Mysto Soup - Day One

Nanawani Naught

5 am. The alarm is ringing.

About an hour later I get up. On impulse I flip on the Weather Channel's tropical update and see a decent-sized hurricane just in the shadow of Baja, tracking due west.

Shower, no damn milk in the fridge, everything is already packed and ready from the night before. A couple blocks of ice and a bag of crushed, some donuts, and on the road to meet w/ Surfer Bob.

9 am. We're off. Robert hugs and kisses his wife good-bye; I left Bettye to sleep in back at home. We're both amping; Robert is even a little excited about Guillermo (the hurricane I saw this morning), but I remain skeptical since it's not in our window and heading in the wrong direction anyways.

Some discussion of surf trips as portrayed by the mags ensues along with thoughts on how we could best talk about this trip without revealing too much. The magazines have an interesting history in this respect. A classic shot of Rennie Yater in the 2nd issue of Severson's "The Surfer" labelled as Hammond's Reef was actually the Ranch, before anyone was willing to talk about the Ranch. More recently, trips to "secret" but relatively accessible spots teem with references to how the surf was all time. A good example of this would be the Tom Carroll and co. trip to somewhere near Santa Cruz in the summer of '96. Never has it been this good and never will it be again, so don't even bother trying to find it, they imply. The hoped-for result being that even if the spot is named, the hordes of kooks remain potentially unattracted to the location, if the ruse -- as we suspect it to be -- works.

Within a few miles of our final destination, I get sick, despite having downed at least two non-drowsy Dramamine pills.

11 am. Arrival at the base camp. Our surfboards are the subject of amused / puzzled looks from our neighboring campers. One of the local workers notes accurately,

"You guys know that it's a real walk, a HIKE, to get to where you're going?"

We're cocky though, and explain how we have this great backpacking setup all planned. I characterize the hike as being about 3 miles, and the fellow comes back with a shake of his head and the number 5.

2 pm. All the gear has been lugged to the camp and our tent is pitched in short order. A healthy lunch of a few PBJ's -- I am understandably starving by now, effectively not having eaten since the night before. I decide to leave the camera and tripod behind for this first trip; there'll be plenty of time to take it along on the next few ones as the swell fills in. The backpacks are rigged, sunscreen applied, and we head out, already having forgotten the warning we received upon arrival.

3 pm. The hike to Nanawani is about 3 miles with 600 feet of elevation gain, most of which is up a steep incline right out of the base camp, followed by a mostly flat walk across a windy ridge then back down 600 feet to the destination. On the ridge it is hot, heat reflecting off the trail, the grass, and off my brand new reflective board bag down onto the back of my neck. Soaking with sweat in no time, every gust of wind feeling quite refreshing, easily worth weathering getting blown up or down the trail by these boards-turned-sails that we have on or backs.

4 pm. Arrival at Nanawani to find a pulsing shorepound, a few people playing in the water, and nothing but 1' waves hissing along a mix of sedimentary and basaltic rocks the size of watermelons where two years ago there was surf. We're bummed! Surfer Bob says "Tim, I swear there was a surf spot here!"

A brief rest and reassessment and we decide to attempt the next point around the bend, Canada de Aguaje. We speculate after looking through binoculars that the tide just might be low enough for us to walk it. It turns out to be pretty do-able, with a 10-yard clamber along the base of a cliff in the low tide line, holding on mossy lava rocks for handholds. I am still only part way through when Surfer Bob comes running back, hooting, having seen a set crack across the top of the next point a mile further up the beach. From a vantage point 50 feet up and quite far away, the setup looks promising.

Now, how to get down? We're atop a 50-foot cliff and the road that leads here from Nanawani is at least 500 feet higher up the ridgeline. We track across a set of sheep-trails, Surfer Bob staying low to the cliff edge while I push high, coming up on a creekbed that is really a set of dry 6-foot waterfalls replete with branches, thickets, brambles, briars, and a hoary host of spiderwebs and 8-legged crawlies about which I'm quite phobic. Yug. I push through it rapidly, putting the rip-stop on my board bag to a real test and emerging none the worse for wear. Finish off the descent by throwing my board the last 10 feet or so down and climbing down after it.

The beach beyond Nanawani is a heaving and gnarly shorebreak the likes of which I have never seen. Waves shoal up and heave a thick lip forward onto dry sand -- only it this beach isn't sand, it is a series of cusps and mounds of cobble that our Mother Ocean is mercilessly pounding into dust, dust that colors the local waters a light milky-blue color.

A half-mile or so of that gives way at last to a small stretch of sandy beach inhabited only by a flock of seagulls. Obviously local to the area, the gulls hunt fish in the lee of the point and camp on the sands which are littered with their feces and feathers. I find some shade above the high tide line and throw down my pack, declaring it time to finish the PBJ that I brought with me, followed by a surf.

