Pescadero Memories

That’s what it says on the back side of this photo

Hello June.

Some of your readers interested in the Ocean Shore R.R. may not know that efforts to resurrect it began almost as soon as it was abandoned. Jack Wagner’s THE LAST WHISTLE is the best reference.

I recall several San Francisco newspaper articles during the 1930s; and as a teenager I got up the nerve to go to the company’s office in downtown S.F. to inquire of its progress, and met the President, George Middleton. The office was shared with a mining company–either Alaska-Juneau Gold Mining or Bunker Hill. I can’t remember and don’t know of any relationship with the new OSRR. Mr. Middleton said the line would re-enter San Francisco by the old, seldom-used Southern Pacific’s Ocean View line. That track was now in the heavily built-up Mission District where people in homes could practically shake hands with the engine crew if a train ever went by. I remember being skeptical that the City would permit it.

Apropos of that time, I have a copy of the December, 1935, issue of “Railroad Stories” magazine and the article “The Ocean Shore Comes Back” by G. H. Kneiss, which told of the expected rebuilding mainly to exploit the timber resources of the Butano Forest

close to the original route, but never reached. There are a number of court cases involving the OSRR from that time on the Internet, mainly dealing with the railroad’s suits for incursions on its former right-of-way, some becoming precedents for other cases.

One of the more interesting is a 1941 appeal re an earlier decision about the injury from falling rocks in June, 1936, to a power shovel operator engaged by the railroad to clear the blocked north portal of the Pedro Point tunnel. A few months earlier the shovel had been “almost completely buried” by a slide at the south portal. I find it almost incredible how the shovel made it to the south portal. This was before Hwy. 1 had been re-routed closer to the coast, and so the shovel had to have taken the long route past Green Canyon and over Devil’s Slide on a roadbed neglected for over fifteen years. What problems the operator encountered can only be imagined. Mr. Wagner’s book chronicled how all these efforts came to naught.

Regards to John Vonderlin. Angelo

(Photo: Courtesy Tony Pera.)

I asked John Vonderlin: Is this a photo of Anderson Bridge? Is it still standing?

John said:
I believe the attached photos are of it. The photo you sent was of the bridge in its early years. I believe it was rebuilt in 1937 along with the other bridge slightly to the west. Then the railing was replaced a few years ago in a manner similar to its reconstructed style.

I believe it is the bridge right in front of the former “Flamingo House.” Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the Caltrans’s Bridge 40 designation on it. There was the plaque

from 1937 though. I’ll include articles about the Flamingo House, plastic flamingos, the bridge railing project and a few pictures. The pictures are of the plaque, the bridge, the former Flamingo House driveway, and the bridge from the creek. Enjoy. John

To read the article about the Flamingo House in Loma Mar, written by Joe Oesterie, click here

The Seven Sisters (cont’d)
Story & Photos by John Vonderlin
Email John (benloudman@sbcglobal.net)

Hi June,

The next “Sister” to the south is the Acid Beach Arch. I’ve shared a few photos of this previously, both cliff-top and beach level shots, but here’s one of Larry Fitterer

who accompanied me down the cliff, standing inside it.

What amazed me most was, as Larry related in his email that you posted, was that his “ordinary” route down the cliff in the mid-90s, the northern route, included climbing down the cliff and across the top of the arch. Looking at this picture of the route along the descending ridge, that seems pretty crazy.

But if you go to the California Coastal Records Project (CCRP), and look at the 1972 picture, (#7219065) you can see a faint path to the head of the chute that people used to descend to reach the ridge above the arch. When Larry was climbing down in the 1990s, it must have been hairy, as the path was steeper and the arch’s roof narrower than in the 1970’s.

Today I’d rate it impossible or semi-suicidal.

If you’re braver, or crazier then me, start by examining picture #6419 (Acid Beach captioned) to get a good idea of what you’ll face. Then just be sure you straddle the knife-edge of the ridge as you descend and be prepared for a vertical jump down of more then twenty feet onto the roof of the arch. After you tightrope- walk across that, continue along the ridge on the other side of the arch and you should be able to find somewhere to safely slide down. Oh, and plan on climbing out a different route, as I wasn’t even able to climb the highly fractured rock up to the top of the arch from Acid Beach to get a “conquering” photo.

The southern route we used is much “safer.” It starts with a steep scree-littered chute at the southern curve of Acid Beach Cove. But the chute has several zigzags, allowing you to slow yourself down before you fly off the cliff, should you start sliding.

