A Quick Review of 2016

Click here for more 2016 photo highlights!

Greetings friends and family!

The second most frequent question we get asked is “Where the heck are you guys now?” As 2017 starts, we are nestled on a bluff above the Pacific just 10 miles south of San Francisco, “camped” in what is essentially an RV parking lot, which is marvelously situated to visit our sons in SF and other friends and family in the Bay Area. We have another month here before we take off for 2017 adventures, so we thought we’d update folks on the highlights of 2016 and plans for 2017.

First, the bad. We lost my brother Ron this year at 81 and spent a few days in Utah in June for the funeral. We also lost our dear neice Julie to cancer several decades before her time. They will be sorely missed.

Top ten 2016 travel highlights (in no particular order):

1. The Watershed Music Festival on the Columbia Gorge in Washington. Keith Urban and many other country acts in one of the most spectacular music venues in the country. Also lots of drunk 20-somethings partying all night.

View of the stage at the Watershed Festival, Columbia River Gorge in the background

2. The many waterfalls of the Columbia Gorge in Oregon.

Multnoma Falls in the Columbia Gorge

3. Mt. Ranier National Park. We only had a day to tour this beautiful park, but we will definitely return.

Mt Ranier from Ledge Lake

Christine Falls in Mt Ranier National Park

4. Crater Lake National Park. A scenic wonder! Denis did a night photography workshop here and we camped on beautiful Diamond Lake.

Ancient white pine on the shore of Crater Lake...and a galaxy

5. Lava Beds National Monument near Mt. Lassen. Exploring lava caves and hiking through the rugged flows.

Exploring a lava cave at Lava Beds National Monument

6. Bend, Oregon and the eastern Cascades. Wonderful alpine lakes and snow-covered peaks. Lynnae made good use of her Oregon fishing license here.

South Sister from Sparks Lake

7. Mt. St. Helens. We spent a week exploring this amazing place and seeing exhibits of first-hand accounts from the time of the eruption.

Mt. St. Helens

8. The Lakes Basin area of the northern Sierras. This wonderful mountain area lacks the crowds of Lake Tahoe and Yosemite and feels like the Sierras of 50 years ago.

Sardine Lake

9. Jalama Beach and Morro Bay. Two of our favorite places on the central California coast. Jeff came down to visit us at Jalama.

Morro Bay Harbor by kayak

The campground at Jalama Beach

10. Last, but certainly not least, the Oregon coast. We dedicated two full months to wandering down the coast from Astoria at the mouth of the Columbia River to the California border. It was a marvelous experience with lots of hiking on the scenic coast and exploring coastal towns and lighthouses. Tucker really learned to understand what "let's go to the beach" means! Andrew, our long lost nephew, spent a few days with us here.

The wreck of the Peter Iredale near Astoria

Crabbing on Winchester Bay

Cape Lookout

Solitude on the Oregon coast

For lots more photos from our 2016 travels, visit our 2016 Travel Highlights Album on Google Photos.

Oh, yeah. We also bought a condo in Scotts Valley, California, near Santa Cruz, with an eye to perhaps settling down there some year. In the meantime we are renting it out.

Jeff and Lucas both have significant others and live (for now) in San Francisco. One of the absolute highlights of the year was Jeff’s surprise proposal and engagement party for Katie. We are thrilled to have her as part of our family.  Lucas and his sweetie, Jenna, have big plans to travel internationally this year and then start a unique real estate and media company in Tampa, Florida. (Jenna's current website: Jenna Sue Design)

Our 2017 plan is to spend the spring in Death Valley, Joshua Tree National Park, Arizona and Utah, then summer and fall in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho exploring Grand Teton, Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks as well as many lesser-traveled mountain areas. We plan to be back in the Bay Area by Thanksgiving.

We always love getting visitors, so check out our travel calendar and come stay with us: LeBlanc Itinerary

The Heart of San Francisco

The Barbary Coast Trail is an urban walking route that highlights some of the best of San Francisco and would be an excellent half-day immersion experience for visitors to “the City”. Lynnae lived in San Francisco for several years and even she saw places she had never seen before. The trail is about 4 miles long and hits many highlights of the city including Fisherman’s Wharf, the cable cars, Girardelli Square, Pier 39, Union Square, Chinatown, Coit Tower, North Beach, Jackson Square, views of Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge, the Transamerica Pyramid, and the Old Mint. 

