Also went on a drive and a bike ride and a bit of a hike. Exciting day all around! This weekend brought on some real summer weather and having just moved into my current place, had no idea what to expect when it gets hot out. The first place I’ve ever lived in without AC, which I always considered the ONLY necessity. But that’s mainly because I lived in the swamps better known as New Jersey and then in the San Fernando Valley where 100 is a normal day time high.
Well here it gets quite hot during the day since I’m 1400 feet above the ocean. But again thanks to the proximity of the ocean, it cools off quite nicely overnight. Even on these days nearing 90, it has still dropped into the 60s at night and even cooler by morning. So I just need some fans to move air around and make daytime relaxation less uncomfortable.
But there’s always option to drive down to the water for some instant air conditioning. Saturday when it was 80+ outside the house around 3pm, I drove down to the water and things changed quite quickly! It was an absolute madhouse down on the PCH though with the closed beaches so going to the beach to cool off was not my plan for Sunday. Instead it was get up high with some altitude over 7000 feet.
So off I went at 7am into the mountains. It was quite cool on the drive, to the point that I switched the heater over to hot but with the fan off. And thanks to leaving early, I managed to get a fully uninterrupted drive up CA 33 all the way to the trail head. This is pretty rare since there is usually some slow poke who doesn’t believe in turn outs somewhere along the way. Anyways, I made it to the trail head at 830, ate some breakfast, and then biked away for a couple hours to gain some height. Starting at 5100 feet, it was relatively cool but constant uphill biking will heat me up quick regardless. I made it to the top around 1130 topping out at 7500 feet. It was a paved access road most of the way so not too bad of a ride.
I hiked up the last half mile or so to the peak since it was basically straight up with no switchbacks. Near the top there was just a little bit of snow in the shady North facing spots along with some pleasant mid 60 degree weather. It was clear enough to just see the ocean along with some channel islands. After that was a ride down which was very nice. What took more than 2 hours going up ended up taking about a half hour to ride down. A nice long downhill jam into the heat. It had to have been upper 80s down at the car. And as I drove down stuck behind a Harley and then a prius and then another prius going even slower, it only got warmer! So on the way home I used home Depot curbside pickup to grab a fan. Definitely beat waiting in the ridiculous line to get in!
A nice improvement to my outdoor chill spot. Earlier the deck was hot enough to make me hop around to not burn my feet when going inside. But under the tent with the fan going is just perfect. I’ve got another nice dual reversible window fan coming in the mail from costco but that will be a few days out for hotter nights that are surely to come eventually.
Great weekend filled with some nice downhill bike rides. Definitely gotta do more of that, hoping ski mountains open for summer mountain biking. I have a feeling I’d enjoy that quite a bit!
