drawbridge. Boaters and
wharf rats in tee shirts and tattered jeans hung out, drank
gallons of beer and swapped stories drawn from a common
pool of experience. This little, dark, wood-walled bar and
the beer-fueled conversations helped me while away a cou-
ple of hours before it was time to go back to the little mom
and pop campground, just south of town on the highway,

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and curl up with my book.
The following day I blew off Seaside for the more pic-
turesque Cannon Beach, five miles south. Every memory
of Cannon Beach involves Haystack Rock, several stories
high and right in the surf line, sometimes partially beached
at low tide, but always visible for miles. Along side the
rock is a surf spot (“Shark Bite” to the local surfers), crowd-
ed even on almost flat days. I looked over the wide beach,
almost a quarter of a mile, to the knot of surfers trying to
catch a wave or so. Along the beach, rented three wheelers
raced and spun around in the sand. The warm weather had
the beaches packed by any standard north of teeming Los
Angeles. I hopped on my bike And rode up the hill from
town to Ecola State Park.
The park is just north of town with a deep wood that hugs
the steep bluffs, giving the hiker occasional bursts of wild
and seemingly untouched shoreline. The trails were for
walking, so I chained up the bike. I walked in mud that
probably never dries except in September, in dense shade,
cool and obscure, and among the tangled growth of genera-
tions of trees, shrubs and vines. Off trail hiking there was
impossible for more than a couple of yards. Back at the
parking lot, there were trails that ran through eternally green
grass out to lookout points and down to a pocket beach
ringed with dark rocks and littered with drift logs the size of
fallen Sitka Spruce. I sat on a picnic bench watching two
surfers trying to stand up on waves not more than 18 inch-
es high. Then I tried to paint the scene, finally giving up
and opting for seeing the town by bike, a short ride, punc-
tuated by lunch in a touristy little place across from the art
gallery.
I took photos of the little pocket beach I’d failed to paint.
Someday I’ll try again to capture the thick forest extending
to the cliff’s edge, the coarse, eroded bluffs, the gun barrel

109
gray of the drift logs, the cocoa colored sand, and the
sparkling little waves.
By the third day, it was obvious that I would become a
local before I got more good waves, so I grabbed some
breakfast and drove back to Cleanline Surf Shop. Naturally,
there was the mandatory bull session about favorite beach-
es and remembered really great days where the crowds were
someplace else, and one had overhead waves to oneself.
This little ritual dispensed with, I asked if I could expect
any waves in Washington. I wasn’t sure if I should follow
the coast, a very slow trip, or make for the freeway. All the
locals hanging out agreed that Westport was the place to go.
If any surf was to be had in Washington at that time of year,
it would be there. And the good news was it was only about
two hours away, a short hop for a surfer on safari. So I bid
my good-byes and headed for the border, over the amazing-
ly long bridge and through Astoria.
I‘d like to spend a few days in Astoria, Washington some-
time soon. Sitting as it does right on the wide mouth of the
Columbia, it is like something out of some old fishing story,
perhaps even from the days of iron men and wooden ships.
In fact, Astoria looks like what I imagine Nantucket Island
to be like, although I’ve never seen the island. I passed
reluctantly through, over that incredibly long bridge and
into Washington. A momentary picture remains in my
mind, one of weathered, wooden buildings with a water-
front atmosphere, set under a low, gray sky, and perched on
the widest expanse of moving fresh water I’ve ever seen.
I suppose the Columbia wouldn’t seem all that impres-
sive to someone who’d spent time on the Mississippi or the
Amazon, but to someone who was raised to regard the
Sacramento River as a major waterway, the Columbia is the
great exhaling of liquid America. I cannot even guess how
much water passes Astoria in a minute, let alone a day or

110
year. The river is so wide at Astoria, only a few miles from
the mouth, that Washington is like an illusion, a painted
backdrop, unreal and unreachable in the distance. Further
up river, near Portland, I’d seen windsurfers. Down here
the river looked empty. There was only a huge, lonely, sigh-
ing surge, as if this tired river was sensing the ocean and
was whispering “home at last.”
Crossing that bridge that seemed to stretch forever, I lost
my Oregon state of mind. I can’t explain it exactly, but my
consciousness shifted slightly. Oregon had become famil-
iar, the local surfer’s somewhat known and the beaches
pretty much wired. The highway followed the beach, never
more than a few miles west.
But, when I think of Washington, I picture great, fog
bound bays that take hours to drive around. I also think of
the Olympic Peninsula, a dark and mysterious place where
beaches may well go deserted for days or months, and
where roads end at obscure Indian reservations. Driving
into Washington, I thought back a few years to my last visit.
The best I could recall, there were no real towns north of
Aberdeen until way around the peninsula at Port Angeles.
I’d remembered camping along the Strait of Juan De Fuca
near Crescent Beach and feeling as if I were at the end of
the world. Damp and dark it was. At that camp ground, I’d
seen my first banana slug, which fascinated me for hours. It
was there I woke to see men walking out on the mud fIats
to fishing boats nowhere near water, only to doze off again
while the tide rose and carried them silently away.
Following the almost deserted coast of western
Washington, along Willapa Bay, I pulled out that tape I’d
bought in Crescent City, “You are Entitled to Miracles.”
Listening again, I savored the part where the woman said
that suffering of any kind is in only an illusion, and that no
accidents were possible in this universe. That rung true. At

111
that moment, I knew I would be perfectly safe and secure
any place I happened to be. I was safe because I saw the
world as a benign place, filled with subtle magic and love.
We humans, I surmised, love the dramatic so much that we
paint our world and our lives as some cauldron of conflict,
danger, pain. blind chance, despair, treachery, betrayal,
sickness, and endless sorrow. At times I’d certainly felt that
way, but at that moment and at more and more frequent
moments since. I realized that those things are generated by
our minds and projected on the world around us.
I looked back on my travels alone along the coast, the
times I’d gone alone into strange surf, hiked alone deep into
unfamiliar woods, teamed up with strangers along the road,
dove headlong into rivers far from another living soul. I’d
taken more chances than I could remember, with never a
back up, never a person to go for help. I’d fallen and twist-
ed my ankle miles from a road and simply gotten up and
limped on deeper into a canyon. I’d been caught in rips and
pulled near wave-washed rocky headlands. I’d skied into
gullies in snowstorms, and I’d kayaked into places where
conditions were completely unknown. In all these adven-
tures, I’d never been even slightly at risk.
There is a harmony in life between conscious beings and
the environment, which is also conscious. To realize that I
am one with the rocks, the waves, the forest, and my fellow
man, is to realize that I have no more to fear from all of that
than from my own elbow.
There is no wealth like that feeling. I knew that I could
go anywhere, do anything, and it would be just me, explor-
ing me, loving and protecting me, meeting me, and appreci-
ating me. I knew that when I finally get to La Push, you all
go there with me, and this book is written simply to remind
you of what a wonderful time we had.
I don’t care how much of a couch potato a person is, how

112
much he loves his TV and air conditioned auto, how much
he detests the great out of doors, anyone would love west-
ern Washington in the summer. So much rain falls there that
things are always lush and green. Stands of trees seem to
stretch to the horizon, and where the hand of man has cut
them down, the undergrowth flowers in thickets of yellow,
pink, red, blue and orange. Even the weeds in western
Washington are lush and beautiful. The multitude of little
lakes all have an other-worldly shimmering quality to them,
like deep, liquid saphires. The blues, greens, and violets are
deeper and stronger here, just as the reds, browns and
oranges are in southern Utah. And there is a sensation of
suspended evolution, of time frozen at the era when the
wonderful diversity of life was exploding into full bloom,
when mother nature was turning out her finest experiments.
You don’t really watch the scenery of western Washington,
you drink it down like some heady, thick, wildly intoxicat-
ing brew.
Heading down the peninsula that separates Gray’s Harbor
from the ocean, I had my first negative experience. Rolling
joyfully toward Westport, now only minutes away, I hit a
bird on the road. I can honestly say that after thirty some
years behind the wheel, I can’t remember ever running over
a wild creature. I was devastated. The shock of snuffing
out the life of a tiny creature who’s only offense was to try
to grab a bit of food off the highway unsettled me for some
time. It occurred to me that this little fellow probably had
a hungry family back at the nest, fledglings that would
never see their parent again, and a widowed mate. Perhaps
the young birds would starve, deprived of their care
provider and food bringer. The more I thought about it, the
worse I felt. Finally, the only small offering I could make
was to watch the road very carefully for any birds. squirrels.
lizards, skunks or whatever.

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 My memories of Westport include a stiff breeze, the
bluest skies imaginable, expensive film for my camera, an
overwhelming sensation that this was the sportfishing capi-
tol of the west coast, and absolutely no surf. By now I was
getting good at finding my way to the surf beaches. They
don’t put up signs. I drove to where the dirt road ended at
the beach side of the harbor jetty. There were other surfers’
cars there, and it was a lovely day, so I was anxious and
excited. I jogged over the sand to the crest and looked
down on a placid, blue ocean. Jetties create good surf con-
ditions, giving shape to what would otherwise be a beach
break. Jetties also give the swell something to bounce off
of, thus adding to the size. Looking at the waves moving
down this jetty, I saw two cute little kids, perhaps six or
seven, in cute little wet suits, trying to catch waves that
wouldn’t reach my knee.
Walking back to the truck, I passed an ancient, rusty
Honda hatchback with a bodyboard and wet suit sticking
out of the back and British Columbia plates on the bumper.
The owner was standing next to the car, wearing a tee shirt,
and shoulder length blond hair. I struck up a conversation.
I told him that the surf was lousy further south too, and I
said I was considering checking the waves on Vancouver
Island. He said, “that’s quite a hike. It’s easier to come
clear down here.” That was discouraging, considering the
guy was from Vancouver. But, how was the surf, I won-
dered. I knew the answer before he opened his mouth. It
was pretty chancy in the summer, probably not even as good
as Westport, and Westport was just about dead flat. I decid-
ed that I’d be better off heading back south, trying my hand
at kayaking, seeing my friends in Ashland, and trying
California again, where one can usually find waves, even in
late July.
I remember really enjoying this Canadian’s accent, and I

114
wondered if it was typical of the B. C. folks, or if he had
come to Canada from the British Isles or perhaps Australia.
I’d pretty much made a decision to turn around, after
checking out the town first, getting some food, buying film
for my camera, and having a beer. I really didn’t want to get
back in the truck after that long drive. I was enjoying the
slightly cool breeze, the salt smell, the vacationers on the
sand, and the fishing boats rounding the jetty on their way
out to sea with their load of eager fisherman. I figured I’d
take a few minutes to soak it all up and engage in some brief
social interaction, a few quick words exchanged between
strangers that can expose a whole history and create a
microcosm of a relationship. I’ve gotten good at these
quick relationships. Sometimes when I’m on the road, a
fifteen or twenty minute encounter satisfies my need for
verbal expression and friendship. It’s like having a bit of
hors d’oeuvres when there isn’t time or appetite for a full
meal.
Two young, scruffy looking surfer types were walking
my way, looking like a combination of beach bum casual
and Seattle grunge scene. I nodded and opened with some
comment about the lack of surf. They answered that it had
been this way for awhile, typical mid summer surf. I men-
tioned that I was up from California and had found some
good waves at Seaside. They agreed that Seaside was a
good spot and that the same swell had hit up here. They
mentioned a trip once to Santa Cruz and how great they
thought it was, great but seriously crowded. By now the
three of us were just standing there with our hands in our
pockets, idly glancing occasionally at the surfless ocean. I
jangled the keys in my pocket and announced that although
I was originally headed for Canada, I was about to head
back south.
What followed next was a pivotal moment, something

