Walking the Bay's Edge with Sandy Lydon and Gary Griggs

Who would have thought that it was actually possible to walk the length of Monterey Bay on the beach?

It's a novel idea and something that many adventurous walkers from this area have attempted on their own.  But it's also possible to combine a day (actually three days...) of fresh air and exercise with spectacular scenery, the camaraderie of a collegial group, and the expert knowledge of historian Sandy Lydon and coastal geologist/oceanographer Gary Griggs. It's called the "Bay Walk" and it has become an annual event that is truly an unforgettable experience.

Gary is fond of saying that he covers the first 200 million years of the region, while Sandy covers the last 200. Both Gary and Sandy are sought after for speaking engagements in their respective fields, as Gary has a gift for making science accessible (and inanimate rocks and drifting sand seem stimulating) while Sandy, well Sandy just makes history come alive. Together, they have a unique partnership, and it works really well.

Walking the Edge
Carmel Bay, California

The walk starts at New Brighton State Beach and ends at the Monterey Breakwater, just before Fisherman's Wharf. Over three days (three successive Saturdays) you walk an average of ten miles a day and and learn about tectonic plates, littoral drift, sea walls, Portola and the Missions of the the central coast, Japanese American abalone divers, and "By-the-Sea" developments of the 1920's.  You visit the World War II installations at old Camp McQuaide and discuss the significance of Mulligan's Hill at the Salinas River mouth.  Along the way you'll pass by the Dynergy Power Plant in Moss Landing that converts natural gas to electricity, the old Kaiser refractories where magnesium was extracted from seawater, and where Calera - "green cement for a blue planet" now runs a test facility that makes cement from sea water. Closer to Monterey, you pass by the Lapiz Sand plant - an operation that should have been shut down years ago, if only the public agencies that have jurisdiction over it could get through their own bureaucratic red tape. All in all, it's a three day experience that few of us could find on our own, even though it's right in our own backyard.

The photographs below were taken on Bay Walk 3 which took place in May 2011. While there are many opportunities to photograph signature views of the region - like the cement (concrete) ship and the sweeping panoramas of the Bay - I like to focus on the images most people overlook...close-ups of ordinary elements...unusual patterns...the juxtaposition of dissimilar objects and textures....the unexpected image that warms your heart and makes time stop.

Waves of Sand with Towers Looming Overhead

Give me Shelter

Follow the Leader

Boy and His Dog

Bounty of the Sea (with a light dusting of salt)

Rills

Skeletal Ice Plant

Message in the Sand

Sea on Sand

The air and exercise are what your body needs, the knowledge stimulates your brain, and sharing the rigors of the three day journey and its beautiful vistas with your fellow walkers is just great for your soul. You can find more information about the details of Bay Walk 3 on Sandy's website, along with many other walks that Sandy regularly schedules. Gary also wrote about the Bay Walk in two of his regular Sentinel columns last year: August 14, 2010 and August 28, 2010.

Other adventures that Sandy and Gary have undertaken together include: The Carmel Bay Hike, the North Coast Hike, the Hollister and San Andreas Hike, the 17-Mile-Drive Hike, and the Point Lobos Hike, just to name a few. I've been fortunate enough to be able to tag along on almost all of them and I could post a blog entry on each one, as they are all so memorable.  I always come away with a deeper understanding of the region and a renewed appreciation of the place I call home...and of course, hundreds of photographs.  You should try it sometime!

Several of these photographs are included in a desk calendar called The Bay's Edge, which you can find at my etsy shop: http://www.etsy.com/listing/82127349/2012-desk-calendar-the-bays-edge. All of the images posted here are also available for purchase as 8x10 and 5x7 fine art prints and A2 size greeting cards (all printed on archival water color paper) at http://DigitalYak.etsy.com/. Be sure to send me a message if there is something you'd like that you don't see listed, or if you'd like a custom size or item, as I truly enjoy creating one of a kind items that hold special meaning. Thanks!!

