Pescadero Memories

“Dropping Into Acid Beach,” Part I

Story & Photos by John Vonderlin

Email John ([email protected])

Hi June

The news yesterday that a young woman fell to her death from a coastal cliff trail above Rodeo Beach, in Marin County, had me vacillating on writing the story about my trips to Acid Beach. Oddly, the freakish story of a woman dying from a redwood branch falling on her in Stern Grove, on the same day, decided the issue for me.

Danger is everywhere and risk lies hidden in all of our actions.

That said, on this expedition risk isn’t hiding. It’s jumping up and down, waving its hands wildly, shouting out your name. There is no trail down the sheer one hundred- foot cliff to the beach. The rock is incredibly crumbly; upon contact it breaks apart, and the pieces that break off look and feel more like shards than rocks.

The icy cold ocean, with its surging surf, waits below to deliver the coup de grace if you should somehow survive the fall.

Your screams for help are not likely to be heard by the very few people I’ve ever seen that stop at the nondescript pull- off above the cove, and bushwack their way through the poison oak to the edge to look down.. There’s no cell phone reception, no nearby public telephone, and any medical care or emergency aid is going to take an eternity to come to your aid.

If that doesn’t dissuade you, please, please, please do not do this alone, as I did my first time last week. Do it with a partner, or like we did my second time, with a “911 duty station officer” (a friend who doesn’t like heights that deserves the lofty title for sitting on the bluff-top and watching your progress below).

Bring a rope too, as the few meager handholds I used to climb back up the first time have fractured further, and look ready to break free, sending you and an unknown quantity of rock falling together in a scene worthy of a Coyote and Roadrunner cartoon, with results nowhere near as funny.

Lastly I’ve attached a picture looking up at the cliff from the beach as a reminder that things falling down and hitting you (including your exploring partners, or rocks they might loosen) pose a danger as relevant as you slipping and falling.

Even with all this in mind, I can still hardly wait until my schedule and the low tides that make exploration of this area easier, coincide, so I can return. I hope when I return to my keyboard for the next part of this story, I can find the words, and select the pictures, that will do justice to this stunning stretch of coast and its natural wonders. Enjoy. John

From “The Beachcomber: A Coastside Magazine,” June 3, 1981

Pescadero’s Flagpole Has Returned

By Charles Jones

If a town’s persistence can be chronicled by its dedication to a flagpole, Pescadero will last forever, and on its own terms. All the citizens of Pescadero own a piece of the pole set in place on May 22 of this year [1980.] It was not the first or most feisty pole setting in town.

Who had the idea to begin with, and even how the first flag pole got to town, is in some doubt. There are those who say the Native Sons of the Golden West first asked for the pole. And it has been written that Frank Bloomquist in Loma Mar brought out and donated the first pole, in 1916.

Most agree that was the year, but Billy Weeks used to say he cut the tree, a 131- foot pine. From 1916 to 1961 the pole stood in the center of the intersection of what is now Pescadero Creek Road and Stage Road. Weeks said it took two days to get the tree to Pescadero, and four men to put it up.

In 1961, when Pescadero Creek Road was being widened, it took San Mateo County engineers much less time than that to cut the pole down. The people of Pescadero were not amused. They were infuriated.

Determined not to lose the pole, the townspeople mounted a campaign to have the pole put somewhere near its familiar site of 45 years’ standing. The county suggested putting the pole at the high school, about a mile from town. Said one of the town’s leaders Earle Williamson, “They treat us like a bunch of hayseeds here. We’re sick of being pushed around.”

County supervisors, engineers, and other officials have learned that very thing in many ways since the “Great Flagpole Rebellion.”

Pescadero got its flagpole back, and the county put it where Pescadero wanted it. The same pole as replaced, off of Pescadero Creek Road, in the center of Stage Road By then John Rich was chairman of the Flagpole Committee. It was a victory for what one supervisor ill-advisedly called “the boondocks.” That does not happen any more.

Billy Weeks once said, “I didn’t like it a darn bit when they cut her down.” If he had still been alive in December, 1979, a few days before Christmas, he might have at least accepted what happened. In high winds, the pole fell, shattering the parking lot of what is now the post office. One could not say, as the county had in 1961, that “the flagpole has been temporarily removed and is being repainted.”

Nature has no such words to try to get out of its acts gracefully.

Fortunately, Pescadero had another Weeks, Ed, who is not, as far as he knows, related to Billy, but who family in the area goes back over a hundred years. Ed Weeks remembered a youth fund, started over 20 years ago by Peggy Olsen, for a swimming pool. The fund was there, had grown. Ed Weeks talked, he called, he got estimates and he began again to raise the Pescadero flagpole.

This time the 90-foot flagpole is fiberglass set in concrete. The golden orb, the flag, all is done. Continuing contributions over the $7000 cost will go toward flags and replacing the youth fund for some other project.

In town, patriots and cynics alike, agree that the flag gives a dandy dress to the town. What else could one want?

Well, perhaps a little swearing. When the flag and pole were officially dedicated–sworn, as it were, on May 30th, some might have thought, in the right spirit of the thing, Billy Weeks. He said, “One tme they asked me to make a speech about the pole. I told them I couldn’t make a speech without swearing in it.”