115
that would shape the next couple of summers, something
that would act as a catalyst to an imagination that is always
ready to take flight. While they agreed that Canada would
probably be a wasted, as well as a lengthy trip, there was a
place much closer. They said that I should go to La Push,
only three hours or so north. I told them that there didn’t
seem to be much point, the surf being really shitty just about
everywhere. “Yeah.” they agreed, “but there’s always surf
at La Push.” They could have walked away just then for all
it mattered. They had said it, had triggered that mystique of
far away places that by some mystery of god or nature are
able to suspend the normal natural laws and produce the
miraculous. There may not be surf anywhere for a thousand
miles in either direction, but there is always surf in La Push.
There isn’t surf there most of the time or on any decent
swell. There isn’t surf there that is a bit better than surf in
other, neighboring places. There isn’t a 62.3 percent chance
that ridable surf can be found there. No. What they said as
matter-of-factly as if they had commented on the present
temperature was that there was always surf at La Push.
Naturally I asked them how they knew this, hoping that
they’d just arrived from La Push the moment before I ran
into them. No, they hadn’t been up there for weeks, but
every time they’d gone, be it summer, winter, storm, or dead
calm, there had always been surf, and usually pretty big surf
in the bargain. The surf, it seemed, wrapped around the
rocks and hammered into shore. I pictured a wild and wool-
ly version of Steamer Lane or Four Mile back home. I
asked a bit more.
These guys were adamant. If I go to La Push, I will find
some serious waves. This information could be used as
legal tender anywhere in the state. They wished me a good
trip and wandered upon their way.
Watching them walk way, I had the same thought that

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crosses the mind of someone in a restaurant who has just
had another restaurant touted to him by the people at the
next table. If that other place is so damn great, what the hell
are you doing here? I pulled out my Washington map and
looked for La Push. I had to go east to Aberdeen and then
wind up 101 almost to the top of the peninsula. Then there
was a fourteen mile side road that ended at the beach. It
was at the very least three more hours. By the time I
checked the place out, I’d have to start thinking about a
place to stay, and I didn’t know what camping spots were
around there, but I did know that the state parks had a ten-
dency to be full. I also knew that some Indian groups in the
area had ticketed surfers who trespassed on their land. The
argument that was raging in my mind was whether it was
worth all the time and trouble to check out a place that
might well be a waste of time.
Someone else might have figured, “what the hell, I’m
this far.” I don’t understand why I didn’t do that. Perhaps
there is some additional flavor, drama, symbolism, antici-
pation involved in letting an idea like, “there’s always surf
in La Push,” ferment and age in my mind. Had I gone
straight up there, it would have been over then and there. If
it would have been flat, I would have written the guys off as
typical bullshiters. Had there been some waves, I would
have never known if it were a fluke or not. Instead, I turned
south to get hooked on kayaking, and I let those words hang
in the back of my mind for over two years, to charge my
curiosity and my already fertile imagination.

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 Ch. 8
CALIFORNIA: familiar turf

As I entered California again after only being away a

week, my truck was stuffed with one more toy, an inflatable
kayak that had been broken in the previous day on the
Rogue River with my friend from Ashland.
It was hot and sunny as I followed US 199 toward the
coast. The Smith river was spring green and inlaid with
rounded, pale boulders. I knew that once I got down the hill
near Crescent City, the weather would change abruptly.
Sunshine would give way to overcast, and the heat would
give itself up to the damp sea air. But for now, I might have
been a hundred miles inland rather than fifteen. Rounding
a curve, I saw a couple of cars at the side of the road. On
the Smith, that means a swimming hole, so I stopped.
Looking down the steep bank, I saw a half dozen people
swimming or sunning on the room sized boulders. Natural
rock piles had dammed and slowed the river for a couple of
hundred feet and had spread it out to the width of a inter-
state highway. Even from sixty feet above, I could look
through the clear water to the twigs, pebbles and leaves on
the bottom. I slipped off the shorts that covered my nylon
trunks, slid the key on a shoestring over my head like a
necklace, and bounded down the narrow, steep trail. A
young couple was lying on a giant rock, almost to the other
side, and a woman with her children were playing along the
bank on my side. I swam up the river as far as I could and
floated down on my back. Great redwood trees reached
almost to the sky, and the rocky cliff on the south bank was
a series of terraces, each with a soft, green fern blanket. The

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air was thick and warm and filled with buzzing insects.
Right above the river’s surface bright blue dragonflies made
tight patterns, and as I floated by, they performed their aer-
ial ballet only inches above my face.
There is a lushness, a richness along the river that can’t
be copied in the cities. The luxury of a fine hotel, the glitz
and glamour of Las Vegas, the manicured excesses of a
theme park, the carefully arranged abandon of a shopping
mall all have a tinny hollowness about them. If one just
stops and quietly takes it all in, withdraws for a moment
from the frenzy of activity, these man made places take on
the quality of a sparsely furnished waiting room, where
what you wait for never arrives. There on the Smith, one
could lie in the sun or float down the river, hypnotized by
the buzz of life, drugged by the thick air, redolent of pine
and pungent fungus.
An hour later, after air drying in minutes on a granite
slab and climbing back to the truck, I was standing at the
mouth of the Smith, at the end of the road, looking down the
steep sand bank. A long sand bar beach held back the river,
wide and slow here at sea level. Where it breached the sand
bar, it sluggishly gave up its identity to the ocean. I was
wearing a jacket, and my legs, still in shorts, were sprouting
goose bumps. With hands stuffed in the jacket pocket, I
looked at the gray, choppy ocean. Another potential surf
spot with no surf. That’s the way it is on this kind of safari.
The chance of stumbling on great surf at some unknown
beach at just the time you happen to arrive there is pretty
damn slim. But that’s OK. Big game hunters don’t expect
to bump into a lion the minute they hop off the truck. Bird
watchers often go into the woods dozens of times before
seeing some elusive feathered friend. Gold miners can go
years looking for a strike. It took the Greeks a decade to
bring Troy down and get Helen back. In some ways surfing

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can be likened to fishing. The trip is often as rewarding as
the potential wave.
Standing alone at the mouth of an unspoiled river, much
of the crap that bounces around in my head was at rest.
Back home, in the world of human interchange and activi-
ty, the internal and the external noise can grow to construc-
tion site proportions. There are calls to return, meetings to
not only attend but to remain coherent during, bits of small
talk to exchange with people, schedules and agendas to bal-
ance, things to remember, phrases and complete expostula-
tions to recite in some proper order. Man, the social animal,
has so many roles to play: superior, subordinate, friend,
lover, parent, child, husband, wife, casual acquaintance,
knowledgeable professional, neighbor, customer, and just
familiar looking stranger on the street. We learn early to do
it all automatically. Or do we? The more complicated it
becomes, the more of our attention it demands. The result
is stress, lots of stress. Some people opt to veg out in front
of the TV. Some go to a resort to be pampered by paid
strangers. Some spend lots of money on analysis, and some
just stay drunk. Being out here at the lonely mouth of a
river isn’t necessarily a better way, but it does involve fresh
air and exercise, and it doesn’t cost much. The secret is to
be able to stay out until you actually miss the stress, all of
us having become addicted to the speedy quality of it.
Is it anymore real to be out here? Is small town America
more real than New York City? Is life in the fast lane more
real than putting in your eight a day behind a broom? Is
“real” even the right term? “Authentic” seems to be a pop-
ular word these days. The advocates of a gritty artistic ver-
sion of reality, life on the city streets, poverty and violence,
use terms like authentic to defend their visions and to
denounce those who offer what they consider a sugar
coated rendering of life.

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 Life on the streets of our rotting and hopeless inner cities
isn’t something that you can insulate yourself against with
a cheap pair of rose colored glasses. I won’t argue that it’s
cold, hard, dangerous and real, but it’s only one version of
the game of life in our modern world. However, at the time
of this writing, it’s a currently popular theme in film and
music. While less sensational in media terms, also authen-
tic and real is a lonely old lady sitting in front of a blasting
TV, not because she’s watching the show, but because of the
illusion of human contact in a life alone. Authentic and real
is a family playing some little game in some suburban tract
house, as is a night club full of affluent, young profession-
als or a bunch of students drinking beer and constructing a
future of castles in the air. Being out alone on a windy
beach, a gray river silently trudging home to the vast ocean,
with no reason to go or to stay is also an authentic experi-
ence, one that promotes a reflective state of mind, and one
I’ve consciously chosen.
When I look around our cities or read the papers, I won-
der what are we trying to do and what have we really man-
aged to do. We seem to create an awful tension whenever
we interact. Children fuss and fight. Nations and ethnic
groups wage eternal war. Families bicker and hurt each
other. Neighbors eye each other with mistrust. We can’t
seem to get along with each other, and there’s over five bil-
lion of us, so it’s getting harder to avoid each other. Perhaps
in twenty or thirty years it will be impossible to come to a
place like the Smith River and simply stand above it alone,
peaceful and reflective. If so, there will be no escape from
our love/hate relationship with our fellows.
Too cold to stand along the river, but not quite ready to
head for home, I went up to Brookings, Oregon to dine on
good Italian food and watch the sunset spread an orange
film over the darkening ocean. Later that night, along a

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wooded stream ten miles back in the hills, alone in a
National Forest campground, a light drizzle accentuated the
darkest night I’ve ever spent.

Nurse trees are something you don’t see further south,

but up in Del Norte County, in the temperate rain forest,
they are as close as a short walk into the woods. Within
yards of Highway 101 at Del Norte Coast Redwoods State
Park, you can be lost in a green world that could be the
haven for an undiscovered community of dinosaurs. I’ve
looked at all the shades of green available in oil and acrylic
paints, and I’ve mixed many combinations of those colors,
but the subtle shades of green in a redwood rain forest defy
any attempt to capture them on canvas. Deep in those
forests, where one can drown in hallucinations of form and
color, life springs constantly from anything and everything.
Trees don’t simply fall and rot. They become the seed beds
for new trees. As little pockets of organic material collect
in the rotting bark, saplings take hold. Sometimes young
trees are lined up, like children after the morning school
bell, along the trunk of some fallen giant, roots gradually
seeking the ground below and forming patterns like
demented lace work or frozen fingers of a tiny waterfall.
Sometimes they seem to me like crazy cages designed for
trapping the madness we humans generate. It would be
wonderful to take our social dementia and, like the portrait
of Dorian Gray, give it form and place it among the roots for
safe keeping. I think the redwoods would gladly watch over
our collective ugliness, allowing us to uncover our glorious
inner light.
From that rain forest along 101 to Punta Gorda, where
the Petrolia School children have their beautiful sign, is less
than a hundred miles, but it requires the better part of a
day’s drive. The cut off from the north on the 101, starting

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at Fernbridge, is the narrowest and most deserted paved
road I’ve ever traveled. It’s so deserted that when you do
pass another vehicle, the people wave madly, assuming that
you must be a neighbor.
This little road, after winding forever through the hills,
drops suddenly down to the water at Cape Mendocino.
Next to sections of the lost coast, this is the most deserted
beach I’ve ever seen. Looking at the driftwood, the rocks,
and the little sand dunes, I felt that nothing on this section
of beach had been disturbed for decades. I was going to get
out and walk on the beach, but I felt that I’d be violating a
place where humans have no business at all. Along this lit-
tle, hidden section of coast, time seems to move at a slower
pace. The truck seemed to crawl along the road, and each
log or rock came slowly into view, claimed my full atten-
tion, imprinted itself on my memory, and slowly slipped
away. The tiny waves seemed to hang without breaking,
and each bird became a still life study.
I really expected to be the only one at the beach at the
mouth of the Mattole River at Punta Gorda, but there was a
small family and one other solitary camper. I had made sure
that I’d loaded up on water, snacks, and drinks before arriv-
ing, since there isn’t anything for many miles except the
five building town of Petrolia, seven miles away.
It was a quiet, peaceful night. Actually, it was like a long
twilight with the moon causing the overcast to glow softly,
like a lavender dream. It was a night that descended from
whispering quiet to a dark and absolute stillness.
I awoke to a cream and purple morning, with the soft rat-
tle of the water on the gravel beach the only sound. The
shore birds darted along the water’s edge, poking eager
pointy bills deep in the wet sand. The air was as still as
frozen eternity, and the sun-bleached drift logs looked like
ghosts in humorous and demented poses. Walking on that

123
beach, for a moment I felt like the last person on earth, like
the progenitor of a new era.
It was time to head for home. Past Honeydew, headed
toward Ettersburg, I passed the site of the Earth First!
encampment. There wasn’t a sign that anyone had so much
as passed that way. It was August, and everything inland
from the coast was hot, brown and dry. I tried a bike ride
along the Ave. of the Giants, above the Eel, but the heat was
so oppressive, that after a few miles the fun had totally gone
out of it. Without hesitation, I took the Highway One cut
off at Leggett.
Just before hitting the beach, I took the old, dirt, Lost
Coast road back north for a few miles. Scarcely one lane,
winding, and full of holes, it has seen little traffic and few
changes since Jack London toured it by wagon at the begin-
ning of the century. From a rise a couple of miles in, I
stood and looked over the coast, stretching on and on into
the far haze. An endless series of parabolic coves marched
north, each one deserted. This was the California coast for
millions of years, until one or two hundred years ago. I
thought that, in the past, Native Americans may have wan-
dered up here to meditate and become one with the great
spirit. This spot had to be an ancient holy place, a place of
inner peace and power. As thick skinned and civilized as I
was, I could feel it, and it brought me a joyous melancholy,
a longing for something I’d never known.
From the lost coast, even with stops to enjoy the beach
and check the surf, it was an easy drive to my next destina-
tion in Sonoma County. But I had to stop to poke around
the secret surf spots of the Fort Bragg and Mendocino areas.
From Mendocino I looked down at Big River and thought
of kayaking either up the river or out from the beach along
the Mendocino cliffs. I resolved to take that trip some day,
and I’ve since done so, but it’s a trip so lovely and so recent

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that it must digest like a fine meal before I can put it into the
perspective of words.

