To the east of the agricultural Salinas valley is half of an ancient volcano known as the Pinnacles. The other half of the volcano stayed down in LA when the San Andreas fault started doing it’s thing millions of years ago. It was to the Pinnacles that Page and I journeyed for a weekend of hiking, climbing, ornithology, astronomy, spelunking and getting out of Momma’s hair.

We first explored the Bear Gulch caves. Page’s young eyes helped me navigate through the pitch-black caves after he forgot to bring a light. Just letting her walk in front of me saved be from plenty of shin bangs and any falls down bottomless pits. We followed them up by the Balcony caves on the Sunday. This time I brought a headlamp, which was fortunate because those caves were much more sketchy.

Page was very happy that caves are full of rocks. And rocks make loud noises when you bang them together.

Climbing is for nerds, but Page seemed to be interested.

Camping with Page is fun, and mostly easy, though there do come times when it’s very difficult to look after her and keep your camp stove from exploding in a ball of flame.

What you think Page is like

What Page is really like

We both missed Alex. There is something special about watching the full moon rise over a valley’s rim, but it would have been much sweeter if there had been three of us.

“Dada” and “Dada” took me up Highway 4 into the Sierra Nevadas.

We checked into the Stanislaus National Forest Ranger Headquarters where I saw stuffed bobcats, squirrels, coyotes. Then we went up to camp at Wakalu Hep Yo above the class 4-6 Stanislaus River. We hiked the Arnold Rim Trail to the the San Antonio Falls overlook, did some rockclimbing, hiked up beside the Stanislaus River, avoided being shot by Korean rednecks, checked out Bear Valley, found Sarah and her family at Alpine Lake, played with Paco the “Gaga” and Sam the “Gaga”, camped on the patio of a cabin overlooking a swelling creek, hiked the Arnold Rim Trail again, had a swim in the dam, surfed on a boogie board, and watched the fire helicopters “Caca” filling up, tasted pork ribs, had a dance party, played the drums, played with Miles, helped the kids colour-in their masks, climbed a ridge above Lake Alpine, slid down the snow underneath it, got some bark, moss and a little pinecone to play with, giggled uncontrollably when my feet hit the cold water of the lake, saw a bald eagle “Caca”, danced to country music in a sweltering country bar, talked to Uncle Peter on the phone, and I was a trooper on the long drive home.

The weather was forecasted to be 65 degrees so we packed lightly. After the ceremony we ventured to Lake Tahoe to take some shots. As soon as we were all set up, it started to blizzard and it was freezing!! Poor little Pagie was such a trooper. I love this shot, the snowflakes and all…