Gorge and WA OR and CA

[Bryce]

Anyone have some hot spots to see out west? Ashleigh and I are flying into seattle, driving to hood river, and then along the ocean down to north CA and back.

Anyone have some hot spots to stop (kiting or non-kiting)? We are planning to visiting the gorge, floras lake, and redwoods in CA.

And if anyone is out there.. give me shout and we can hook up!
701.361.3999

Bryce

[krazykatie]

John Lhotak is out there right now for a few more days. I can send you 2 his #.

[Wheeler]

Check out a place called Sherman Island, pretty near to a place called Rio Vista or Antioch CA. About 1 and a 1/4 hours inland from SF.

It used to be free to camp/trailer in the "parking lot", if you want to call it that. Super cool community hanging out there. No power or water, so bring a cooler. Decent wind, it may be dying off this time of year (best in June), less then the gorge but more steady too. In a tidal river, so it ebbs and floods with some good gorge style ramps when its ebbing. An awsome place to stop, would highly recommend it.

Floras is pretty awsome too.

SF and Chrissy Field are a cool stop, sailing between the Golden Gate and Alkatraz.

A touch further south, the San Luis Obispo resivoir is also cool. Never got to sail there, but drove by and would be awsome if the wind was going.

Mt Chasta on the way down from the Gorge is said to be a pretty spiritual place to hike.

My two cents,

Wheeler

[Gust User]

Check out the Pacific Rim Trail around Mt Rainier. Awesome hiking oportunities. Of course there is the Space needle. Definately check out the Pike Street Market in Seattle. Very famous. If you can go during the week try to avoid the crowds on the weekend. If you want a short hike try Crystal Mountain. If you go on the weekends to Crystal you can hike up the mountain and there is a Restaurant at the top! Or you can just ride the tram up but thats the wuss way to go.

There are some very nice sceneic walkways that are never crowded in Redondo. Look up a restaurant called Salty's and go to the Redondo location. It's right on the sound with great views and there is a 1mile long wooden walkway that walks the edge of the beach for an after dinner stroll. Excellant sunsets.

If you are driving down the coast to California, be sure to take the Hwy 101 route. It's the most scenic drive you will ever take!! There are plenty of sightseeing stuff along the way as well. A few lighthouses, lots of antiquing, great views. Stop in Newport or Florence at a place called Kylo's for dinner. They have the best seafood in the country. I dare you to find better! And very resonable. This one is also right on the beach and the sun sets right out the window and you can walk the beach after dinner as well. (you can also kite the beach as well!!)

On your way down the Oregon Coast check out the Sea Lion caves as well. Every once in awhile you can see killer whales there as well.

If you stay in Seattle for more than a couple days, make sure you take every opportunity to ride the ferries there!!! You drive on the ferry, leave your car and head upstairs to the main deck for some awesome views of the city and the waterways. Even if you just take a ferry out and back, it's worth it.

If you are looking for Kiting sites we have some of the best anywhere. Check out Jetty Island and some of the others listed here in the link I'm gonna give you. It shows all the kiting beaches in Seattle.

Once you get down to the Gorge, check out a Hotel downtown Hood River called the Hood River Hotel. They serve the best breakfasts in hood river and the best pizza joint is right down the street. Mt. Hood is about a 45 minute drive from there. The Hotel is historical and not alot of amenities but what it lacks in extras it more than makes up for in everything else. There is also a wind store there in town I forget the nmae but they deal in everything wind and gorge related. The owners are awesome!

Hope some of this helps. I lived in Seattle for 12 years and I'm going back soon! Have fun, you'll never want to come back!

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=sea ... a=N&tab=wl

Chad

[Bryce]

Wow Thanks for all the tips guys! We are definitely going to check out some of those places. I'll let you know how it goes!


Bryce and Ashleigh

[Gust User]

If you happen to drive through a town called Depot Bay on the Oregon shoreline be sure to stop at the Taffee shop at the edge of town. They have the worlds best fudge of ALL DIFFERENT flavors. They also make their own salt water taffee and home made ice creme. If you drive through town and don't stop there for some treats you are definately missing out! And if you are having a craving for the worlds best clam chowder stop at the local cafe.