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 Ch 9
TRIP TWO: DESTINATION
NORTH

I suspect that every journey, every quest, every destina-

tion is symbolic. Our journeys are inward trips to a ground,
a playing field, where we pit ourselves against our self-per-
ceptions, our self-limitations, and attempt to emerge victo-
rious, to survive and to redefine ourselves. Each excursion
into the physical world is a brick added to the edifice of self
revelation. So it was in the two years I thought about La
Push and about the labyrinth of the British Colombian
inlets. The actual journey amounted to a confirmation that
I am who I’ve chosen to become.
Naturally, it’s a bit more complicated than that. There is
a physical, emotional and, spiritual rush associated with
superimposing your inner blueprint on its physical counter-
part, with bringing all the elements together to experience
the moment with all your attention and passion focused. It
doesn’t even require major adventures that have fermented
for years before being realized. Sometimes a short hike in
damp, misty hills, an encounter with a banana slug, or a
visit to the mouth of a singing creek will fill the spaces in
your soul and add something priceless to the totality that, in
the final summation, is this life you call yourself.
In the two years that the dream of La Push and British
Columbia had been fermenting in my mind, I had seen New
England for the first time and had surfed Cape Cod. I think
I could live on Cape Cod if I wasn’t already in love with the
west coast. The Cape is a place of beauty, a place for artists,
a place for lovers of the sea, and a place of seasons.
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Unfortunately, it is also a place too tamed by the hand of
man.
I had kayaked rivers and bays in several New England
states. At the time I still had the inflatable boat, and I’d
packed it in a suitcase and had taken it along, in addition to
a body board and wetsuit. I loved the east, but was anxious
to get back to the rugged cliffs, cold lonely beaches and
deep redwoods forests of home.
The summer following the New England trip I’d seen
Costa Rica for the first time, hiked the cloud forest in the
rain, ankle deep in tropical mud, dove the clear bays, and
surfed the warm, tropical waters of Tamarindo. Those
major excursions and the innumerable trips up and down
the coast and into the mountains make it seem that I’d done
plenty in a very short time. But something was still miss-
ing.
For two summers I’d thought about the aborted trip north,
the turning around at Westport, the failure to try the
Canadian beaches, and that nagging affirmation: “There’s
always Surf at La Push.” I had spent much of my summer
time and summer money in Costa Rica, and even late in the
evening on July 31, I debated with myself about making a
long, possibly expensive and perhaps fruitless trip north.
On the morning of August first, at the start of a record
heat wave, I tossed everything in the truck, dropped the
kayak on the top, packed a bag, put film in the camera and
started up interstate 5.
My plan this time was to do Canada first, knowing
myself well enough to realize that if I took the coast, I’d
never make it to the border before fall.
My truck doesn’t have air conditioning. Actually, with
the stuck dash lever and the inability to close off the vent, it
doesn’t really have heat either. Hundred degree wind blew
in the open window as I hurried north, hoping that once past

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Shasta it might cool down.
The roar of the highway almost covered the roar of the
stereo as I pushed up the highway, as if more speed would
help me escape the oppressive heat. I passed Lake Shasta
without slowing. The lake was sadly low, boat docks sitting
high and dry, waiting with upturned, bleached timbers for
the first rain.
The only problem I have with California, the majority of
the state that is, is that rain falls only during a fairly short
season, and sometimes precious little of it falls then. I’d
been amazed in New England to be almost washed away by
a summer storm several times in a couple of weeks. That
simply doesn’t happen out here. When it does, every
decade or so, it makes headlines. Usually rain comes along
as early as late October, but usually well into November,
and by April we are lucky to get the odd shower. December
can be wet, but more often than not, January is mild. If we
are going to escape our usual drought, February and March
are the times we get lucky. Forget summer and most of the
fall, which are the dry seasons.
In order to squeeze a profit out of every square inch of
land, we have to stash all the water we can. To this end, the
powers that be have erected giant dams along almost every
decent river coming down from the Sierra. These busy
planners make lakes, fill them up in the winter and spring
and slowly drain them the rest of the year. When we dam
our rivers, we damn our rivers. We damn the beauty; we
damn the natural patterns; we damn our once plentiful fish-
eries, and we damn the future. The environmental move-
ment grows louder and more impatient, because nobody in
industry or government seems to be in any real hurry to
change things. When natural rivers are outlawed, only out-
laws will have natural rivers. Dam the Eel or the Smith, and
they might just make an outlaw out of me.

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 But Shasta was behind me, and I was going over the pass
into Oregon. Normally, I’d be gearing down for a visit and
a stay with my Ashland friends, but their marriage was
coming apart, and they didn’t want anyone in the line of
fire. Stopping there was a warm habit, a haven on the road,
and I missed having it, as I pressed on into the waning day.
Not sure how far I would go or where I might stay, I felt a
bit sad as the sun set. I’m an animal that likes to be holed
up somewhere after dark, so I started looking around. I just
couldn’t bring myself to pay the exorbitant motel prices, so
I pressed on into the settling, graying, purple dusk.
Twenty-five miles north of Roseburg, at the 150 exit off
I-5, I found a private camp ground called Trees of Oregon.
Seeing that I didn’t have an R.V. and didn’t intend to erect
a major camp for the night, the lady gave me a space for
seven bucks. I parked under a tree at last light, made up my
sleeping bag bed, opened a beer and my book, and let the
song of the night creatures sing me to sleep.
I love those little mom and pop camp grounds where
everyone is friendly and the price is low, and folks are polite
enough to shut up late at night so a tired traveler can fall
asleep easily to nature’s sounds. After all, if we wanted to
drift off to the sounds of traffic, yelling, loud TV sets and
all that city crap, we could save a few hundred miles and
simply stay home in the fetid and festering bowels of the
city.
Sleeping out of doors in the back of a pickup truck guar-
antees early awakening. Up at first light, I watched the sun,
like a bubble of molten lava, rise from the eastern hills. I
dropped off the restroom key and headed into Drain--which
I assumed was a suburb of Sewer--for breakfast at one of
those little places that the local farmers go to stuff them-
selves for a hard day on the range. It sat near the railroad
tracks on the north side of the road, just a few blocks from

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the freeway. I always look for places like that, and I’m
never disappointed. The price is always reasonable, and the
food is always plentiful. Another advantage to putting away
a heavy breakfast, is not having to stop for lunch.
North though Oregon is an affair of low passes and lush
valleys. It’s a slow-motion roller coaster ride through the
plant kingdom. Wooded valleys are bounded by wooded
passes and cut by quickly flowing, wooded rivers.
Everything is sensuously green, and the wide, fast, lusty
rivers run free, clear, and joyful everywhere you look.
These scenic, rich undulations continue mile after mile until
the last drop into the Willamette Valley, lush, fertile, and
wet.
Oregonians, please keep the Californians out, even if you
have to pass pest control laws. Keep your rivers undammed
and undamned, your forests green, your towns rustic, and
your way of life intact.
With the exception of coffee and stretch breaks, I didn’t
stop until reaching Seattle in early afternoon. Seattle, the
home of endless hills with views of the water, of plaid shirts
and high top back boots, of L.A.-like freeway traffic, of
music’s grunge scene, and of phone books without yellow
pages, is a puzzle to wander in for a virtual stranger. All I
knew was that there was a kayak store where I could get
information on conditions in Washington and British
Columbia. The word “kayak” was in the name, but I had no
address, and there were no yellow pages in any phone book
at any phone booth. So, I stopped for lunch, picking up one
of the newspapers that are left around for customers to read.
Thumbing through one of the papers, looking for a par-
ticular kind of ad, I found what I wanted, an ad for the
kayak store. A bit more driving about and asking directions
and I was there, along the water at Lake Union, feeling very
much at home again with others who obsessed about being

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out on the water. With the record heat wave, kayak renters
were lined up on the dock, and the silver-blue water was
dotted with the narrow boats. There, after studying the
available literature, I bought a guide that saved my trip and
possibly my life. But, I spent too much time talking kayak-
ing and looking at books. I hit the freeway at rush hour.
Seattle has rush hours that can make a Lost Angeles resident
feel at home.
After what seemed forever, I was free of greater Seattle
and bound for the border. Thinking about all the informa-
tion in the book, I wanted to be able to study it carefully
before launching somewhere in the thousands of miles of
inland water that stretches between the border and Alaska.
With this goal in mind, I pulled into Bellingham to do what
I almost never do on the road, check into a motel. A quick
look around town made me feel that I’d made a mistake.
Every motel was more than I wanted to pay, and I almost
got back on the freeway for Canada. But, in one motel I
got the word that the border was jammed. I’d arrived at the
end of a three day weekend, in Canada, and weekenders
were packed at the border trying to get home for work the
next day. The border wait was two to three hours. That
would finish my chance of catching a ferry to anywhere,
and I’d be in the same boat, trying to find a motel, only
much later at night.
Walking out of a Motel 6 that was full, and feeling dis-
couraged in the bargain, I saw a couple in an old Ford
Pinto. They handed me a coupon and told me of a place that
was 27 bucks a night, and they tried to give me directions,
but finally told me to follow them. I paid my $27 and went
up to the room, only to find an old sofa bed. For a moment
I was upset, until I realized that the other door didn’t lead to
the bathroom, but to a bedroom with a full bed. Upon look-
ing around, I realized that the motel used to be an apart-

131
ment house, and my room was a one bedroom apartment
with a full kitchen. Not too bad for the price.
Not feeling like chasing down a restaurant, I walked to
the local store, bought a load of snack food, a bit of beer and
a bottle of wine. With these creature comforts, I pulled a
chair out on my balcony and watched the mountains to the
east become dark and mysterious in the failing light, the
day’s colors dim, and the world settle down for the night.
Then I drank wine and read my guide book until I had a
good idea where I was headed, was pleasantly drunk, filled
with the sense of the upcoming adventure, and thrilled that
I was able to relax so totally at a price so affordable. The
following morning would find me in Canada.
For me, thinking of Seattle is thinking of damp, leaden
skies, eternal drizzle broken up with occasional rain storms.
Seattle conjures up images of walking against a stiff sea
breeze, parka zipped up against the beat of the wet air. Yet
every time I’ve been to Seattle, I’ve hit it during a heat
wave. It must have been 90 that afternoon, my shorts, san-
dals and T-shirt appropriate dress. It reminded me of my
first visit a decade earlier. Long before reaching town, I’d
found victims of the heat. A grade miles south, near
Olympia, had been littered with cars with hoods up and
steam pulsing from radiators. Cars not used to temperatures
above cool, were showing the results of years of lack of
attention to cooling systems that had long been taken for
granted.
This last time it was even hotter, although it was cooler
there than any place south or north of it. In fact I had a
strong desire to pull my kayak off the truck and enjoy a few
hours of urban kayaking in busy Union Lake, surrounded
with apartments and businesses. The locals were taking
advantage of the weather, even though it was a Monday.
Most of the boats were out, and people were still coming in