About one- third of the way down, the chute ends, and the crumbly cliff drops about ten feet down to a moderately steep scree slope that descends all the way to the rock shelf just above the ocean. By easing yourself on your butt a few feet down the ten- foot drop, then jumping to the south (left) where the scree slope is a few feet higher, it’s not too hard getting down safely.

As I mentioned previously, during my first climb back up, I loosened a lot of the crumbly hand and footholds, making climbing back up this way again very risky. Which is why you should bring a rope and attach it to the two poles someone drove into the rock at the bottom of the zigzag chute. Throw the rope over the cliff to the north, and you should be able to easily climb up and down a narrow trail that hugs the cliff. Unfortunately take this route, and just one mistake sends you hurtling all the way to the rocks 75- feet below on the beach; something you’ll be very aware of as you climb down.

Once you reach the scree slope, climb down it and walk along the spine of the promontory to its end.

An easy climb down gets you to a ledge from which you can access Acid Beach and the arch to the north if the tide is low.

Or you can head south to reach the small cove between Acid Beach and Warm Water Lagoon. To do the latter, you climb over the arch leading into the cove and follow a small ledge to its end.

Conveniently at the end, someone has recently tied a small ladder to a pipe where there had only previously been a rope. Undo that, lower it, climb down and you are in the coolest little cove I’ve ever seen.

On the north side you’ll see a tunnel that forms the arch you just climbed over, and on the south side is the unique double Y-shaped Arch. There is also, or at least was, a small waterfall that pitter-patters down the sheer cliff to gently spatter on the wet sand exposed by the low tide. A very special place with a lot going on in the space of fifty feet. I hope you’ll enjoy it as much as I did. Much more to tell. Enjoy. John
.

Dear Friends of Orril Fluharty

Pescadero Community Church and the Family of Orril Fluharty invite you to join us in a Memorial Celebration of the life of Orril Fluharty,

2-July-1912 to 25-April-2008.

The Memorial Service will be held:

May 18, 2008 beginning at 11:00AM at

Pescadero Community Church

363 Stage Road

Pescadero, California 94060

650 879 0408

The Memorial Service will be held from 11AM to 12:15PM in the sanctuary.

Following the service there will be a break for the sharing of food followed by a time to celebrate Orril’s life in sharing, stories and music.

· Please feel free to forward this message to anyone wishing to receive it.

· Please respond with email addresses of others who would like to receive additional information as it becomes available or to be removed from the list

· Contributions of food, flowers, stories, poetry, music, art, assistance with logistics and other resources for the celebration are welcome

For inquiries please contact Rev. Detlef Matthies at detlef@pescaderochurch.org and I will forward your request.

In gratitude, celebrating the joy of Orril’s life and spirit

Detlef Matthies

Pastor

Pescadero Community Church, United Church of Christ

Kerry Lobel wrote:
I just wanted to be sure that you had heard that news that Orril Fluhardy passed
away on Friday. thanks for all you do.

(Photos: Orril and Rowan Fluharty; Orril with great grandchildren; Orril, Rowan & Riley Fluharty. Courtesy Mike Fluharty)

—————
Flag at half-mast in Pescadero for Reverend Fluharty
(Thank you, John Vonderlin, for the image.)

Story & Photos by John Vonderlin

email John (benloudman@sbcglobal.net)

Hi June,

I like to make up names to designate various places and features I encounter in my explorations. Usually it’s a form of shorthand I can use when discussing matters with my traveling companions.

When running through various possibilities of places to visit during a given trip, “the beach just south of the cove we accessed from that parking spot across from the landslide near Pescadero Creek,” is way too cumbersome, especially if three or four similarly obscure, nameless locations are also considered as possibilities.

Usually I try to come up with a name that incorporates some salient feature of the destination, i.e. Abalone Cove, Eyeball Beach, Forbidden Zone or Neptune’s Vomitorium. Keeping this in mind, I’ve decided to call the Acid Beach area “The Seven Sisters,” because of its seven wonderful sea arches.

If you Wikipedia this name you’ll find it has a venerable and diverse tradition. There are “Seven Sisters” in everything from mythology, women’s colleges, mountain ranges, mainline Protestant sects, Baja California surf spots, oil companies, caves on Mars and many many more.

In this case I feel the “Seven Sisters” is a Freudianly appropriate designation for a collection of the seven best arches on the California coast. All within two hundred yards of each other, the arches define and highlight this amazing sheer-cliff-faced stretch of practically unknown and unvisited coast.