Silent Rocks Do Tell Stories

Rocks...they connect us to the Earth.  On a sunny winter day, there is comfort in their solid warmth.  With their many varied colors, patterns and textures they are truly a visual and tactile delight.  But what do rocks tell us?  Do they have a story? Of course they do!

Some of my favorite rocks are those that include "trace fossils" (or ichnofossils).  In contrast to "body fossils" which are the remains of actual plants or animals within the rock, trace fossils provide a geological record of living animal activity, such as crawling, walking, resting or feeding.  Paleontologists are not always certain as to which organism is responsible the "trace" that we see, but that is what makes these rocks so much more interesting and intriguing....

Dinosaur footprints in Jurassic Sandstone
Salema, Portugal (Algarve Coast) 2011

Dinosaurs roaming the earth!  What could be more exciting?  These exceptionally well-preserved 135 million year old footprints on what appear to be lakeshore deposits are most likely those of a vegetation eating hadrosaur (known as the "duck-billed dinosaur) who walked upright (and in a very straight line...)

Sea Floor Tracks 1
Point Lobos, California 2006

Such a lovely pattern!  Though one can easily imagine that these impressions depict delicate fern-like plants, they are actually tracks of ancient organisms, probably something similar to crabs, that lived on the sea floor and propelled themselves forward with the help of their pincers and legs. Below are more tracks, approximately 60 million years old, of a different sea floor animal.

Sea Floor Tracks 2
Point Lobos, California 2008

Crustacean Burrow Fillings Series 1
Selema, Portugal (Algarve Coast) 2011

In the collapsed Jurassic sandstones along the beach of the sleepy town of Selema, on Portugal's Algarve Coast, are what look like a huge mass of entwined crocodiles!  These are actually large fossilized burrows of primitive crustaceans, probably shrimp-like organisms. The hollowed out negative space of their burrows essentially created a "mold" which was later filled with sediment that hardened and then became exposed over time. Below are additional burrow fillings that create an abstract sedimentary rock "bas-relief" forming quite a pleasing composition of contrasting figure and ground.

Crustacean Burrow Fillings Series 2
Selema, Portugal (Algarve Coast) 2011

Inanimate rocks are full of the evidence of life.  Silent rocks do tell stories....just ask any geologist or paleoecologist, and have some fun exploring!

All of the images posted here are available for purchase as 8x10 and 5x7 fine art prints and A2 size greeting cards (all printed on archival water color paper) at http://DigitalYak.etsy.com/.  Be sure to send me a message if there is something you'd like that you don't see listed, or if you'd like a custom size or item, as I truly enjoy creating one of a kind items that hold special meaning. Thanks!!

Tafoni: Architecture by Nature

To be surrounded by tafoni is to be transported to another world...a cavernous labyrinthine world where one loses all sense of scale and space and time.

This series of tafoni photographs was taken just north of Santa Cruz, California on the San Mateo Coast. The geomorphology of the area is so strikingly similar to Point Lobos (which is sixty miles to the south), that geologists actually believe that this stretch of coast sheared off from Point Lobos several million years ago, and that it has been transported northward along the San Gregorio fault to its current location (and that it is moving still!).

In his book, Introduction to California's Beaches and Coast, Gary Griggs writes:

"Tafoni seem to start as shallow pits, although why and when they start is not well understood. In some cases, the pits may form due to differences in the distribution of mineral grains or structural weaknesses within the rock that allow salt water, or the salt that crystallizes from the water, to etch, dissolve,or begin to break down small circular sections of rock. This process continues slowly over time as the pits deepen, expand and eventually coalesce. Tafoni continues to be a curiosity whenever we find it and stimulates even non-scientists to ponder on its origin."

While the science of tafoni formation may be complex, there is no doubt that it makes for a most fascinating tactile landscape that totally captures your imagination and begs to be experienced and explored.

All of the images posted here are available for purchase as 8x10 and 5x7 fine art prints and A2 size greeting cards (all printed on archival water color paper) at http://DigitalYak.etsy.com/.  Be sure to send me a message if there is something you'd like that you don't see listed, or if you'd like a custom size or item, as I truly enjoy creating one of a kind items that hold special meaning. Thanks!!