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for rentals.
Perhaps I would have stayed, but I could Kayak near a
town any time I wished. I have Monterey and San Franciso
bays right in my back yard. I had a taste for more remote
and natural waterways, places of stillness and elusive ani-
mal eyes peering through the woods. Besides, there is noth-
ing more lonely for me than to be alone in a city, where I
know no one. It’s suffocating to be a stranger on the street,
eating alone, and driving the avenues looking for a motel
where I can hole up in front of some banal TV show that
will give me a momentary illusion of company while I slip
slowly into sleep. I needed to be out of town well before
dark.
Bellingham was different. It wasn’t a city, big and imper-
sonal. The managers of the motel, a young family, were
friendly and told me all about themselves. People came and
went below my balcony, exchanging words of cheer as they
passed. Bellingham was an experience to remember,
although I spent one short night there. I’ll never forget the
sight of those dark mountains, canyons of shadow, march-
ing summer clouds, the smell and taste of lands wild and
mysterious, just outside the range of the well ordered little
town. Sitting on that balcony late in a hot summer night,
reading the kayak guide until the last light failed, I’d
looked occasionally up to watch the landscape gather to a
uniform darkness, in a drama that made the Napolianic wars
seem like a grade school play.
Even though the northbound traffic that Tuesday morning
was still thick, and the border crossing a long one, I loved
Canada from the moment I entered. Just beyond the border
is the tourist information center. Inside there are racks and
racks of maps and brochures for every part of the province.
Facing that wall of information was a row of windows, like
those in a bank. Behind each was a pleasant woman in a

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starched uniform. I walked to the first and was greeted by a
beautiful woman in her early twenties, sandy hair, chiseled
features, lilting voice and deep green eyes. Even if I hadn’t
needed information, I would have found an excuse to talk to
her.
I plied her with questions for half an hour, and she filled
me up with the feel, the sights, the people, the roads, the
mystique, the fragrance, and the hospitality of British
Columbia. Through all my tedious questions, she never
showed a hint of irritation or boredom. Finally, she drew a
short cut on a map that allowed me to circumvent
Vancouver and to make straight for the waterways I’d spent
half the night reading about.
A few yards past the information center I made a right
turn and traveled the couple of miles to Highway 15, the
next northbound highway. Away from the humdrum of the
freeway and all of the suburbs that gradually compound
themselves until they become greater Vancouver, I rolled
down a narrow road, straight as a ruler, that went up and
down hills through farms and ranches, past roadside fruit
stands, selling every kind of berry one could wish for.
Kilometer after relaxing kilometer went by, a border station
on the radio, playing good rock and roll and giving weather
reports in American and metric units. I was almost disap-
pointed to hit the freeway.
Somewhere an that freeway, Canada 1, I passed a great
river. Signs of logging and industry hugged the banks, but
that didn’t take away from the magnificent countryside.
Even the edge of Vancouver that I skirted in route to the
bridge was lovely. What kind of a country is it where even
the damned suburbs are inviting! Before I could contem-
plate that question, I was over the bridge and turning off on
Dollarton Highway. From Dollarton I went out Deep Cove
Road to Deep Cove on Indian Arm.

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 The little guide book was well worth the money. I made
my turn, stopped for some snacks to have out on the water
and proceeded to pull right up to the launch point, at the
bottom of the village of Deep Cove. This was, from the first
glance, a perfect place to begin a solitary Canadian kayak
trip. There was a delightful little community built around a
bay located on the fifteen or twenty mile long inlet known
as Indian Arm. This is an arm off Burrard Inlet, which emp-
ties out into the Strait of Georgia, near the ferry route to
Nanaimo on Vancouver Island. Burrard Inlet separates
Vancouver from North Vancouver, so Indian Arm is just
three or four miles out of what you might call downtown
water. There’s the lovely thing about British Columbia.
You can paddle away from a city, houses and boat traffic,
and in a few minutes you could easily be in the wilderness.
So it was at Indian Arm. There was a parking lot with a
three day limit, for boaters going all the way up the arm. I
parked and carried the boat down the hill, past the club and
rental place to the beach. I loaded my snacks, camera and
extra clothes, and I launched right behind a party of four
boats.
This was kayaker country, a feeling of comfort, of famil-
iar, popular day paddling water. When one travels alone,
there is always the unease of going out into unknown terri-
tory, not knowing local conditions, hazards, and the like.
So, my first paddle was in one of the most popular spots,
and even though it was a weekday, there were people every-
where.
The bay was lined with picturesque beach houses, most
with their own boat dock. What a Life! There was a mari-
na or public dock that I paddled by. I was hoping, having
read and heard about the winds that come up and churn the
water, that things would be calm outside the little bay. They
were. Not only was it calm, but the heat wave was still in

135
full force, and I was sweating in my nylon shorts and tee
shirt.
As I followed the shore east of the little bay, the houses
continued, some looking like weekend cabins and others
like palaces, three story, multi-decked mansions.
Civilization continued for a mile or two.
Then I was out in the natural world, trees and rocks lined
the shore, and the only other people were the motor boaters
who passed me. The local kayakers seemed content to play
about the islands near the cove. As I paddled through the
hot summer afternoon, watching the thick, temperate rain
forest on both sides, I suddenly became aware of things
above me. Looking up above the hills and low mountains
that rose everywhere from the water, I saw for the first time,
the snow and ice covered peaks that rose silently and majes-
tically behind the greenery.
It was as if the high peaks that form the backbone of the
Sierra had been moved right next to San Francisco Bay or
Cape Cod or any sheltered coastal water. The juxtaposition
was uncanny. At water level it felt like some tropical beach
in Mexico, and rising all around was Alaska or the Alps.
I was mesmerized as I pulled steadily up the arm toward
a huge power plant of some kind, farther up the other bank.
Curiosity got the better of me and I paddled for it. By the
time I reached it, I’d left civilization miles behind, and this
was the only man made object in sight. A big sign stood
right in front of it, facing the water. I couldn’t read it yet.
Several pipes, big enough to drive a train through, flowed
over the tops of the backing hill and down into the building,
which was about three or four stories high. Similar pipes
came out the front of the building and ended at the water,
gaping maws of rusted steel.
I finally got close enough to read the sign. It said,
“DANGER.” At any time, without notice, these pipes

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could open, disgorging vast amounts of water. I hurried to
paddle away from the front of those pipes, even though the
place looked like it could well have been abandoned for
decades.
I followed the far shore back until I saw an island and
paddled over to it. There was a boat dock and some signs
that it might be someone’s place, but further down there was
a beach, so I pulled in. I was alone on the island, and I
walked around, following a path and checking everything
carefully, thinking that one could camp here. As I left the
island and rounded the tip, a sign told me that this was a
provincial park and that I could indeed camp here any damn
time I wished without charge.
Another island, steep, with no place to land, was separat-
ed from what I thought was a much bigger island. But I
later found that it was a peninsula jutting out from the south
bank, wooded and covered with expensive homes. On that
peninsula was a public beach, and I was amazed to see peo-
ple swimming around their boat. This may have been a hot
summer day, but it was Canada, the far north, frigid waters
and all that. I assumed that the water would be that much
colder than the ocean around San Francisco, which was far
too cold for a refreshing dip without a wetsuit. I pulled in at
the beach.
The family in the water seemed to really be enjoying
themselves, so I had to give it a try. I walked in cautiously,
expecting my teeth to chatter. It wasn’t bad. I took a deep
breath and took a plunge. The water was warm, not Costa
Rica warm by a country mile, but warmer than any beach
north of Santa Barbara, and one hell of a lot warmer than
any mountain lake. I swam around, stretched my kayak-
cramped body, frolicked for some time, and climbed up on
the beach to eat the snacks I’d brought.
Sitting there in trunks, warm and refreshed, I looked up

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at the white peaks, seemingly just out of my grasp, and I
was amazed at this wondrous land of contrasts, breathtaking
vistas, and startling surprises.
Later, after loading up my boat, I debated whether to
pack my camp gear and stay free on the island, but finally
decided against it. Instead I took to the little town for some
food and brew. I found a great little pub with good sand-
wiches and several local beers on tap. It was perhaps a
block from the water, and I could look out the window at the
long afternoon shadows over Indian Arm.
It was late afternoon when I drove up toward the first
ferry terminal along the sunshine coast. Just before the
ferry terminal I turned inland on highway 99 toward
Squamish. Just past Porteau Cove I found a campground
across from a tall and spectacular waterfall. They had a
store; they had restrooms; they had room, and the price was
about 10 bucks American.
Under Canadian stars, just a few feet from another major
inlet, Howe Sound, which I’d explore from the other, more
remote shore the next day, and with a view of a waterfall
slipping centimeter by centimeter into the twilight, I sipped
my cold Canadian beer and read my American book and
thanked my international good fortune that I was blessed
with enough awareness to totally enjoy this slice of heaven.
At that moment, surrounded by campers enjoying a
vacation in perfect summer weather, I knew that my trip
would be flawless. There would be no accidents, no failure
to find a camping spot, no sudden squalls, no thieves in the
night, no financial or mechanical disasters. This would be
a charmed trip. I couldn’t lose, couldn’t fail to have a won-
derful time, couldn’t get sick, couldn’t drown. I was free to
do whatever I wished. My life was totally charmed until I
once again set foot on home and hearth. I was loose, alive,
unfettered and so deliriously free.

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 It was another bright summer morning on the Sunshine
Coast. And there I was, waiting to take my first ride on a
British Columbian ferry. Talking to people, I realized that I
had been wise to put off the crossing until morning. I’d
considered making for a late ferry after dinner the night
before, but had decided against it, figuring that there was a
lot more on the mainland side and therefore more places to
camp. Had I gone for it, I probably would have waited out
a couple of boats and perhaps would have missed the last
one. During peak summer season, people pack in from all
over the place, and evening crossings can at times be
backed up by three boats, mostly on weekends.
As the massive ferry glided slowly into the open water,
the entire world was zoomed toward me on every side.
Great expanses of water gave way to massive islands and
shorelines of epic proportions, each stretching in all direc-
tions including up to the sky and down to the mirrored sky
in the glistening water. The high peaks above the peaks
above peaks were perpetually strewn with glaciers. They
stood at the top of the world and worlds away. I thought for
a moment that if I could have climbed higher on the boat, I
could have seen yet a farther, grander range of peaks, per-
haps somewhere up in Alaska.
Everything was on such a scale that islands the size of
San Francisco jutted nonchalantly out of the water, bound-
ed by other, much bigger islands, and then the mainland.
Such an island is Gambier Island. I passed it realizing that
I’d be seeing another part of it in a few hours.
The ferry trip took perhaps forty minutes, but the scene
plays out at any speed I wish. At times I remember it as a
couple of minutes, and other times it becomes a epic jour-
ney in itself, rock, tree, water and ice lavished freely on a
canvas of immeasurable scope. Bold lines moved upward
and outward from any point of focus. A strange perspective

139
this was, space so vast that there was the effect of fore-
shortening. Everything emerged from everything else.
Everything was foreground and background at the same
time.
Then it was time to go below decks and start engines.
The bulk of the traffic went through Gibsons and north
along the main highway. I turned right toward Port Mellon,
per my guide book, which I found to be outdated. It said
that I could launch from the pulp mill at the end of the road.
I pulled in and asked the receptionist about it, and she said
that there was no such place, that the gates are locked after
the shift ends, and I wouldn’t be able to get the truck out
until morning. Someone in a suit and name tag walked
through, and she called him over. He told me that back up
the road a few blocks was a brown apartment house, and
I could turn there and go to the end of the road and launch.
The short, side road ended between some houses, and a
dirt track lead down to the water. I followed it until it ended
at the shore. There was a wide spot to pull up and park, and
an old, battered picnic table attested to this being the only
place around that might pass for a public beach. Some
teenagers wandered the shore a quarter mile away, and I
wondered how safe my stuff would be, left alone in this out
of the way spot for the whole day. I remembered the deep
assurance that came to me under the stars the night before.
So, without giving it another thought, I locked everything
up and lugged the boat down the rocky beach to the water.
There was a narrow stretch of water between shore and
a huge log float or jam or whatever they call it. This went
all up and down the beach, with occasional channels lead-
ing from shore to open water. One of those channels was
about a half block east. I knew nothing about these big,
floating log islands except that they can be dangerous to
mess around with. I didn’t know if they shifted about, pos-