God I miss the Pacific NW........

[Gust User]

Check this out for Crystal Mt. Only about an hours drive from Seattle.


http://www.crystalhotels.com/NewFiles/summeract.html

[Tighe]

When In the Gorge, be sure to check out the vast array of sites. Ask local which work for kiting. They all very pretty drastically. The sites extend over a hundred miles of river and depending upon the day it can blow some sites and not others and some days it blows all down the river. My favorites are the swell in the corridor near Hood River, launch at the sand bar and work your way down river. Rosevelt and Arlington, Rufus, and Three Mile Canyon. The sites way out east have a completely different feel than in the corredor. Wide open spaces, golden mountains and massive father hennepin style rollers.

Tucker park is a great place to camp just up on the Hood from Hood River.

The Coast from Astoria to Pistol RIver is beautiful with incredible beaches and locations to ride. Campgrounds are in massive redwoods and lots of moss.

Mount St. Helens is an interesting trip. Crater lake is beautiful.

So much to see.

enjoy

tighe

[Denis]

In hood river, be sure to go eat at "La Tacqueria". Nathan and I can write volumes on the Horchata, (a sweet rice drink) that Aleshia introduced to us.

1210 13sth street, Hood River, OR
http://www.hoodrivertaqueria.com/

[Tighe]

I forgot to mention. If you want to check out any new Slingshot gear, they do demos in Stevenson whenever it's windy, their headquarters are right on the water. You can stop by there or if you like I can assist with a hookup.

ride on

[Bryce]

We made it here. We left seattle pretty quickly... the 1.5 hour wait to get our rental car was a little much and we just wanted to get out of it. We spend the day trying to get through mt. st helans park to take a back way to hood river. After about 2 hours on back roads the little road that we needed to connect was closed because it had washed out. So we decided to hit up hood river on the way back. We had to do a bunch of backtracking and ended up staying in Astoria, or for the night.

We headed down 101 and made it for floras lake yesterday night. It had been pretty light winds all day along the coast so we couldn't get any riding in along the coast. But once we got to floras lake the wind picked up to 15-20. I got a nice evening session in, it was pretty foggy and a bit gusty, that made for some fun riding. When I got all done, my kite was all soaked even though I hadn't put it in the water!

We have been told that the wind starts to pick up in the afternoon so hopefully we can get some more riding today. Maybe we will try out the ocean side!

Bryce and Ashleigh

[Judd or Dianne]

we are heading that way end of next week

are you camping or hoteling it? how does the ocean side look for kiting? how many people are kiting at one time on floras lake? we've been to pistol river but not floras lake.

be nice to hear what you think.

dianne

[JRN]

A&B, If you have time back in SeaTac, check out the Glass Museum. Lots of cool art & live glass blowing demos. Spend your last $'s on seafood at the Wharf. Yummm! Sounds like a great adventure! Loop a couple goofy pops
for the Homeys back here. Jim

[Bryce]

dianne,
We have been camping it the whole time. Sometimes sleeping on the back of the car, sometimes in our tent.

The ocean side looked really good for kiting... except the wind wasn't blowing like it usually was. The waves looked nice and pretty big (espically for a inland lake kiter). I was hoping to get a day kiting in the ocean but it didn't work out this time.

We stopped by pistol river and whiskey run.. two spots near to floras lake.. just to check them out. Nice beaches.

On floras lake, I only got a evening session on the lake and only 2 other kiters were out, so I had plently of room for play around. I could see that it might seem a little crowed if a bunch of people were out... but I bet you could just hike your stuff a little further and have some open space.


We met up with Nathan and his ladyfriend in the gorge. We stayed there for 2 night. They showed us a good time and some good camping spots. I broke my board in first hour out and but Nathan lent me one to use for the next day... and I had a great day out on the water!!

(also remember to take a tour of the full sail brewery and pick all the blackberries growing all over)

See you all back in MN tomorrow!

Bryce and Ashleigh