Big Sur, CA

Nothing prepared me for the unrelenting beauty of Big Sur, a lengthy chunk of wild coastline 150 miles South of San Francisco.
 
Here America crashes into the Pacific. Mile after mile of rugged, jutting cliffs plummet into the foaming ocean. Below, whales migrate, seals bask on the golden beaches and brown pelicans skim across the waves. Above and behind, the cliffs fallback into steep undulating valleys, cut by crystal clear streams and lined by the tallest trees in the world, the giant redwoods. An incomparable place.

Into the cliffs is cut Highway 1, a winding, precipitous road which gives with every corner. Vista after vista after vista. This was laboured into the unforgiving landscape over a 20 years period and needs constant maintenance to counter nature's lashing rain, bashing waves and the resultant landslides. Along the road lie a few lodges, a sprinkling of "local" locals, but little else. In land from the road is true wildness for 50 miles. It says a lot for the vastness of the US that such a place can exist on the coast of California, the country's most populous State.
 
Big Sur is a place where everything slows down. Your senses simultaneously calm from the buzz of normal life and heighten to the nature around you. That constant buzz of our humanised world dissipates, a weight lifts off your back and you feel relief.

We stayed for two nights in small log cabins, one nestled by the Big Sur river, the other on a hillside complete with roaring log-fire. No TV, no phone reception. Each morning we woke with the sun to trek up into the forested valleys and down to the cliff hemmed beaches, each part of a National or State park and invariably manned by a "super friendly" ranger.

The weather is a major player here, one minute shrouding the cliffs in mist, at another breaking open to glorious sunshine. In between rainbows burst out across the valleys. Just such a phenomenon provided us with our quintessential Big Sur moment. Half way up a steep hillside as we came to the end of a trail we popped out on to a ledge to catch a view. Before us the land poured down to the ocean in a steep "V", crossed by a vibrant rainbow. Taking a moment to draw in breath and the wondrous scene, the eye was drawn to a large bird soaring on the thermals over the hill. Closer and closer it came until, shit, could that be a Californian condor? Maybe it was that rare giant or maybe it just a damn big turkey vulture. Either way, to complete the moment, it swooped down and right through the rainbow.

Henry Miller wrote that Big Sur is "the face of the earth as the Creator intended it to look". I am not religious, but I can see what he was getting at.

Welcome to San Fran

So much to write about...

Boarding on the Cheap

Well blow me down with some numbers. It is possible to have a cheap skiing weekend! OK, I admit this post may not be as exciting as say, canoeing down the Mekong or some darkly comic back-street Bogota shenanigans, but it still has interest in a more sedate, other types of cool stuff way.

In a nutshell, I have not been able to face the prospect of forking out megabucks for skiing over the last half dozen years – I mean for the price of a “normal” week’s skiing you can travel for a month in some of the most interesting places on earth - so I set out on a mission to work out a way of doing a sufficiently cheap weekend that would enable my annual snow participation going forward.

Luckily Mel and Laura decided to come on board, so the inevitable e-trawl was shared. That is all there is to it, loads and loads of time surfing plenty of sites. The easy less exciting way, package deals, came up short (or high depending on how you look at it) due to the tasty chunks the operators take, so it was a case of putting together all the component parts. Cheapest flights were after work Friday night Easyjet to Geneva (book early and you are looking at GBP 80), a great place to get to a plethora of resorts. Checking out said resorts, choosing one that is not too popular but does the whole pretty mountain town close to the slopes kind of thing (Saint Gervais de Bains in our case) and find the best value local hotel (EUR 35 a night for a cute little 2 star place). Do not forget to pre-book a ski-bus from the airport to the slopes (EUR 25 for OK’ish Alpybus), especially as a taxi or Geneva hotel packs quite a sting. As a last thing think about pre-booking skis/boards and ski-passes for a few more quid off and you’re off.

Great slopes, beautiful scenery, a few face plants and the odd vin chaud to sooth the aching bits. All those awesome skiing, or in my case snowboarding moments, but without totally destroying the bank. All in, just under £350 including everything, even a fair sprinkling of booze.