140
sibly blocking my return trip to the truck. I wondered what
I would do if I couldn’t get back up that channel. Armed
with no knowledge, I dismissed the notion, realizing again
that this trip was charmed and that nothing bad could possi-
bly happen.
As I stroked into open water, a subtle change started to
work within me. It was becoming clear that nothing in life
is left to chance, and that I had never been, nor ever would
be a victim, at the mercy of blind fate or some unknown
event. I was starting to understand that it was only me in
control of my life, that everything that had or ever will
befall me was of my own choosing at some level or anoth-
er. The idea planted itself deeper with every stroke of my
paddle, and as the seed of that idea grows, uncertainty and
apprehension slowly give way to unbounded joy and enthu-
siasm.
I was out on Howe Sound, a vast waterway that went for
miles. About a mile from shore was a large island, and
behind it appeared to be another, much larger that I figured
for Gambier. Keeping the giant pulp mill, with its moun-
tains of tan sawdust and its smoking chimneys, to my left, I
made for the island, checking occasionally for my position
relative to my launch site. By the time the truck disap-
peared, I figured I could find the place no matter what direc-
tion I was coming from.
I rounded the western tip of the small island, and there
as big as a major city and as high as a small mountain was
Gambier Island, densely wooded and seemingly uninhabit-
ed. It was another half mile to the shore of the big island, a
shore lined with more of those log floats. It was disheart-
ening to witness the scope of the destruction of the forest. I
paddled close to them, studying the shore, looking for
wildlife, and getting into the feeling of being alone. For,
unlike Indian Arm, with the parking lot, boat club, houses,

141
and other boaters, this was deserted. I had put in at one of
the few possible places for miles. The closest docks were
miles back in Gibsons, and beyond the pulp mill there were
no roads at all. I had an unbelievable expanse of water and
land totally to myself. As my mind started to quiet, it began
to expand to fill the space and time that stretched before me.
My little book said that for scenic beauty the best kayak-
ing in the area was the channel between Gambier and Anvil
Islands. This was around the eastern end of the island, sev-
eral miles away. The book also said that a kid’s camp of
some kind was along the island, and from there a trail went
to a lake in the high country of Gambier. So I followed the
coast east, dwarfed by scenery that seemed to explode out
of the water and straight up to the sky.
It was so quiet that each paddle stroke was like a slap on
a snare drum. Birds cried sharply as they passed, slicing the
still air. WaveIetts sloshed dully against the logs. My pad-
dle gave a regular pattern of slaps on the surface. Beyond
these sounds, and the faint rush of a slight breeze, the world
was silent. Perhaps that was why the seaplane came as such
a shock.
Lost in reflection and suspended in time, I was startled by
the drone of an engine overhead. Looking up, I saw the lit-
tle plane, pontoons hanging below, dropping down as it
passed. Then it made a tight turn and came straight back for
me. For a moment I thought it was going to fly low to see
who was there, but then I realized it was landing. As fast as
I could, I fumbled for my camera, opened it up, checked the
light and speed, and tried to adjust the focus for where I
thought the plane would be. This happened in seconds. The
plane was coming in fast and suddenly was on the water.
Bringing the camera up to my eye, hand on the focus ring,
I snapped just as it passed me, perhaps sixty feet away. I
spun around hard to follow it and saw it pull to a stop near

142
one of the many log islands along the shore. Timber people
were there to check the logs, perhaps to earmark some for
towing to a mill or wherever they take them. By now they
were a quarter mile behind me, but I had my picture and
wished again for the solitude.
For an hour the island gave every indication of being
deserted and endless. Then around a curve there emerged a
dock with some paddle boats on it. Then a beach came into
view, with the cabins that are associated with a typical sum-
mer camp. A big sign on the beach told me that this was the
camp in the guide book, the one that had the trail to the lake
leading out of it. I pulled in to shore.
There didn’t seem to be a soul around, and I was slight-
ly uncomfortable about trespassing, but I was hot from all
the paddling, so I jumped in the warm water and swam
around, splashing lazily in the calm shallows, feeling I had
the entire Howe Sound to myself, my personal playground.
Then a young man appeared. He sat down on a bench up
the beach, gave me a quick glance and started to read a
book. When I got out of the water, I greeted him, and he
strolled down the beach to talk to me. I was thinking that
he was going to tell me to move along, that this was private
property, just as I had thought that my truck wasn’t safe
back on the beach. But this was British Columbia, not
California, and the young man simply asked me how my
trip was going.
I asked him about the lake in the high county, and he said
that the trail was obscured and quite easy to lose. In fact, he
said, a troop of kids with one of the older kids as a guide had
gotten lost looking for the lake and had wandered around
for an entire day getting back at dark. He said that he’d
show me the trail head if I had a mind to go, but he could-
n’t promise I’d find the lake.
I didn’t want to wander around all day, only to try to

143
paddle back in the dark, so I fished out my provisions, had
lunch on the beach, bid good-bye to the young guy, and set
out again, thinking that I’d found the only human habitation
on the island.
In just minutes I arrived at the next cove and another
boat dock. A sign proclaimed that it was a yacht Club.
What a great place for one, miles from any road. One must
have a boat to even get there. I had paddled for almost
three hours from the closest road. A couple were sunning
themselves on a boat and greeted me as I passed, asking me
where I was from. I told them, and they said that I should
give up that foolishness and move up here forthwith. I
agreed, and told them I intended to one day, and I meant it.
What friendly people! In many places the attitude toward
tourists is that they are tolerated for a time while they spent
their money, but they certainly weren’t encouraged to hang
around, let alone settle in. Even though I was spending
most of my time alone, I’d met dozens of locals, and every
one of them was delightful.
Then I rounded another small point and there was Anvil
Island and the touted channel. I started into it. The far
shore, the eastbound highway, and the place I’d camped the
night before, loomed dimly in the hazy distance. This pas-
sage wasn’t anything special as far as I could tell, and I
wouldn’t have time to explore Anvil Island. In fact the
afternoon was waning, and I could feel the tide coming in,
so unless it turned soon, Id be paddling uphill on the return
trip. I knew I had at least a three hour trip back to the truck.
Tidal conditions and odd stops to check things out could
easily make that four or more. After dark I would have had
one hell of a time finding that narrow passage between log
floats that leads back to the truck. Of course my mind was
still fixed on California style sunsets. It hadn’t registered
yet that one can still see fairly well by the light left at nine

144
at night. I decided to start the return trip.
There seemed no point in retracing my route, between the
islands and past the yacht club. There was a low spot along
the shore of the mainland. While most of the shore rose
almost straight up out of the water in steep expanses of tow-
ering trees, one stretch appeared to be the mouth of a river.
There was something that looked like a beach, backed by a
grassy-colored green. Behind the green area there seemed
to be a canyon that gently ascended until it merged with the
general background of snow capped peaks. It was the only
spot that was really different, and I wanted to check it out.
So I made straight for the shore, a few miles away.
Being out in the middle of a huge sound Iike Howe cre-
ates interesting sensations. To begin with, there is the feel-
ing of being small, very, very small. Sitting only inches
above the water, surrounded by miles and miles of water
and hundreds of miles of mountains, I felt like a speck, a
solitary asteroid in the swirling vastness of space. Even the
chop that came up in the middle, brought by the afternoon
wind running up the sound. was higher than the boat. I
found myself looking over the tops of the little swells like
an old lady peering just over the steering wheel of her big
sedan. The details of the island were fading, yet the low
spot on the mainland didn’t seem to be getting closer.
The chop, the tide, and the wind conspired to slow me up,
and it took the longest time before I actually felt I was mak-
ing for the shore. Details started to emerge. At one end of
this low area. there looked to be a boat just inside the mouth
of some river. I wondered if I’d have the time to explore a
bit of that river before heading back. I put my back into the
paddle, trying to make up some time, and my muscles were
tired when I got close enough to see that it wasn’t a boat. It
wasn’t a river either.
I was very close to the shore now, and the boat was some

145
kind of crane or dredge. Big construction equipment all
looks pretty much the same to me. The river it was sitting
in was just a cove delineated by a short rock wall. A sign
on the dock that held the machine said that this was private
property and that I wasn’t to trespass. I turned west.
That which I imagined a beach was indeed a beach.
Grass behind it gave way to a forested canyon that sloped
gently up toward the distant roof of the world. I pulled in
close, but the water was so shallow that I grounded while
still a hundred feet from the beach. I followed the shore
back toward the pulp mill, now well out of sight.
At one point there was a small tuck in the shore. In that
tuck a tiny waterfall dropped almost straight down from a
considerable height. I managed to pull in close enough to
get partially under it. I was hot and tired from all the effort,
and the shower was refreshing. But now I wanted another
swim.
My wants were answered by a little hook in the shore.
Just out from the hook was a small clump of rocks that jut-
ted up just above the surface. Between the rocks and the
shore was a nice little swimming hole, maybe chest deep.
Man overboard! It still amazed me that sea water this far
north could be so absolutely pleasant to fall into.
And there I was, not a soul for a couple of miles in any
direction, and my own personal bathing beach, my own per-
sonal bird companions, my own personal mollusks on the
rocks, had I wanted to harvest some. “Serenity” is the word
that comes to mind. But serenity is alien to civilized man,
and after a few minutes, I actually began to miss the sights
and sounds of humanity, so I set out for the truck.
I watched that big pulp mill for well over two miles as I
slowly came up to it and passed it. I had it memorized by
the time I finally sat in front of the massiveness of it. I can
only imagine how much pulp a place that big can mill. It

146
was of the size and scope of an auto assembly plant, and the
piles of sawdust were at least three stories high. Giant flat
barges were tied to the dock. a dock so big that the barges
weren’t really noticed from a couple of miles away. It took
ten minutes just to paddle past the place, and I paddle quite
fast.
My feeling about the tide had been right. By the time I
beached, the water was within five feet of the truck. When
I’d launched, I’d carried the kayak perhaps fifty feet to the
water. But now I stepped out of the boat, tossed it on the
truck, and looked to see that nothing had been screwed
with. It occurred to me that this could be a place to come
back to at night, assuming camping was legal, the residents
wouldn’t make a fuss, and the water wouldn’t rise much
higher. I kept the idea viable, but for the moment I had to
move on. There was no place near there to get a meal and
a brew and I really had a hunger and thirst.
Back at Gibsons on the main sunshine coast highway, I
Saw my favorite signs of civilization. A place that adver-
tised food and drink at affordable prices got my attention. I
was dirty, sweaty, damp, tousled, sandy, wrinkled, matted,
smelly, and unshaven. The hostess was delighted to have
me choose that humble establishment, and she put me near
the restrooms, perhaps as a hint that I might go in and fresh-
en up. By the second beer, I got the hint.
In retrospect, I can see why no women flirted with me on
that trip.
That wonderful little woman back at the tourist informa-
tion center, at the border, had given me a list of accommo-
dations with prices, so I opened it up. My goal was to bring
the trip in at $500 or less, counting gas, food, camping,
everything. I saw a place up the road that had spaces for
about ten bucks American. It was near Sechelt, my next
kayaking destination. So I hurried to get there before dark.

