Cali Gold
After days of driving through blizzards in the Oregon Cascades we finally found the sun as we rolled across the California border. From Mt. Shasta we hit the High Sierra Nevadas until the snow pushed us down to sunny coast of San Francisco. Here we began the epic drive down Highway 1, surfing and busking from Santa Cruz down to Big Sur. We explored inland, hiking the Pinnacles National Park and volunteering at Lightning in a Bottle Music Festival. From Big Sur we headed south to Los Angeles and stayed with a friend in Hollywood for a week before making the final push down the coast to San Diego.
Cruising back from Tijuana Mexico we braved the inland Summer heat in Joshua Tree before heading north to cool down in cool mountain streams of Sequioa National Park and Kings Canyon. After a few magical days under the canopy we cruised north to Yosemite and crossed Tioga past east to the dry deserts of Mammoth Lakes. We hiked obsidian mountains, swam in crystal clear waters, and lounged in hot springs until we felt the pull north. The forest fires smoked us out as we drove up the steep ascent to Lake Tahoe and back to the cool Pacific mists of San Francisco. We walked through ancient Redwood groves in Humboldt county and hiked up giant sand dunes on the Oregon Coast. Our final stop was volunteering at Beloved Music Festival in southern Oregon before making the final push back to Vancouver Island and completing over 15,000 km's in 4 months.