But in the end, who cares about the cash when you're hurtling down a sweeping tree-lined run. Floating across a swathe of fresh powder. Loosing momentum and slowly sinking in... being laughed at as you commando roll your way back to the piste. Finally landing a jump. Having the slopes all to yourselves, catching the front hedge, falling arse over tit, but not caring as there is so much fresh snow. Stopping with a skid at the edge of a lip and just staring out at the mountains that open up before you. Drawing a crisp breath and breaking out in a contented smile. 

One tip. If you are on skis and take a tumble on the penultimate run of the trip, don’t hold on to the poles too tight. Mel texted me back in Blighty to say that the resulting swollen thumb was in fact a broken hand. Skier’s Thumb apparently.

 

Occupy LSX

While flitting around London, I recently found myself passing by Occupy LSX, the protest camp which has controversially straddled St Paul’s Cathedral for the last month or so. From what I had gauged from the news this was a group of activists pushing a mish-mash of causes without any particularly clear message or aim. Drawing the sympathy of some, labelled an inconvenience by most. Why not check it out?

I arrived just as the weekly “open assembly” began. Before the steps of Wren’s cathedral, a spokesperson explained how this forum would work, though of course that anyone who disagreed with the system or concept of the forum should pop their thoughts in a pigeon hole in the info tent for the collective to consider. People were free to address the forum as they wished, but should queue to do so. As each topic was discussed the reasonable sized crowd were encouraged to show the collective sentiment via hand signals. Fluttering upwards hands gesticulates support for the motion, crossed hands signals disagreement.

The topics I stayed around long enough to hear were indeed wide ranging. From the standard “bankers are bad, power to the people” stuff, through specific criticism of US environmental policy to anti-war messages. I had sympathy with some of the issues raised and very little with others. Part of the problem was that different messages were so diverse, co-mingled and yet at times fundamentally divergent that they left me with no clear idea of what the collective thought or wanted apart from perhaps the very vague theme that the world is on the wrong tack. Maybe that is enough.

While the lack of clarity of aim or message starves this movement of any likely tangible success (e.g. a change in government policy on a specific topic) they do serve as a useful reminder that the status quo should not be taken for granted, whether it be for better or worse. There is definitely something in the under-swell of dissatisfaction which is showing itself in similar protests springing up in cities all round the world. People feel disaffected and unrepresented by the current system. But as I listened I could not help but think that, whereas it is better to speak up against a perceived wrong than keep quiet, if you do not put forward workable alternatives people stop listening.

Unfortunately there seemed precious little in the way of viable suggestions (a number of people held up Marxist signs, but the mass social experiment of the last century does not leave that with much mileage). Many simply seemed to say capitalism is wrong. Globalisation is wrong. We should change this. Start again…etc. etc.

Yes, there are big problems with these phenomena, but to preach against them in such absolute terms while listening to your iPod seems a little misguided (I am told that the collective of the camp paid tribute to the recently late Steve Jobs – slightly odd since he was a capitalist pin-up).
Pondering what I had heard, I took a walk around the camp and found it upbeat and just about functional. It smelled a bit and the multi-recycling bins were full, but at least they were there along with a shop, tea and first aid tents. It is a real pity that this movement has so interrupted the working of St Pauls (and I do find a little odd that this was the chosen spot with all the more obviously capitalist establishments parked all round the place), but I have to admit a mini tent city at the floor of this vast stone building is quite a spectacle.

On my way out I took one more look around the crowd which dispelled any lingering question I still had over whether this was the sapling of a mass movement to really change things. More than anything it resembled a diehard of summer festival goers who refused to retreat with the oncoming winter. Amongst them I am sure there are a few die hard revolutionaries with the determination to make things happen, but most seem to be hanging about for an interesting ride. Nice to feel special for a while. And do you know what, provided they do not get in anyone else’s way (or block health and safety required exits), good luck to them.

Debate strengthens a good system and lays bare the need for change in a bad one. There are strong questions to be asked of the current order of things, but I am just not sure this collective is asking the right questions in the most effective manner.