Took these photos with my phone on a roadtrip a few years ago. The California Coast is my escape, and it’s always only a matter of time before I’m racing back into her arms again.
https://gum.co/skold-bigsur You can use the discount code (LAUNCH) to get 25% off. The code will be valid for 2 days from now. There are 650 photos shot along the California coastline, the majority of the photos are taken at Pfeiffer Beach. The pack contains lots of different rocks, cliffs, beaches and waves. Just the stuff you want if your doing a lot of environment matte paintings and concepts. Hope you’ll find them useful!
The first two days at Big Sur have been amazing. The morning fog washed away by the afternoon and Jess and I took a trail down the cliff and made our way to the water. We rock scrambled our way up and down and explored the coastline for a few hours. After we got some lunch in our stomachs, we headed to Pfeiffer beach for a few hours which is a cool sandy beach spot ( 10$ - ouch.) Today we will be exploring a few waterfalls and taking a couple of trails within our campground (Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park). The trails lead you through the big beautiful alluring coastline redwoods. The redwoods are unlike anything I have ever seen and truly make you feel pint sized. With the morning fog and the large redwoods rising up hundreds of feet surrounding you, it truly feels as if you are in a dreamland.
The Pacific Coast Highway truly is America’s most beautiful scenic highway. The winding road along the cliff face overlooking the lightly colored greenish blue ocean is surreal. The landscape is so charming and I can safely say Big Sur has me lured in. The only downfall I see and I must write this because it really is unfortunate. I pulled up to a gas station yesterday at the price was 6.77$ a gallon! That’s highway robbery, no pun intended. French toast at a local restaurant that Jess and I went to check out was 19$! I understand raising prices because of the touristy area, but the prices here are absolutely disgusting. I don’t mind paying for good food and I never complain about gas prices, but that is ridiculous. Otherwise the natural beauty certainly makes up for any downfall.
Tomorrow we head to Yosemite National Park, I am so excited.
Yesterday we woke up early and hiked The Narrows. Which was probably the coolest most beautiful hike I have ever done. The sandstone canyon walls rise up hundreds of feet around you while you are waist deep in the light blue Virgin River. The “trail” follows the river as it winds through the canyon walls. Each time we came around the next bend, it was just as breathtaking as the last one. It is a hike I highly recommend. The enormous canyon walls will leave you speechless and wading through the river will make you feel like a 18th century explorer. We took the first bus for both Angel’s Landing and The Narrows which I also highly recommend. As we were ending our hikes, the crowds of people starting the trails were by the hundreds it seemed.
We got done with The Narrows in the afternoon. We packed up the truck and camper, made some lunch and hightailed it for California. Our original plan was to stop at Death Valley National Park. I am writing this blog entry from a parking lot in Big Sur, CA. Plans changed. - My mind was so free from the concept of time that I had no idea what date and day it was. Which caused us to run into a problem this morning. We pulled up to Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park and realized we were 1 day early. Being that all the campgrounds around are full, here we are. Anyway..
I drove about seven hours yesterday. My eyes started to sag so I pulled into a rest area next to some big rigs and set up camp. We finished the drive to Big Sur this morning.
Side note • After driving 100+ miles on the Pacific Coast Highway up towards Big Sur. I am officially declaring it to be America’s most beautiful scenic road.
I will post up pictures of our first day in Big Sur tomorrow morning!
Yesterday, I drove down to Avila Beach for the 12th Annual, worldwide Instameet. The meet up was hosted by the super crazy, talented photographers Chris Burkard, Karen Grubb, VisitSLO and Niche. The day started off with a scavenger hunt and ended up on the beach where we all hung out, ate donuts, jumped in the freezing Pacific, ate pizza, socialized, looked at a drone, played games, and socialized some more.
I meet lot of really cool people and when I mentioned I was going to camp up at Big Sur for the night, a few guys decided to join in for the adventure. One of the guys (Alex) was from Santa Barbara and wasn’t in a rush to get back home. The other two guys (Jonny and Willy) left their homes in Quebec, Canada around four months ago and have been on the road, exploring North America since. When we mentioned to Chris that we were going to Big Sur, he suggested we camp out by Salmon Creek Falls, so that’s what we decided to do.
Alex, Jonny, Willy and I all got into our cars and made our way up the coast until we arrived at the trailhead for Salmon Creek Falls. We made our way to a cave next to the falls to set up camp, then headed to the falls to take some night photos. We got lost more than a few times trying to make our way around at night, and finally found our way back to camp and set up for the night. Four hours later we woke to a slight drizzle which fortunately didn’t affect me, being in the cave. Alex was just on the edge so got a bit wet. Jonny and Willy were in hammocks but didn’t get terribly wet either.
We packed our things in the dark, hiked back out to our cars, hit the road, then Alex hit a rock which caused a flat. We pulled over, threw on his donut wheel, and left his car on the side of the road to be picked up later.
around 15 minutes before sunset we arrived at McWay Falls in Big Sur. We scrambled out or vehicles set our cameras up, and shot the beautiful cove at Pfeiffer State Beach. We walked back to our cars, I said my goodbyes as they were headed back South, and I was headed back up North, to the Bay Area.
On my way up the coast, I made a quick stop at Moss Landing where the surf was amazing! I watched and snapped a few photos of the local surfers getting “pitted,” then continued my journey home up Highway 1.
All in all, I had one heck of a fun weekend! Can’t wait to do it again!
A few weeks ago a buddy and I went down to Big Sur. It’s the first time I have ever been there, and I must say, it is quite beautiful!
When adventuring into new places you don’t know what will come. Sometimes things go smoothly, but usually there are struggles and challenges to face, which also makes for some of the best memories. This trip to Big Sur had many challenges which included, scavenging for a place to camp in the middle of the night, accidentally grabbing the tents wind cover instead of the tent itself (which was left at home), and camera troubles in the pitch black darkness of a cloud covered sky at 4am. Overall, I’d say the trip was a success!
7E will be @ Days and Nights Festival - Philip Glass
It’ll be a majestic night. Philip Glass performs with world-class musicians and poetry for a unique night under the stars. At the Henry Miller Library, Big Sur on Friday, September 26.