Several of them, the double arch of Warm Water Lagoon (WWL) and the two that form a Y-shaped double arch in the cove between Acid Beach and W.W.L., are unique as far as I know.

To fully appreciate this concentration of natural wonders, it’s best to see them up close. But, that’s not always possible, or safe. In a previous posting I shared a photo of the most northerly arch and described how you can reach it, by accessing it from Greyhound Beach, at extremely low tides, and climbing across an obstacle course of slimy rocks.

If the tide isn’t very low, or you don’t like long hikes, you can view it from the bluff top, just off Highway 1.

The promontory this photo was shot from is highly unusual itself. Screened completely from Highway 1 by pine trees, access to it is limited by bushes and a ridiculous growth of poison oak, but this has got to be the best coastal outlaw camping spot I’ve seen.

In fact, there were several sheltered “nests” under the sprawling pine trees, fifty yards from the highway that had been previously used. One even had seven five- gallon bottles of water stored there. Best of all, ocean-ward from the trees, the promontory turns into a kind of front lawn, a large flat area with grass and scattered flowers, instead of bushes. I can’t think why this is so, nor of any other spot on our coast quite like this. But, if I ever become homeless, you’ll know where to find me. This would be my waking view of Greyhound Rock with Ano Nuevo in the distance.

Enjoy. John

Officially A Mystery: Who Was Monty Parker? Larry Fitterer and John Vonderlin are seeking
the identity of “Monty Parker,” whose name, birth & date of death appear on a post at secluded “AMB” Beach on the South Coast.

Hi June,

After our expedition down to Acid Beach

Larry suggested we drive south to the Prankster rappel spot where he remembered there being a mysterious sign dedicated to “Monty” Parker. I hadn’t seen it on my first exploratory trip there and he was curious if it was still there. It was. I hadn’t noticed it because it had fallen over into thick bushes sometime in the last 15 years. That and the fact that the Prankster Rappel spot was about a hundred feet north of where I had assumed it had been. Who was Monty Parker? What killed him so young? And who is AMB’s Beach, his favorite spot in the world, named after?

My theory/ guess is A.M. Parker may be Catholic and have assumed some confirmation name like Barry. No evidence of that, but the odds of his two first initials being the same as the first two letters of AMB Beach is about 625 to one. I always like to bet on those kind of odds.

It looks like early May will be our next trip to Acid Beach, and this time we plan to swim from Acid Beach to The Notch. It was too deep and the surf was too big to wade through on our last trip. Boogie boards and better protection for my camera are being planned for. Might bring a ladder to get up to the ledge leading to the ocean-side of Warm Water Lagoon. We might even be able to make it over the double arch.

Enjoy John

Email John Vonderlin (benloudman@sbcglobal.net)

———

Meanwhile Larry Fitterer, also curious about the provenance of AMB Beach told John he was on to something. He had found an “AM Parker,” who lived in New Mexico. The birth and death dates matched those found on the monument at the beach.

Said Larry: I’ve wondered whether “Amb” is an abbreviation. Guessing that it might be short for “Amber,” I queried zabasearch.com and found an Amber Parker living in Santa Cruz. Perhaps she is Monty’s daughter.

————

John to Larry:

Hi Larry,
Just wanted to thank you for joining us on our expedition. I’m heading to Stockton early tomorrow to see my granddaughter play a game of baseball, my last bit of “vacation” while Larry, my brother is here…I hope you’ll join us on our return trip. Enjoy. John

———-

Hi John,
I am glad you and Meg were able to ascertain the northern “route” into Acid Beach. Next time we go out together, perhaps we can make the journey halfway down (without ropes), though I would probably be reluctant to venture must farther even with safety ropes. Still, the halfway point does provide a pretty spectacular view of the cove and surrounding area.

I spent some more time the other day thinking about “AMBS” I wondered if perhaps Ambs is a surname… As it turns out, Ambs is indeed a surname; German, in fact. There was only one hit for that name in the Bay Area, an Ambs, who by my reckoning, had moved to Maryland.

I wrote to him last week and queried him about the sign. He responded promptly as follows:

‘Dear Larry, thanks for your email. I actually visited this part of California several times in the 90s and lived for a brief period in California but the sign is not my product. It’s most likely not related to me. Thus, I cannot help you with the history of that sign. Ambs is actually a German name and originated in the southwest part of Germany’.

The mystery continues…

who recently “went out” to Acid Beach & Beyond with co-adventurer Larry Fitterer.

(Photo: This pendant belonged to Mrs. Caroline Dias of Pescadero.)