Barbary Coast Trail

On New Years Day we took BART up to the Powell St. station and grabbed a cable car to the end of the Powell/Hyde line near Girardelli Square. From here it was easy to follow the bronze markers in the sidewalk all the way back to where we started. Along the way we wandered the back alleys of Chinatown and the old landmarks of North Beach. The crowds around the waterfront made for great people-watching but we were glad to leave all that and head south to Telegraph Hill and the wonderful neighborhoods that form the heart of San Francisco. Some photo hightlights:

San Rafael Swell--the Next National Park?

Along I-70 between Green River and Salida in Utah lies some of the most interesting and beautiful landscape in Utah, the San Rafael Swell. On our six-week trek through Utah in the spring, we explored the edges of this area at Capitol Reef NP, but we never got into the heart of it.  Getting into the heart is not easy, since this area is crossed by few roads and those are mostly rough dirt tracks. We were able to spend almost a week in Green River and venture into the San Rafael Swell for some cool exploring. We visited the popular Goblin Valley State Park and the less-well-know Little Wildhorse Canyon nearby.  We almost avoided the trek out to Horseshoe Canyon, a very remote part of Canyonlands National Park, but decided to brave the 45-mile dirt road round trip and 8+ mile hike and were really glad we did. This area contains some of the best rock art in all of North America--over 2,000 years old!

This  wild and mostly-uninhabited area is very worth exploring for those who like solitude and vast landscapes that are not very hospitable to us humans.

Please check out my  Outdoor Project pages for these adventures!

Little Wildhorse Canyon
Horseshoe Canyon

Hiking up the wash towards Little Wildhorse Canyon

A classic Utah slot canyon

Even Tucker liked this hike!

The  rock walls were so interesting and beautiful

Very narrow in places

Overlooking Goblin Valley

The "goblins" are highly-weathered sandstone formations that cover a 1/2-mile-long valley

These goblins greeted us on our drive in

The long and lonely road to Horseshoe Canyon

Dinosaur footprint on the trail down to Horseshoe Canyon

This was a remote and beautiful place

One of the rock art panels in the canyon, thought to  be 2,000 to 3,000 years old

Rock art from the Fremont people 

Aliens or gods?  Who knows?

Uninhabited as far as the eye can see

A very clear day looking east to the LaSal Mountains

After the long hike, we still had to drive 23 miles back to the highway

We Return to Arches and Canylonlands

Is there another town in the country that has not one, but TWO national parks at its door step other than Moab, Utah? We spent a few weeks back in April exploring Arches and Canyonlands National Parks as well as other lesser-known attractions around Moab and we enjoyed the town itself a lot. So we decided to spend more time there on our trek to the west coast for the winter. It was fun revisiting hikes that we loved last time, like the False Kiva, the Dead Horse Point Rim trail and Devils Garden. Easily one of the easiest places in the country to make great looking photographs, I got to hit some iconic scenes, especially the sunrise on Mesa Arch that has been photographed by thousands every year. It was sad to leave Colorado for who-knows-how-long, but exciting to be headed back to hang with Jeff and Lucas over the winter. In the meantime, we weren't in any hurry to leave Utah.

Arches view from the campground

Very iconic shot of the Turret Arch through the North Window

 Double Arch

Posing beneath the Double Arch

Skyline Arch

View from the Park Avenue trail in Arches

Looking through the Pine Tree Arch

Another classic shot, looking through Double O Arch on the Devils Garden trail

The distant LaSal Mountains got a good bit of snow the week we were in Moab

Rising moon through the North Window

From Dead Horse Point, the full moon rises over the LaSal Mountains

Mesa Arch at sunrise

This kind of crowd every clear morning at Mesa Arch!

The False Kiva archaeological  site in Canyonlands

Sunrise view from Dead  Horse Point

Another shot of the sunrise over Canyonlands