147
 They had one very small spot left at that price, but all I
needed was a place to park, so I took it, changed into my
trunks and went for a twilight swim in their pool. On the
road, a swim equals a bath, so I dried off and curled up with
my book, hoping all the noise of the families pressed so
close together would stop by the time I got sleepy.
Again I forgot that this was Canada and that courtesy
was alive and well. At ten sharp all the noise stopped. A
few camp fires were going, and the occasional rattle of
utensils and the clink of wine glasses were all that told me
that others were still awake. Unlike the typical summer
camper in California, Canadians don’t feel it necessary to
crank up the car stereos and yell, “fuckin’ A, man!” in order
to have a good time camping. We were a campground of
laid back people enjoying the fact that we were surrounded
by nature and not by the din of the city.
There was a bit of a community abutting the camp-
ground. Sechelt is a town, with shopping, restaurants and
all the rest. In fact there was a mini mall right next to the
campground. This wasn’t out in the woods camping. It was
on the highway, on the edge of town, near stores and ser-
vices. It wasn’t actually camping at all; it was a place to
crash after a long day and to rest up for another long day.
There was a cafe in the mini mall next door to the camp-
ground. The service was friendly, and I got a hearty break-
fast to tide me over. On these out in nature days, I never eat
lunch, only light snacks, like trail mix or candy bars for
energy. Stopping in the middle of some wondrous activity
to sit down to a meal, seems both a bother and a waste of
time. Whole days can lose themselves in routine activities.
While in Sechelt, I also checked in with the local dive
shop for information on the tides and the intimate perspec-
tive on the inlet. I found that, with all the miles of convo-
luted inland waterways, the tides up there are screwy. Each

148
area has its own tides, and there are books that you can buy
to calculate the tides at each area, but these books read like
navigational tables for international shipping. Figuring
tides that way isn’t impossible, only a time consuming pain
in the ass. It was easier to check in at each local spot, with
a boat or dive shop. Tides that run for miles, through nar-
row inlets can at times flow like a river, and there are places
where at certain times it becomes like white water rapids,
complete with whirlpools and standing waves and a current
far too fast to paddle against. Although I opted not to try
any of those spots on this my maiden trip, I still tried to plan
my trips so that the tide worked for me rather than against
me. The object was, after all, to explore as much as possi-
ble in a given amount of time. Why spend hours going a
couple of miles.
The Sechelt inlet doubles back to the west from a sound
further north and comes within a mile or so of connecting to
the Strait of Georgia. There is a narrow land bridge between
the inlet and the strait, and that’s where the community of
Sechelt sits, a modern vacation town and an ancient site of
a Native American tribal center.
At the northeast end of the Sechelt inlet, where it meets
the Jervis Inlet at the community of Egmont, there is a very
narrow spot called the Skookumchuck Rapids. Passage
through the rapids is unsafe except four times a day at slack
tide, and one had better be able to read the tide book. At
maximum flow the current moves at up to thirty miles per
hour and equals a class five white water run. Well, I wasn’t
planning on going that far. What I hoped was to paddle past
the Salmon Inlet to Narrows Inlet and up narrows Inlet for
a few miles.
There was a kind of a beach that’s used for a launch spot.
It was the only place where the road and the water came
together. There was no actual parking area, so kayakers

149
just parked on the road in front of people’s homes. It was a
popular spot, and I met a couple of groups packing their
boats for a several day trip up Narrows Inlet, groups
equipped with tents, sleeping bags, cooking stuff, food,
changes of clothes, cameras, and all the rest. That much
gear won’t fit in one boat, but these people travel in groups,
distributing the gear so that everything fits and no one is
overloaded.
I considered packing over night stuff just in case, but in
trying to pack it, I found that the heavy, oversized sleeping
bag that works so well in the truck was too big to fit in the
small compartment in the kayak, and I hadn’t bothered to
bring the lighter bag. After all, I’d made the decision to
make the trip, packed, and departed on the morning of
August first. The next best idea was to bring all I needed
for a long day on the water, change of clothes, snacks. sun-
screen, camera, and a book.
I started off along the shore, first passing a beautiful won-
derland community on the water, among some picture book
islands. Some of the homes were on the mainland, and oth-
ers were on the small islands. Some islands had three or
four houses nestled on them, and others were the private
domains of a single family. Each had a dock and a boat. I
paddled between them, gently brushing a serene, relaxed
lifestyle that I could easily come to enjoy.
As I moved slowly under a foot bridge between islands,
scarcely eight feet apart, watching the delicate bridge and
the well kept little docks, set against miniature pine forests
resembling a child’s high Sierra, I had the feeling that this
wasn’t a real community, a place where people lived and
paid bills and left to go to work. This was a fairyland, a
theme park, all so perfect, so flawless. I wasn’t in a kayak
on a natural waterway; I was on a ride set on underwater
rails, and I expected to see lifelike dolls come out of each

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door and bow as I passed. It was one of those places of
dreams, a place unchanging through endless perfect sunny
days.
A cove came up, formed by a rocky point that was a pic-
nic area, boats tied up all around and people enjoying the
lovely day. I didn’t stop.
Houses gave way to wilderness, and then one of those
wonderful provincial parks appeared. There was a natural
little beach with a provincial park sign in the middle, signs
of a campfire ring just back from the sand, and a tent tucked
under some trees. I was to find that these little parks,
scarcely more than places for two or three tent sites, were
all along these popular waters. Careful packing of a com-
pact tent, lightweight bag, small butane stove, lantern and
some food, and a kayaker could stay out, free of charge, for
days on end. Not only kayakers used these spots. There
were power boats beached along these parks. The roads
may have been congested and highway camp grounds at a
premium, but boaters had a wide open world to enjoy.
The wind started to come up from the west, creating
some chop. The wind was at my back, making paddling
easier. But it was an illusion, like coasting down a hill on a
bike. Sooner or later you have to turn around and go back
up that hill. Unless I stayed out until the wind changed,
probably late evening or early morning, I would have to
paddle back uphill. I thought about that as the wind contin-
ued to build.
Further up the inlet, I came along side a small power boat
with three guys around sixty years old. They were picnick-
ing, fishing, hanging out, enjoying the day, whatever. I
hailed them, and being typical British Columbians, they
tossed me a beer and invited me to pull up and talk awhile.
They were over from Vancouver Island, from Nanaimo,
and we described our respective homes. Time slipped away

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in careless chatter, chatter that I’d missed, not having had
more than scraps of conversation in days. When the subject
of politics came up, the day was a goner. Just about every-
one likes to bitch about the government, and we spent a
considerable time practicing one-upmanship regarding the
follies and foibles of our respective law makers. They
objected to the high taxes that socialize the country, but I
saw a clean, beautiful, prosperous land. Perhaps the old
adage about the grass being greener really applies.
As delightful as the conversation was, I could have
stayed out there all day. However, suddenly I realized that
the chop was bouncing me around like a baby carriage on a
cobblestone lane. I bid my new friends good-bye and con-
tinued toward a cove that sounded interesting in the guide
book. Unfortunately, at the Salmon Inlet branch I realized
that I probably wouldn’t make my destination. The chop
was higher than the boat, and the wind was blowing hard.
Crossing the inlet meant almost a mile of open, unprotected
water. My hat blew off, hit the water, and was carried rapid-
ly around the point into the inlet. I chased after it, but it was
moving too fast. I thought about crossing the channel, per-
haps not being able to get back until after dark or the next
morning. Had my sleeping bag fit in my boat, there would-
n’t have been a problem spending the night, but I wasn’t
prepared. I turned around, taking five minutes to round the
point I’d just passed in a matter of seconds.
Going back was like walking up a very steep, very
muddy hill. I seemed to be slipping back almost as fast as
I moved forward. The chop was coming over the side, and
I was lucky that the day was hot. Other kayakers shot past
me, a group loaded with equipment, bound for that cove I
wouldn’t reach, out for a couple of days of camping, and
planning to return in the still of an early morning.
After an hour on a liquid treadmill, one of those little

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provincial parks appeared. I was getting hungry and tired
of paddling almost in place, so I pulled in. My reasonable
assumption was that it couldn’t get much windier, I could
kick back with food and the novel I’d almost finished, rest
up and then finish my abbreviated trip.
I had to scout things out before settling down, so I walked
past the deserted tent and camp site to a trail that led up the
hill, through the thick, green temperate rain forest. I walked
up the hill, clothed only in swim trunks and sandals. The
forest thickened as I climbed the hill. The dense ferns
crowded me, reaching almost to my chest. The ground was
damp, and under the canopy of trees, the grass was still an
early spring green. Millions of tiny insects buzzed around
me. I walked until the trail became impassable, until I
would have to kick and claw my way through the under-
brush to continue. I turned around to see nothing but forest.
The beach was gone, and I was alone, alone as far as my
own species was concerned. From the forest came the
sounds of a million living things, the busy insects, the birds
singing in the trees, the small mammals and scuttling
lizards, and the occasional crunch of a shy, hoofed animal
grazing in a thicket. I felt almost like one of the animals,
practically carrying no gear, on the verge of scampering into
the dense forest like a nervous rabbit.
Every so often that urge comes over me, the urge to just
abandon my human trappings and dash off into the wilder-
ness like some lost tribesman who makes news when he
comes out of the bush, beard to his knees after twenty years
alone.
The first time I’d felt that way was on an early spring ski-
ing trip, returning from Utah over northern, almost deserted
Nevada, seeing range after range of empty, snow covered
mountains. I would crest a pass, look ahead for twenty or
thirty miles at a valley that seemed to contain no sign of

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human or even animal life, see the road go back up the other
side, still empty, to another range that stretched north and
south for uncountable miles. I’d felt the strange desire to
pull over, strip down, and dash out into the sage, howling
like a demented coyote.
I’d resisted the urge in Nevada, and again I resisted it in
British Columbia. A certain conditioning holds us like a
straight jacket, no matter how free we feel intellectually.
This time a short walk brought me back to the deserted
beach. I unpacked fruit and snacks and my book, sat down
in the sand with my back against a log and lost myself in a
fast moving story.
The wind, however, didn’t abate, and I had to work my
way against a squall, slowly back to the truck. But, on way
back, I explored that little cove around the picnic area, only
to find a young couple in kayaks. They were just starting
out on a three or four day trip, each boat well packed. They
were taking their time, knowing that there were plenty of
places to stay and not being in any big hurry to get some-
place. They were Californians, so we talked of home before
we parted company. I’ll remember them, young, athletic,
adventurous, and in synch with each other. It was an
unbeatable combination of romance and friendship, some-
thing we all dream of in a mate.
A summer day ends in Canada like a cat naps, languidly,
luxuriously, and unhurriedly. As I drove the few short kilo-
meters back to town, the day was already over, and I knew
my first chore was to find a place to spend the night. It was-
n’t dark, not even close. The sun was simply low in its arc,
approaching the horizon like a commercial aircraft
approaches the airport. I didn’t want to stay in the place I’d
been the night before. The plan was to push a bit further
north, as I’d done daily since leaving home. My tourist
guide book gave me the name of a few inexpensive camp-

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ing spots up the road. By this time I realized that the
provincial parks, the ones you can drive to rather than boat
to, would invariably be full. It was just like being in
California or Oregon. Tourists go for the high profile spots,
the national parks, the state parks, the provincial parks.
People make reservations to camp, taking the spontaneity
out of travel. Personally, I have reservations about reser-
vations.
The first and cheapest place had changed, the camping
area was gone. The next was at a place called Madeira
Park. The campground, a small community and a marina
were on a small, perfectly scenic bay about 30 kilometers
north of Sechelt. At first I was unimpressed with the piece
of gravel, picnic bench, and fire ring that constituted my
camp site. But I soon realized that it was ideal for this hour,
this night, this mood.
The owners told me of a place to eat over at Irvines
Landing, only five minutes by boat but almost a half hour
by car. I should have put my kayak in the water, yet I don’t
regret the drive, down the highway to a side road, past one
of the most lovely lakes I’ve ever seen, and down to a dock
in a bay, the opposite side of the bay I was camped at.
The place was crowded, and the few waitresses were on
the run. I ordered a draft beer while I waited, and since the
wait was longer than it should have been, another was
brought to me gratis. Happy, laughing, talking boaters were
sitting around, pouring down brew and rehashing the love-
ly day that had now become a soft early twilight. I ate
alone, feeling lonely among all the chatter. The food was
excellent, the waitresses cheerful in spite of how busy they
were, and the beer. . . well I picked up a six pack to go.
Twenty feet from my camp site there was a deck, picnic
tables and bar-b-cues, and a view of the bay. I opened a
beer and stood by the railing. The dying light pulled films

155
of color over the water, turning it from blue tinged with yel-
low to soft purple with wandering slicks of black. Boat
masts stood black against the water, glowing darkly as if
from an inner light. The wind that had bedeviled me earli-
er was gone, and the water was like dark, rich syrup.
Somewhere in the distance Vancouver Island was shimmer-
ing softly, giving up its day just minutes after the mainland.
Somewhere on the far side of the island, some surfer was
stepping out of the water, turning around with a deep feel-
ing of satisfaction and watching the last light extinguish in
the broad Pacific. I was standing on a deck, under some
trees, talking to some woman who was bar-b-cueing, words
of summer, of home, of the soft night bouncing between us.
And then I was alone as the last light streaked quietly above
the horizon and the world gave itself to a soft, comfortable
darkness.
As the boats blinked out one by one, a gentle melancholy
took hold of me. This was the immortal world, loving but
impersonal. Part of me drifted free to lose myself in it, on
it. Another part of me wanted some connection to the per-
sonal, the ephemeral world of human interaction. I was nei-
ther a man of the moment nor a drifting, timeless spirit. I
was caught between two worlds, forever a passionate lover,
but forever a stranger, out in the cold, below a lighted win-
dow.
I awoke the next morning with the subtle knowledge that
I had reached the outer end of my journey. I would start
back before the day was over.
I drove to the end of this particular piece of Sunshine
Coast with the idea of spending some time kayaking Jervis
Inlet, the large inlet that feeds Sechelt Inlet through the dan-
gerous Skookumchuck rapids. I drove to where the ferry
continues the trip further north, and I turned east to Earls
Cove and Egmont, where I thought I’d put in for a morning

