Life in Humboldt

It has been a while after my last post. Life here in Humboldt is getting normalized, I guess. I'm studying, go kayaking and climbing on a regularly basis. I enjoy to have dinner with friends and so on. Today they shut down the gauge on the Trinity River so the levels are now to low for the Burnt Ranch Gorge. Instead of kayaking on the river I went surf kayaking in the ocean today. That was amazing. The weekend before there has been the Cali Burn Fest a river festival on the Burnt Ranch Gorge, the weekend before that I had a surfing class with the university and the weekend before that I had been at the Feather Fest a river festival on the North Fork Feather River. Here are some random pics from my last adventures:

Me a the climbing wall

Mount Shasta!!!

Tobin section of the North Fork Feather River

Sweet sunset ont the way back from the Feahter Fest

random shot @Burnt Ranch Gorge

finish at the race during Cali Burn Fest

# 3 during the race day

Brown Claw

Labour Day Weekend

This weekend started with a camping trip. a bunch of people from Campus Appartment were heading north towards the Smith River. There we a some party time at our campsite and an amazing saturday on the banks of the river.

enjoying the bbq

enjoying the sun

enjoying the river

kayak instructions

On sunday we made our way back to Arcata with driving trough the Jedediah Smith Redwood State Park. Here are some big Redwoods located. We also stopped at some amazing beaches.

walking through the woods

trinidad beach

The next day I spend at Burnt Ranch Gorge - where else. Awesome summer day on the river.

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!