June 9th, 2019

[Pics] 

[Matt's Scuba Map]

I'm now around 16 days into my Summer Hiatus 2019 and so far it's been filled with Sierra trips with occasional excursions back into town for diving related activities like this.



I first heard about the oil rig dives during my initial open water scuba certification. At the time the instructors talked about how amazing the dives were while cautioning how they required a more advanced skillset.  The fact they sat in deep open ocean meant you don't have an achievable bottom to bounce off of if you're struggling with your buoyancy and you have to watch that currents don't blow you off the rig.

Now some 6 months, a few more classes, and 70 -ish dives later we'd finally booked a trip out to see them ourselves!

As of Friday Jen was officially done with school and joining me full time (-ish) on the Summer Hiatus 2019 adventure.

Originally the Jerky Meadows trip was supposed to last until Saturday at which point I was returning to OC for the highly anticipated oil rig dive with the Asante dive boat on Sunday.  Conditions and circumstances on the Jerky Meadows area trip caused me to come out early leaving me a few days at home to recovery and catch up on a few things I've been neglecting.

That of course didn't last long and Saturday found Jen and I waking up at 3:30 am and making a pre dawn two hour drive out to Ventura while Jen lamented how I didn't know how to relax.

(For the record I'd like to state I know *how* to relax, I'm just slightly allergic to it)

June 8th, 2019

[Pics]

[Matt's Scuba Map]

Each year I take advantage of the long holiday weekend around Memorial Day to get out and do an early season backpack with the goal of getting back in "backpacking shape" for the summer trip season.

In the past these trips were 4 or 5 day buttkickers (for write ups on many of these trips you can browse the tag Memorial Day Massacre) but the last few years I've had to hold them to 3 days thanks to Jen's sadly draconian teacher employment contract which doesn't allow for floating vacation days.

This year thanks to the whole quitting my job and adventuring for the summer situation (more on that here) I wasn't about to limit myself to just three days so I decided I'd just stay out after Jen had to return to gainful employment making for a nice long seven days total with the plan of revisiting some seldom visited terrain in the Southern Sierra. And because it's still early in the season in what's been an interesting year so far I hit everything from sun to wind to rain to hail to full on snow.

May 25th to 31st, 2019

Saddlehorn Peak (7,408')

Finger Rock (Attempt) (9,220')

Peak 9156 (9,156')

Day 1: 10 miles, 3,000'

Day 2: 10.7 miles, 2,700'

Day 3: 12.5 miles, 1,200'

Day 4: 6 miles, 750'

Day 5: 11.5 miles, 2,000'

Day 6: 18 miles, 3,000'

Day 7: 8.7 miles, 450'

[Pics] [CalTopo] [Map] 

You might have noticed a slight lag in site updates lately.  This happens periodically as I get busy but this time there is something bigger going on.

The last year+ has been a real struggle.  Between a long term relationship ending, multiple acquaintances passing away unexpectedly, seemingly countless friends going through major upheavals, and to cap it all off at work (yes I do work) the previous owners of the company I've been at for the last 5 ish years committed major fraud and stole several years worth of payroll taxes (among other things) and seriously imperilled the stability of my position moving forward.

As a result I've been fighting all around burnout for some time.  Shorter breaks haven't helped and it's been getting to the point where it has started to affect my ability to get joy even out of my volunteer outdoor activities which have been my major passion for the last decade.

So with Jen's unwavering encouragement I decided it was time for something drastic.

Once a month -ish a group of us get together and paddle around Newport Harbor after work. We launch from the public beach next to the Newport Aquatic Center in a combination of kayaks and SUPs and paddle out into the main harbor where we find a restaurant that either has its own dock or is near a public one.  Others will meet us there and we enjoy food, beer, and socializing before paddling back to the cars in the dark. We've been doing this for years all times of the year and in pretty much any conditions. Light, dark, rain, and the dead of SoCal winter where you're tempted to put a sweater on with your flip flops.

May 23rd, 2019

[Pics] [Map]

You can find writeups of other paddles here.

If you follow my site regularly you've no doubt noticed that I often go for weeks at a time with no updates only to release a flood of new posts at seemingly random intervals.  That's mostly because I spend most weekends running around outdoors and often the weeks in between see me doing everything but sitting down in front of my desktop to write.

This site is just a hobby but it does bring me a lot of enjoyment and I've always has this ideal in my head of being able to do the actual write-ups while I'm still out in the field.  This has led me to purchase a series of keyboards and accessories for my iPhone, iPad, and a few sub $100 tablets in the hopes of finding something that was functional while not costing so much that I'd be afraid to take it out.

Up until this point each of the solutions failed to meet my needs in one or more major ways and I've been stuck just making notes to myself in my iPhone and fleshing out the articles when I'm back home.  And then I came across the Microsoft Surface Go.

Each year the USC Hyperbaric Chamber on Catalina holds a fundraiser day that involves tours of the facility and an opportunity to get a few dives in. It happens to be on a Wednesday when theoretically us gainfully employed types should be working but that's why vacation days were invented.

At least for those of us who aren't schoolteachers.  Jen was unable to get away from school and in the end it ended up being just Jack Kieffer and I driving out to San Pedro before dawn.


The hyperbaric chamber is used for treatment of decompression illness (aka the bends) which are a risk involved in diving due to the amount of nitrogen which is dissolved in your blood while breathing compressed air at depth. So this is both a great way to get to see the chamber without a potentially serious medical complication and also serves as a fundraiser which helps keep the place operational.

After spending Saturday out on the rocks in Chatsworth running the Sierra Club Advanced Mountaineering Program I had one of those quasi rare "free" days.  And what better way to spend it than to run out and try another dive boat!

So Jen, our friend Neal, and myself bought tickets on the Pacific Star and we were off to Catalina!

April 21st, 2019
Pacific Star Dive Boat

[Pics] 
[Matt's Scuba Map]

Last week had been hectic and I only managed a single morning dive on Friday.  That was mostly because I returned from the Buckskin Gulch trip Wednesday night and left for the Alabama Hills Climbing weekend on Friday but still!

This week was a full 5 days of soul wounding gainful employment and I was determined to make the most of it since the Spring Advanced Mountaineering Program kicked off next week and things were likely going to get a bit busier again.

Jack being the amazing friend he is he agreed to my slightly aggressive plan of 4 dives including three morning dives and a night dive with these two being back to back.

April 8th & 9th, 2019

[Diver's Cove Night Pics]

[Fisherman's Cove Morning Pics]

[Matt's Scuba Map]

The downside of these pre-work dives is that I have to roll out of bed at 4:45 am and drive out to Laguna before the sun is even up.  But hey, we all know sleep is overrated when compared against outdoor activities and I find a quick hour under water makes for a rather pleasant start to to the average workday.

This week I was only in town for two days after arriving back from a 5 day trip to Buckskin Gulch / Paria Canyon in Utah so this was my only chance to get out.  Fortunately the predicted 30% chance of rain Thursday night hadn't appeared so off we went!

April 5th, 2019

[Pics] [Map]