As you see behind me in the LA Times news article, we had to climb down the mountain which sits at a 550 feet elevation and takes about 0.2 miles to get to the Ocean, 1.5 miles round trip. One of the initial organizers Christopher Taloa who was there to greet everyone who showed up, volunteered to take our Surfboards down for us. We had no idea how to get down or even what technique we needed carrying our boards down.
It was the most scary steep path I had ever taken and to this day have not ever tried one like that again. Whew! If you ever think about hiking this trail, make sure to stretch thoroughly, where shoes or boots with traction, be hydrated and use the buddy system by going with another person. I would say it's an intermediate hike, if you go the way we did.
Believe me when I tell you, we both wanted to turn around but what you didn't see in the photo above were about 25 News Media Trucks in front of us, with all of their Cameras filming. It was like walking down the red carpet at an award show, in addition to the 30 Police cars that were on stand by incase something happened. It was really too much.
Prior to seeing any of them, because a portion of the block, I had already put on my wetsuit down the block in my car. Carrying my soft-top surfboard in my hand, they all looked at me when I strolled by. They were all staring in anticipation.
It was kind of embarrassing because I wasn't even expecting it, just was thinking about a surfing adventure. Had I known that steep, rocky path was the only way get down to the bay, I would have changed my mind. Everything was going so fast though. It was hard to think.
When we finally got down to the bottom, we had to walk on more rocks to get to the water that was filled also with rocks underneath us as well as a bed full of kelp, we paddled through. Once we got all the way to the end of the cove where the waves were breaking at about 7ft peelers, we knew we weren't going any further. Great for someone who loves overhead barrels right? but not us! We stayed where the water was calm for a couple of hours.
It was actually very interesting seeing that type of wave barreling up close like that, also terrifying thinking about how we had to climb back up that mountain to get home before it got dark. By the time we did, all the media was gone and I was grateful a group of tourist hiking helped me with my surfboard.
To conclude, I will not ever do anything like that again. I had vertigo type nightmares for an entire month after that. It was what I expected which taught me that every battle is not to be fought. Would you have went?