156
paddle. On the way I passed the trail head to the rapids and
thought about how lovely a hike in the forest and a view of
the famous rapids would be.
When I got to the end of the road, I realized that Egmont
and Earls Cove were not towns but rather fishermen’s
resorts and private homes. Access to the water was only at
the two resorts I found, and both of them had signs that said
that access was reserved for customers.
It was then I fully realized that the time had come.
Money was low, and it was Friday. In a few hours the
weekend crowds would come up for the hottest weekend of
the year. All campgrounds would be packed, ferries would
be backed up for hours, and the roads would be jammed. I
opted to hike out to the rapids.
It was a nice enough hike past some cabins, a pretty little
lake, some giant trees that I assumed were spruce, and final-
ly to a cliff overlooking the rapids. Approaching the view
point, I heard the sound of an engine, and a dreary thought
crossed my mind. I was unfortunately right. As I looked
over the rapids, I saw boats passing through the calm water.
I had managed to hit the slack tide, the only time when this
narrow spot is passable. There were no great swirls, no
foaming waves, no roaring torrent. There were boats going
about their business as if at the entrance to some marina.
So I checked my watch and planned my trip back toward
Vancouver.
Once off the ferry and only highway between me and the
boarder, I was free to relax. I drove back up toward where
I’d spent that first Canadian night, and stopped at a gift
shop/art gallery, where I spent the longest time talking to
the daughter of the owners, a woman passionate about the
art of the area, much of it Native American, the beauty that
inspires the art, and the lore of the area. Lost in conversa-
tion, I suddenly realized that Friday rush hour was starting,

157
and it was time to fight the freeway to the border. I would
spend that night in Washington, and I’d go the hundred or
so miles out of my way to kayak the Puget Sound area and
to see if there really was always surf at La Push.

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 Ch. 10
WASHINGTON: Destination
Achieved

There was something comfortable, yet alien about Blaine

Washington, looking like it had risen out of the tidal flats
and standing bare against the dull afternoon sky. I had
taken a wrong turn off a busy Canadian freeway but had
used my trapper’s instinct to find highway 15 to get back to
the border without taking the freeway through Vancouver
and all the coastal suburbs. By the time I crossed the bor-
der, I’d already had a long day, filled with a hike, native art
gallery cruising, lunch and a brew, a crowded ferry, and a
trip through unfamiliar communities during Friday rush
hour.
I hate to be out in unfamiliar places after dark without a
place to crash. I hate looking for a camp site at night, and I
hate getting so frustrated that I give in to an inviting motel.
It’s a quirk with me, and it only manifests itself when I’m
traveling alone. When not alone, I’m more flexible, some-
times even spending the extra money for a better room and
a bigger bed.
Blaine is a border town, and there is something about
border towns that can be stark and transitory. The late after-
noon summer sun was still high in the air, but the town was
closing up for the night. Bars and restaurants were open,
naturally. A few of the standard chain restaurants were scat-
tered along the highway, but most of the places seemed to
be country-style bar and grills. It’s a town for eating,
159
motelling, gassing up, and moving on. I didn’t see much
reason to hang around.
I knew there was a state park to the west of I-5, down by
the water at Birch Bay, and I thought it sounded like a good
place to crash. I even thought I might put the boat in the
water first thing in the morning or even for a sunset paddle.
But a stop along the way at a country store set me straight.
“Not much chance of a camp site, not on a Friday night in
August.” The old man in flannel and denim behind the
counter sounded pretty sure of himself. So where might I
go? “left here and about a quarter mile. Nice place, cheap.”
Cheap was good. Still, looking back, I could have driven
much further toward my goal before finding a place. But I
took the opportunity to settle in with nuts and beer from the
store for dinner. I checked out the camp ground and curled
up in the back of the truck with my makeshift dinner and a
book, but it was too early to call if a night. I was parked
under the only real stand of trees. The rest of the camp was
an open field, filled with RV families. The sun was refus-
ing to go down, and my body was refusing to unwind.
I decided to take a drive back toward town to check out
the local Friday night scene. On the way to the highway, I
saw a great, barn-like, old roadhouse that advertised a band.
I pulled in early, before the music had been set up,
ordered a glass of wine, found myself a seat in this huge
barn of a place, and watched the locals come in and mingle.
A clunky, country rock band stumbled up on stage and
played the sentimental old songs and heel and toe tappers
that the patrons came to hear and to dance to. It was small
town America, the roadhouse of song and fable, the place
where the local girl, with dreams of a glamorous life, teams
up with some drifter to make her escape.
I looked around and saw the look of both familiarity and
the accompanying contempt in the eyes that darted quickly

160
past me as they scanned the room. There’s a strange thing
about small towns and rural areas. It’s comfortable to go
someplace where you know everyone and are totally at
ease, but there is that feeling of being trapped in a perpetu-
al, cyclical holding pattern while the rest of the world rush-
es past on the great interstate and international highway.
Romance, adventure, Seattle and Vancouver dreams played
in the younger eyes, like the lights off the rotating crystal
ball in the middle of the ceiling.
Mine was a strange face, and that was enough to kindle
the awareness of that fast and glamorous outside life. Not
that I cut a glamorous figure. With little imagination, I
could have just as easily been a bum who had stumbled in
with the few bucks from a day of panhandling.
Being a stranger, my life wasn’t a known quantity. I
could be a banker, a murderer, a movie actor, or even a pho-
tographer for some fashion mag. I could be anything the
pent up imagination wished me to be. The known person is
a person; the unknown person, a symbol, a stereotype.
I remembered a day perhaps fifteen years earlier when
I’d pulled off highway 99 at some small town in
California’s central valley. It had been “closed for the
weekend” Sunday, and the streets had been hot, dusty and
almost deserted. I’d loped down the street on my motorcy-
cle until I’d found an open store. A lonely, desperate
woman of indistinguishable age, wearing a frumpy print
dress, home permed hair, and empty eyes had walked up to
me to admire the bike. Within a minute she was asking me
to take her with me. It didn’t matter where, and it didn’t
matter who or what I was. Her life was a dead end, and I
just could be a ticket out. She would have paid with her
body and her overwhelming need. It was to sad to endure.
I made excuses, not wanting to add even one more grain to
her mountain of pain.

161
 In that roadhouse just out of Blaine, with the clunky
music and too loud laughter, I knew that woman was here
again somewhere in the dark, in another body, with another
face, with another story of pain and desperation, and I knew
I wasn’t strong enough to confront sorrow that deep. I
sipped my wine and stifled the urge to strike up conversa-
tions with solitary strangers. Sometimes you just get that
feeling, and there’s no logical reason for it, but it stops you
in your tracks.
Unable to really get into the mood of the bar, the almost
familial atmosphere, I returned to my patch of grass under
the only stand of trees in a little private camp ground,
behind the shack of the good natured, bearded, HarIey-
shirted manager.
Under the warm, fragrant Washington summer night, I
drifted slowly toward sleep, thinking of the vague plans I
had for the morning, the plans to continue west to La Push,
perhaps to kayak along the way. I thought of the north
woods in summer, and I wondered if it was as changeless as
it seemed. Was it, like the redwood forest, filled with an
eternal immutable quality. Evergreens are, after all, forev-
er green, and the forest is so thick that wildflowers and
grasses don’t flourish. The ground is wet in winter and only
damp in Summer. The creeks are fuller in the winter, and
there’s more of a chill in the air, in the muted light of the
woods. Perhaps spring as we think of it, doesn’t exist in
these evergreen forests that march up the hill to the snow-
line that never disappears. But even the subtlest change is
change none the less. No moment is ever repeated. No
sound or sight endures. No thought or feeling remains fixed
for even an instant. The universe is forever becoming, ever
perfect but never complete.
Last Spring, Denise proposed we take advantage of the
rare opening of the back road to Henry Coe park, in the hills

162
between the Santa CIara Valley and the San Joaquin. We
joined a line of cars that rolled into this section of the park,
usually only accessible to backpackers. Grassy hills rolled,
one rising from the other. Patches of green and brown alter-
nated, and wildflowers created a rolling ocean, with waves
of color. Streams everywhere were choked with the Spring
rains. Everything was fresh and new and blooming in that
breathtaking celebration of the renewal of the eternal cycle.
Tender young leaves pushed out from tree branches, and the
hurry of small mammals shook the branches. Birds fought
and loved with abandon. Even the tiny crawly things were
passionate about their urgent scurrying. Plump cotton balls
the size of apartment houses drifted lazily through the sky,
and the softest breeze toyed with my hair. The temperature
was almost perfect. It had been a day to remember, a day
when one could walk forever. It was a hiker’s dream, the
last ephemeral burst of new life before the cruel Summer
sun drove on with a vengeance. The Springtimes, delicate
as they are, are like perfect soap bubbles or snow flakes,
beautiful and compelling but impossible to grasp, to hold
for even a day beyond their time. I had drunk fully of that
day, and within weeks that scene was a scorched memory.
Seeds would dry and fall and keep the memory of fresh
blossoms until the rains would again release the wonder and
the promise of life without end, without limits.
In comparison the coastal evergreen forests trudge lan-
guidly through the seasons of their lives, without hurry,
without heed to transient changes in the weather. The great
mountains too have their seasons, as do the galaxies in the
vastness of the night.
But I was rolling west now on Highway 20, out of
Burlington toward Anacortes, the gateway to the San Juan
Islands, a tentative kayaking destination. I would paddle
among the islands perhaps, but at Anacortes, the sight of

163
islands with houses and boat docks left me a bit cold. Had
I time, and it always come down to time, I might have trav-
eled deep into the San Juans, taking days to get to remote
sections of uninhabited islands, but that is another Summer,
another adventure, another dream, another book. There
will always be another place, another trip.
Recently a friend departed to remote Patagonia, and I’ve
yet to hear how it was. Patagonia, the Amazon, Norway,
Indonesia, Guatamala, Greece all await. To kayak every
wondrous place on the planet would take ten lifetimes. To
surf every perfect wave would take another ten. To hike
every marvelous trail, twenty more. I’m all for reincarna-
tion; it’s the only way I’ll ever get my fill of this best of all
worlds.
Even Anacortes had it’s charm, a street fair with some of
the best arts and crafts I’ve seen. I could have spent the day
there, but I was determined to watch the sun set over the
Pacific that night. So on I went over the bridge at
Deception Pass, almost stopping to paddle through the
rapids into the wonderland of Skagit Bay. Instead I contin-
ued to road’s end and the ferry from Keystone to Port
Townsend and a sense of unrestricted openness that seemed
both uniform and boundless.
Standing on the deck of the ferry, wind hard in my face,
I looked out past the sandbar landscape to open water.
Puget Sound opened before me, the San Juans, the hundreds
and thousands of islands that stretch along the inside pas-
sage, each with its own charm, its own beauty, its own story.
To really love the earth, this part of it known as the west
coast of North America in particular, is to see a full book in
every island, every cove, every isolated beach. The closer
you get, the more complex the beauty. To reach down and
kiss the ground is to feel and taste complexity beyond the
sum total of human history. Filled with a feeling of joy and

