The Calm Between The Storms

We've had a string of storms rolling through the Bay Area recently - which is a good thing for our water situation, though stopped me signing up for this Sat's Snow Bus.

This weekend was supposed to be stormy all weekend long, but as I awoke Saturday morning, the weather was dry (though the sky was threatening). I decided to pounce on the opportunity and go for a bike ride. The hills would be too wet for a mountain bike ride - it will be a week or two of dry weather before those trails dry out enough to be navigable.

So instead, I hit the recreation trail and the road out by the coast and into 17 mile drive. I soon decided that Pebble Beach should be my goal.


As you can see from the above photo, I made it - this is the 18th at Pebble Beach and preparations were well underway for the upcoming PGA tournament and pro-am - you can see the temporary grandstand at the 17th on the right of the photo.

I got to see a turkey vulture close up on the ride there (there was a raccoon road kill that the vulture was interested in), but by the time I got the camera out of my pocket, it had gotten spooked by my presence and had flown off.

In all, the ride was 27 miles long, a little bit hilly as I got close to PB and took around 2 hours - a very nice way to spend time between winter storms.

I see the snow!

Yes, the last post concerned snow too, but this time I didn't take a 200+ mile bus journey up into the Sierra Nevada, this time I rolled out of bed, ambled into the lounge and looked out of the front window.

There's been a sprinkling snow on top of Mt. Toro for the last few days as we've had a series of cold storms sweep through the bay, but this morning it was a bit more than a sprinkling as you can see below.


The snow level was low enough this morning to close Highway 9, cause massive delays on Highway 17 and leave a white cap on various hill tops around Monterey Bay.

For the record, Mt. Toro is around 3500' tall.

The stormy weather is due to continue all weekend long, but the snow level should rise as a warmer storm system comes up from Mexico (the current one came down from Alaska!).

Playing in the snow

The recent big storms dumped a lot of snow up in the Sierras. This weekend was the first clear weekend since the storms, and happened to be one of the local surf shop's bus trips to Kirkwood, so I signed up and caught the bus up to the slopes.

As you might imagine, the bus was full and the slopes were crowded as everyone wanted to take advantage of the recent big dump. Unfortunately, it had apparently briefly rained at Kirkwood on Thursday night and it made the ungroomed snow crusty rather than the lovely fluffy stuff it should have been.

The groomed slopes were good from the get go, and some of the ungroomed stuff got OK after it warmed up, and I ended up having a lot of fun, even if I did have to wait in a lot more lift lines than I was expecting thanks to the large crowds.

The above photo was taken from the top of chair 6 (see in foreground) and the top of the Zachary run (which I was about to head down, though you can't really see it in this photo as it's over the lip of snow at the bottom of the image) - you can see the base area on the bottom left and chair 2 taking people to the backside towards the right of the photo (it's way off in the distance on the other side of the valley).

As usual, I geeked out and had the GPS with me - 32 miles (combined lift and run total) covered and a max of 33 mph coming down Elevator Shaft on the backside - full geeky details here.

The whole bus option worked well too - I feel a lot fresher today (the day after) than I normally do after a snowboard trip even though I did have to get up very early to catch the bus at 3:30am.

High Surf Advisory

I've witnessed High Surf Advisories before, but nothing like this morning's. Waves at least 20 feet tall were rolling in on Cannery Row, shaking some of the buildings I was standing on and slamming into rocks and other buildings - a very awesome display of nature, arriving in the wake of one of the strongest winter storms to hit this area in a bunch of years. Thankfully I got lucky and had power when I got home on Friday night (though it had been out for a couple of periods during the day apparently).

Below, a wave crashes on to the rocks next to the El Torito restaurant (left) and continues in land to pound the Spindrift Inn (right).


Here, a wave smashes into the Aeneas Cannery building and splashes into the air to the height of the building, which is at least five stories tall.


The noise of the waves was impressive too, like a rolling thunder. There were lots of seagulls flying around and diving into the surf grabbing food that had been pounded by the surf and rose to the surface. I couldn't tell exactly what they were eating, but it looked like they might be starfish who had been ripped from their moorings by the powerful waves.

Winter Finally Arrives

Yes, as I type, it's raining, and has been for a few hours, and is scheduled to do so for a couple of days - it's about time.

The same set of storms rolling through Monterey is supposed to dump multiple feet of snow up in the Sierras, so hopefully I'll be 'boarding sooner rather than later.

Went running this morning, and the approaching storm made for some interesting skies - here's a view looking eastwards from the Municipal Wharf.

Starting off in a good way...

...2008 started today - the weather warmed up, the wind calmed down and I went Mountain Biking in Fort Ord - it felt like summer - great way to start the new year.

Saw a (small) Bobcat too. Adds to the list of "stuff" I've seen since the Condors - grey whale(s) and monarch butterflies during a Sunday bike ride along the coast and then the bobcat today.

New Year's Day - sunny, low 70's and calm - awesome!