Burnt Ranch Gorge

Burnt Ranch Gorge aka BRG is my homerun here in Arcata. It's a 1 hour drive up into the mountains to get to BRT. It is a class 4-5 section and I did 3 amazing runs down there this weekend. This time with a bigger group of 9 boaters.

Lesley ready to punch the hole at #2

Paul in #3

Jon made it down #3

Welcome to HSU & Arcata

I'm in Arcata, Ca. I arrived one week ago and moved into my new room in the oldest building on campus the Campus Apartments residence hall.

HSU - my school for the next 4 month

Campus Apartments - my home for the next 4 month

After a packed schedule of orientation and parties until last friday I managed to go boating on saturday. I had two nice runs on Burnt Ranch Gorge of the Trinity River with some local boaters. Since monday classes have started but due to my easy going schedule I went to the beach yesterday afternoon. Although I have already started my PV project the same day in the morning.

heading north

So time in the Bay Area is over and I had to head north to go to university in Humboldt County - northern California.
I decided to take the longer drive but the nicer one. San Francisco first including a ride over the Golden Gate Bridge. Then I went for Highway 1 the "Coastline Highway" and continued on Highway 101the "Redwoods Highway" trough the Redwoods and along the famous "Avenue of the Giants".
Enjoy the pics I shot during that time!

San Francisco skyline

Golden Gate Bridge

California's coastline @ Highway 1 north of San Fran

Redwood @ Richardson Grove State Park

Avenue of Giants

watch out for my truck

My new old truck

I bought a new old truck!!
A GMC, S15 Pick Up, from 1985, with low miles on it, with camper shell and a V6 2.8l engine.

This is my baby as it was after I bought it!
Today I went to "The Home Depot" that's the american "Praktiker". There I Bought some wood and build a bed at there parking lot.

So here we go! I'm ready to hit the road now!

First California Kayak Adventure

On wednesday august 11th I met up with Darin McQuid at his house in Davis to go kayaking the North Fork Stanislaus River "Hell's Kitchen. At the take out we met with Jason Craig. The North Fork Stanislaus River is an overnighter, what means that we have to carry all our sleeping gear as well as food in our boats.

The adventure started with a hike in of approximately 1 mile. This was hard for me due to the fact I'm not very used to carry my boat for that long so I got a wound shoulder. At the first day we had some portages and some nice whitewater, too. We set up our camp at a sweet spot next to the river, where we had a campfire to BBQ and cook at.
after a deep sleep we started the next day of kayaking. The start of this day was amazing. Lot of nice runnable rapids, including a 20", a 10" and other stuff like "Astrobiologist Creep".

me dropping "Perfect 20's"

Jason running "Astrobiologist Creep"

me running "Astrobiologist Creep"

The end of the trip turned out to be rocky boulder gardens, but still runnable.
All in all a nice trip, which is definitely worth doing it.
Thanks to Darin for the photos!

First adventure in California!

My California adventure started in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, at the airport. The flight from Frankfurt to Pittsburgh with US Airways had a delay about 30min. So there where only 1:20h remaining to catch my flight to San Francisco. After immigration I  had to wait for my kayak. Then I grabbed my luggage and run to the Check-In for my next flight. There I have to unpack my hand carry to got it double checked and finally made it into the airplane just 4min before departure.
After arrival in San Francisco I recognized that my kayak didn't got the flight and is supposed to come with next flight 2h later. So there is enough time left to pick up my rental - a Ford Escape (SUV, with roof racks). In the end I got my kayak and drove to Jule, where I can stay for the next days. At Jule's is a little party going on and I got some birthday and welcome greetings.
The next day we drove to Monterey the former capital of California.

After some time there we got in the cars again and drove south along Big Sur a famous and impressive coast. There we camped at Nacimiento Camp where we had an amazing campfire.

The next day we visit Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park and did some stops along Highway 1 at Big Sur.

Jose, Jenny, Ruben, Emelie, Nicole, Maike, Jessica, Jasmine, Jule, ich

After all those action I didn't had any time for jetlag so there where no jetlag!

Nice start in California - thanks to everbody who joined the trip!