164
love that was intimate, yet elusive, I watched Port
Townsend open up to greet me.
Fate delivered unto me a kayak store only a block from
the ferry terminal. The friendly kayaker in the store under-
stood that I didn’t have much time and needed a paddling
fix, so he gave me directions, a map, and the inspiration to
discover Discovery Bay. I mentioned my final destination
to him, indicating that I might kayak La Push, and he
responded that it wasn’t a good place because the waves
were always so large and rough. That comment caused the
words of those two surfers from Westport to play back in
my mind.
When I got to Discovery Bay, to the little public parking
lot, portapotty and public launching ramp, I was alone. A
fat, gray cloud of fog sat over the other side of the bay, the
Port Townsend side. The shore stretched away several
miles to the end of the bay and open water. Some nice
beach front places dotted the first half mile, and some plea-
sure boats were tied up just off shore. I set out for the open
water, paddling against the wind and chop.
Compared to the lushness of British Columbia, this was
fairly stark. It had that windswept look that accompanies
eroded sandstone bluffs and a thin forest. I wanted to make
the entrance to the bay and what looked like a community
at the point. Distances were deceiving, and after some time
the point wasn’t coming much closer. This wasn’t what I’d
seen in the photos, and the wind was blasting me the face,
and I had an appointment with the ocean, so I cut the trip
somewhat short, falling a just bit shy of the mirage-like
point.
Summer traffic slowed me down and tried my patience
until I was past Port Angeles. Then I was out in the world
of Olympic National Park, land of mysterious mountains,
temperate rain forests as thick as anything in the Congo,

165
lakes so still and blue they looked to be coated in plastic,
and colors so rich and deep as to make a painter swoon.
High clouds were clinging to the mountains that seemed to
rise straight up from the road, occasionally breaking to
reveal a shining glacier moving ever so slowly down Mount
Olympus.
I passed the camp ground where I’d stayed a decade ear-
lier, on my first trip to Washington, the place where I’d seen
my first banana slug and had sat fascinated while it made its
slow but steady trip over a fallen log, the place where the
boats were moored in the mud at night fall only to float
silently away in the gray hours before dawn. And then I
passed dark and iridescent Lake Crescent and knew I was
submerged in the Olympic Peninsula.
These Olympic images flood back to me now, six months
later, every sight, sound and minute sensation of each trip
north, slowly blending into the sauce of memory. I sit here
at a computer keyboard back in the center of California.
Yesterday I watched the last storm of winter break up in a
majesty of rolling clouds. The Diablo Range, just to the
west, sat under the dark billows as they moved from the
coast toward the mountains, where they would drop the last
of their moisture. A couple of days ago I’d skied. The top
of the hill bathed in a snow storm, the parking lot wet with
rain. The air is warm now, and even though the calendar
insists on a couple more weeks of winter, the air and the
pink and white buds on the fruit trees proclaim the onset of
spring. Those local mountains that are scarcely more than
hills had snow on them a week earlier, but now they stand
almost surreal, the contrast between the ridges and valleys
so hard that they resemble the intense black and white pho-
tos of Ansel Adams. They almost lift me up and over and
back to the coast where Spring, like love, is always incred-
ibly new and painfully beautiful.

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 My trips to places that make the heart sing will be few for
the next three months. There is work and the time consum-
ing night classes to keep me occupied with busy work. That
it’s a sin against nature to toil inside on a spring day, is
indisputable. I will have to endure it, save for some stolen
days of unrestrained joy. These are days of brilliant green
hills, invasions of flowers, a chaos of young birds, dark
crystal ocean waves, full and hearty creeks, the musty cool
smell of redwood paths, and the blooming of new love in
another “just spring” that as e. e.. Cummings put it is, “mud
luscious.”
Maybe three months isn’t a lot of time, but maybe it’s the
entire future of the world. Sitting here while spring makes
its early but unmistakable debut, the rock concert of a cou-
ple weeks ago still echoes in my head: the magnificent
Canadian trio, Rush. Lines from “Time Stand Still” keep
repeating in my mind. “freeze this moment a little bit
longer; make each sensation a little bit stronger; experience
slips away.”
Every day is precious; every day is a choice between a
host of activities. There are these practical and rewarding
things that advance ones career, competence and stature.
There are things one does for the sake of creativity, such as
sitting behind this keyboard, trying to ignore the demands
of Spring. And there is the multitude of purely natural pur-
suits, things that have no and require no rationale, the hik-
ing, biking, surfing, kayaking, diving, skiing, frolicking,
dope smoking, laughing, romping, singing, hand holding,
love making, wine sipping, flower smelling, cat petting,
picture taking, music listening, toe tapping, star gazing,
poetry reading, tear jerking, laughter inducing, reality alter-
ing activities that make one absolutely certain that one is a
human being living in a reality that is perfect but ephemer-
al.

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 One must choose, and each choice opens limitless possi-
bilities, and, at the same time, closes doors. Had I a million
years to spend on just this life, only to be reincarnated for a
million times a million more, I might be able to let it pass
without the urgency to drink it all in, to taste every tone and
texture, to freeze each moment, each sensation, to make
time stand still so that I can drown in the wonder of the bil-
lions of momentary sensations of life and experience.
But here I am again, August in Washington. And there
is Lake Crescent again, right long highway 101, well west
of Port Angeles, where the busy weekend traffic thinned
out. This is where the true sensation of the Olympic
Peninsula really takes over. The scene is as clear behind the
computer as it was that day over six months ago when, anx-
iously approaching my destination, my senses were tuned to
every nuance. A fleeting expression on a fisherman on a
boat out on the lake as I passed at fifty MPH, floats up now
to touch me and remain with me forever, imprinted on the
hologram that is my mind, both my physical and my eternal
mind.
And from 101 to La Push is 14 miles, 14 miles of cut and
standing timber, 14 miles of wildflowers and saplings
reclaiming the freshly logged forest, bold intrusions of thick
brush, a dark, slow moving river, and tremendous anticipa-
tion.
There were places to park at the first beach and the sec-
ond beach, and I thought about stopping, but decided I’d go
to the end of the road before making my decision. At the
third beach I found the community, not really a town, but a
fishing settlement, the real, working world of a group of
Native Americans who cater to tourists in addition to pur-
suing their traditional occupation of fishermen.
Cars were parked, and I drove on. A store and rental cab-
ins appeared, and I drove on. The road rose up and ended at

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something that looked like a school. From that raised park-
ing place I could see a major part of La Push. Behind me,
along the creek, were the houses and boats. The jetty went
out almost to an island, steep sides with a thick stand of fir
trees on the top. Looking around, all the coastal islands,
and there were many, had miniature forests on their flat-
tened tops, unless they were so eroded that they were jum-
bles of sharpened pencil points. The little wooded islands
stretched up and down the coast. The sky was a dull, end-
less pewter and blended softly with the ocean at the horizon.
I looked down the rocky beach at the late afternoon surf,
and it was dotted with surfers, lots of surfers.
Looking down the beach, I could see perhaps a dozen
guys out. The dull gray waves were shoulder to head high
and nicely shaped. They were also a couple of blocks south,
so I turned the truck around.
Back past the stores and cabins I saw gravel roads lead-
ing through the trees, toward the beach. I drove among the
high brush until I came out on the beach. I was driving on
cobble size stones that seemed to get bigger the closer I got
to the sand. Soon I could go no farther. Cars were parked
all over, and huge drift logs blocked off the actual beach. I
parked and got out.
People were camped all over, many of them surfers.
There were tents, and there were people car camping .
Surfboards leaned against logs and vans, and guys in trunks
sat in folding chairs enjoying the warmth of the dull sun.
The surf looked good, not perfect, not really big or real-
ly small or really anything. It was just good shaped, head
high, not crowded, get out and do it surf.
A short exchange with some of the guys who had been
out charged me up. In a couple of minutes I was in the wet
suit and ready. For an hour and a half, I had the surf I’d
thought about for two years. It wasn’t the best surf I’d ever

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had, but it was in many ways the most rewarding. It was all
the romance and mystery of the far Pacific Northwest. It
was a place that had waves when most places were flat. It
was a Mecca for surfers from all over Washington; it was
free camping on a perfect beach. It was forests that ended
at the rocky shore. It was the promise of winter waves that
were probably the size of freight trains. It was a destination,
a place where one could be simply a dedicated surfer among
dozens of dedicated surfers. It certainly wasn’t the city
beaches of Southern California or the Santa Cruz scene.
This was surfing like it was in California back in the sixties,
basic and uncrowded. The rides were short but fast, and by
6:30 the tide and the wind had changed to the point where
there was nothing but a take off, almost a close out on every
wave. I hung it up.
A parking spot right up against the drift logs was open.,
and I backed up until I almost touched the logs. Hungry
from surfing and not willing to give up my parking spot to
drive the dozen miles or so to the last roadside grill, I
walked to the Indian store. They had some burritos, chips,
fruit, beer, and all the odds and ends one would need to sur-
vive the night.
The twilight that lasts for hours was washing over the
day. The last surfers, down near the massive, dark head-
land, were finally giving up and paddling in. The guys
around me were standing around, watching the waves and
talking surf. I finished my quick meal, opened a beer and
joined them.
It seemed we talked for hours, while the setting sun crept
imperceptibly toward the horizon. I learned all about the
surf at La Push, and how, with few exceptions, there was
always surf here. I learned about how and when Westport,
the place I’d stopped two years earlier, broke. Used as I
was to driving an hour and a half to the coast, I was amazed

170
that some of these guys drove three to four hours, around
Puget Sound, through winding country roads, over ferries,
and through tourist choked towns to get here. They came
and hung on, cooking on the beach, sleeping in cars, and
living simply in order to spend two precious days in the
wonderful Washington surf.
The waning day still refused to end, so I bid farewell, in
the indigo twilight, to the other surfers, and crawled into my
sleeping bag in the back of the truck. The tailgate was
down, and I could watch the fading sun, hidden in the thick
clouds, extinguish itself with a sigh in the west.
I was still a thousand miles from home, a drive in a
Summer rainstorm, a long haul through Oregon, a night in
a rest stop on the California, Oregon border, a kayak trip at
Point St. George, walks in the redwoods, a familiar swim in
the Eel, a bout of kayak surfing in Pacifica, and a final, sad
trip home. But at that moment, the future didn’t matter one
damn bit. That the surf would be small the next day, and
that rain would muck up my urge to kayak that coast didn’t
occur to me. What hit me in the fading light was a song.
It was a song from the “Fear” album by a wonderful new
group called “Toad the Wet Sprocket.” The song was, “I
Will Not Take These Things for Granted.”
And, watching the last light play out in slow motion over
the endless Pacific Ocean, thinking of all I’d seen and done
on this trip and a hundred others, I thought of the taking of
things for granted, of how much of life is wasted that way.
I certainly will not take any of these things for granted: per-
fect morning waves, redwoods damp with spring rains and
musty fungus, otters playing in the kelp, moonlight flicker-
ing on dark bays, seals sunning on the rocks, verdant coastal
hillsides, wildflowers in the spring, winter storms in remote
canyons, shifting coastal dunes, laughing children at play,
glassy surf at remote beaches, starfish among the kelp, clam

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chowder on the wharf, solitary, reflective beaches, wind
swept coastal bluffs, snowy mountains, raging rivers,
lizards scurrying on trails, perfect sandy coves, kayaking
between storm tossed sea stacks, Carmel art galleries, carv-
ing stone along side the road, capturing some fleeting bit of
beauty on canvas, kicking through layers of fallen forest
leaves, tracing lines of eroded cliffs, sharing a beer with
strangers, wading through cool rivers, sleeping under bril-
liant stars, deep silences of the heart, singing in the shower,
dancing naked in waterfalls, looking down on cities, look-
ing up at the universe, looking out for eternity. I will hold
all these things in my heart, but I will not take them for
granted.
With the waves of La Push, a summer closes, a book
ends. And as winter fades into spring, I sense the promise
of another summer, another chance to get close to some-
thing elusive and wondrous, to follow my own path deep
into the mystery of it all, to spit in the faces of the morbid
and rabid gods that plague and pain us, to transform the self
with every shaft of light, to dance through the fields of pure
chance, to bend the spectrum of knowledge with the prism
of imagination.
I’ve never slept so well or dreamed so richly as I did that
night. I drifted off with the knowledge that a pearl of
perfection was at the core of every day, that the trials and
tribulations of my life were simply games designed to add
drama to existence, to life in its richness, its complexity, its
perfection, its incredibly rich paradox: mortality and eterni-
ty locked in an embrace that is simply this moment, this
moment that echoes down the corridors of space and time,
this moment that is heaven, earth, matter, energy, god, you,
me, and everything.

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 To order additional copies:

contact: eclecticpress@baymoon.com

M. L Fischer lives in the Monterey

Bay area, where he surfs, kayaks,
hikes, mountain bikes, paints and
sculpts. He’s a semi-employed educa-
tor and an environmental activist.
Other books by M. L. Fischer

Spinning Real Life

Shattering the Crystal Face of God

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