5 pm. We hit the water. I jump out through the beach shorebreak while Surfer Bob throws on his booties and heads out at the inside point of the two-point setup. The water is very opaque -- it's difficult to even see my board as I sit on it -- and extremely warm in the upper 6 inches. Tolerably warm down below.

The swell comes in steep and fast, cracking hard on the outside and closing out across a set of rocks and then wrapping sharply through a set of bowls and then expiring just outside the inner point atop a big slab of rock that I promptly dub the "coffin rock" due to its shape and size and foreboding appearance.

We spend a lot of time sitting and discussing the hike, alone in the lineup, and surfing the occasional shoulder to head high right. Between us we get about four or five waves. I get one good head high wave to the coffin rock just as Robert is paddling back out past it. I try to point it out to him with both hands but he interprets my gesture as a "voodoo wave claim."

I generally have a hard time surfing as my legs are already pretty dead from the hike, cliff walk, and slide down the arroyo. Try my best to carve some turns, kicking out over the coffin rock after each wave -- the thing looks to be at least 8' long above the surface and is nigh impossible to avoid.

7 pm. The sun is getting low in the sky and we need to get home. Local fauna are starting to get close to our gear on shore, so we scramble back, chase them away, and dry off as best we can.

The plan now is to find a good way up onto the ridge to connect with the road that should take us back to Nanawani, the tide being too high to make it back around the cliff edge. We pick a likely candidate for a trail and begin climbing around a few knolls and ravines, still stoked about the brief session we had and hopeful for tomorrow's potential (the southern hemi is forecast to build through the night and peak then).

The trail leads us around the point that we clambered over a few hours before, only about 200 feet higher up, and right to a massive section of collapsed hillside that looks really sketchy. I balk, and we decide to double back and climb up to the top of the ridge to get over and around this thing. Where the hell is that road? We continue to gain elevation, walking on small animal trails that are sloped at a steep angle and thrashing my ankles. The sun has set and the sky is beginning to dim when we finally reach the road and begin to work our way back towards Nanawani. Having gone up and away from the beach, we have moved a mile or so directly away from where we want to be. To make things worse, this road leads 500 feet back down to sea level at Nanawani, followed by an immediate climb of 600 feet back up again to cross the ridge back to our campsite, followed by that last 600 foot descent.

Our hopes of avoiding the extra 1100 feet of climb-and-descent by cutting straight across to the road on the other side of Nanawani are dashed to pieces when we see the intervening canyon that cuts deep and wide and runs all the way up into the nearby mountains.

8 pm. We arrive at Nanawani and it is getting darker. A brief rest ensues and we begin the slow and torturous climb towards our camp, busting out Robert's flashlight as the last light fades from the sky. We maintain a slow pace up the long hill, and trails that were easy to follow in daylight suddenly confuse us with turns and forks that we didn't make note of on our way over earlier.

As we clear the first ridge, the wind hits us full-on in the face, at first refreshing and cooling as it was on the way over but soon becoming annoying then obnoxious then downright hellish. My brand-new 7'6" board bag, purchased because it was large enough to carry both my 7'2" and 6'6" at once, becomes a big silvery sail pulling at my shoulders and lower back. And we still have a lot more elevation to gain before it flattens out.

We slow to a crawl and our formerly ample water supply begins to run down pretty quickly. A vast field of stars shines overhead and we trudge on beneath it, not noticing its majesty out here where there is no smog and the wind keeps the fog at bay. The stoke of our five waves rapidly dwindles from a burning passion to a flickering matchlight and then to nothing. There is only the wind and Surfer Bob's flashlight on the trail and the occasional mouse to scamper in front of us. Conversations have long ago ceased and now I only think of putting one foot in front of the other, wishing I could be somewhere, anywhere but on this trail. I imagine being at home and asleep with my wife and the pleasant thought keeps me moving.

10 pm. We arrive on our final descent and our spirits lift. Our death march is coming to an end. Coming down the last descent, we see flashlights on the beach, searching us out, no doubt puzzled by our sudden appearance on the ridgeline. Fellow campers greet us with a mixture of surprise, respect, incredulity, and awe as we appear out of the night looking tired and feral and feeling wasted and skunked.

Dinner is simple, some cheese, bread, some canned fish and the best damn beer I've ever tasted. The dehydrated mysto soup remains untasted, as did Nanawani today.

Bummed, I speculate about returning home tomorrow and vow never to set foot on that accursed trail again. Never. Surfer Bob, ever the optimist, thinks we should just sleep on it, see how we feel in the morning, maybe hang out and do some swimming, and I agree, about the hanging-out part.

Santa Barbara Surfing -- Last updated 8/28/97.