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Simon Phipps's personal commentary

That Condor Moment [PhotoTravel]

I just spent a delicious weekend touring Big Sur, largely without a plan. I made a last-minute reservation at the Big Sur Lodge (which I would recommend - cabin accommodation in a forest setting, and no TV, phone or cell coverage...) and went down there Saturday morning. The room rate includes a pass to the local California State Parks, so I headed south in the sun in search of beauty. I'd read that there were condors being released over at Pinnacles as part of a re-introduction programme so I set my heart on finding some and started planning a hike in the Santa Lucia Mountains.

A few miles south of Essalen, a small crowd of people gathered under some short-ish fir trees made me look up and spot the fact that four of the trees were topped with an unwieldy un-Christmas fairy. Perched awkwardly atop each tree was a scruffy but huge Californian condor. Each of them was busy, well, being a condor and ignoring the fuss and traffic underneath. What they lose in the prettiness stakes they gain in being big and impressive and as you may guess, I now have a large collection of condor portraits. I especially enjoyed the swoosh of wings as one decided to look for a larger tree further along the road.

Heading further south, I stopped at Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park and walked to look at McWay Falls. The waterfall descends from a hanging valley to strike a perfect yellow sand beach in a perfect cove with perfect azur-blue water. It's all kept this way by being off-limits to anyone without the power of flight, so walking around the cliff top several hundred feet above the beach is a little like C.S. Lewis's description of hope (he talks of "an island glimpsed" as a metaphor for hope in A Pilgrim's Regress - an achingly beautiful but inaccessible beach seen from above must come close).

The walk along the cliffs was also my first glimpse of seals for the weekend, and the mix of the colours, warm spicy woodland smells, warm air and peaceful sounds finished the job of detaching me from computer industry politics for the first time in ages. The whole countryside was awash with flowers, and further south near San Simeon there were huge blue pools of lupine in the fields.

I could inflict further photographs on you but I suppose I should stem the self-indulgence! Also included in the weekend were beaches littered with basking elephant seals, misty vistas at dawn and dusk, meals at Nepenthe again and interesting conversations with folk musician Chris Skyhawk (who ate next to me there) and with the staff of the Henry Miller Library. I finished the journey in San Luis Obispo, which I think deserves another visit some time.

So there you have it - thank-you for tolerating the indulgence! I think I found the very best of California this weekend, and after an early morning call drenched in politics again today I wish I could find a way to immerse myself in it for longer (for ever?), despite the slight sunburn.

posted at 6:43 PM (UK) | |