From the Redwood City Democrat, April 9, 1914

Lafayette Chandler Pescadero’s stalwart old citizen for over half a century, passed away Sunday after a long illness. His burial took place at Cypress Lawn…Mr. Chandler was a native of Maine, aged 77 years. He left his native state when 16 years of age and came to California via the Nicaragua route. His arrival at the Golden Gate was the prelude to a startling adventure, the ship on which he sailed, going on the rocks during a dense fog and becoming a total wreck. All of passengers were taken ashore in boats. Mr. Chandler landed in San Francisco in 1859. Shortly afterwards he went to Santa Cruz, then returned to this county, residing awhile at Searsville, after which he located permanently at Pescadero.

He was twice married and is survived by his wife and one daughter, Mrs. Asa Weeks…

From the Coastside Comet, published in Montara, December 1922

The grammar school of the Pigeon Point district was burned to the ground at six o’clock on Tuesday morning, by a fire of unknown origin. Following a report received by his office, Superintendent of Schools Roy W. Cloud went to Pigeon Point yesterday and made an investigation.

It was found that abalone hunters passing the schoolhouse at 2 o’clock in the morning had seen a light, and upon looking in the windows had seen several people, apparently campers, asleep on the floor. The abalone hunters went on their way without disturbing the sleepers. At 6 o’clock residents of the vicinity saw the building suddenly break into flames, and before anything could be done the entire building and contents were destroyed.

The school, which would have closed for the Christmas vacation on December 10, was forced to close immediately on account of no other building being available. Arrangements are now being made for the securing of the Wiedemann dance hall, which was across the road from the school. When these arrangements are completed, the dance hall will be put in shape for use as a school room, and it is thought will be ready for occupancy following the Christmas vacation.

“The burning of this little school was very unfortunate,” said Superintendent Cloud in speaking of the fire yesterday. “The campers who were seen sleeping on the floor are and thought to have left some fire in this building when leaving. However, we have no means of knowing definitely who they were or which way they went when leaving the school…”

(Photo: Friends & Staff fooling around in front of the Coastside Comet’s office in Montara.)

“Two-fer”

Story & photos by John Vonderlin

Email John ([email protected])

Hi June,

Our April Fool’s expedition to the coast, trying to locate a hole in the ground where the Mystery Tunnel might have been, didn’t satisfy our sense of adventure sufficiently, so we utilized the low tide to continue up the beach from the most northerly parking lot at Pescadero Beach.

About 1500 feet north from where you start skirting the ocean-side cliffs, you can see the W.W.II Observation tunnel above you in the cliff-side.

But, our goal was some 100 feet closer then that. I wanted to photograph one more of San Mateo County’s Sea Arches. This one is relatively small, but nicely formed, with enough cracks in its thin span to give an ephemeral quality to it. I wouldn’t say it has the cachet of the world famous “Delicate Arch,” but it does have some of its qualities and it’s a whole lot easier to reach.

My new modus operandi is to climb on top of the arches and have myself photographed. It seems a time-honored method, as many of the historical photos of Sea Arches have somebody or a crowd of folks or even two horse and buggy teams on top of them. It serves the purpose of providing scale, as well as generating a human interest angle, at least to the photographed.

Should you want to visit this “twofer,” the arch and the W.W. II Observation Tunnel, you can locate them on Picture #6248 at the C.C.R.P. website. Unfortunately, because of the angle the photograph was taken from the helicopter, you can’t see either of them. The tunnel mouth is in the canyon right in the middle of the picture. It is just above and to the left of where the seasonal waterfall drops off the cliff to several large rocks on the beach, but hidden by a small ridge.

The arch is just about a hundred feet south of the waterfall in the promontory projecting out from the lower part of the cliff. Enjoy. John

Wrestling with the Trestle Truth

Story by John Vonderlin

(email John; [email protected])

(Photo: trestle at Tunitas Creek)

Hi June,

Angelo’s email about the fate of the Palmer Gulch Trestle stimulated me to do a little research. I had stated in my story about our pilgrimage to the trestle, that a fire caused its collapse.

Angelo’s sources said that it had collapsed by itself.

My belief was based on being told that it had been set on fire, coupled with the paucity of remaining timbers, and the fact that most of those were fire-scarred. Nonetheless, he was right. I now believe the trestle collapsed over a period of more than a decade, and was severely scavenged after it collapsed. Then its remains were set on fire.

Here’s why:

If you go to the California Coastal Records Project (CCRP) website, and look at the 1979 Picture #7928080, you can clearly see the trestle has collapsed. The right side of the canyon has a long intact stretch of the roadbed (or whatever you call the top where the rails would have been laid) slumped into the canyon, but still mainly intact. The left side of the canyon has an impressive “Pickup Stick” pile of timbers littered across the slope below the right-of-way.

The 1972 Pictures #7218035 (&6) show the left side of the trestle to be collapsed, but with some of the superstructure still standing. The roadbed on the right side is also collapsed, but can’t be seen as clearly as in the 1979 picture because of the quality of the photo.

Meg tells me that after our trip to the trestle, she attended a meeting where she met a gentleman who related how he had scavenged heavy timbers from the trestle to support his waterbed.

(The modern waterbed was first created by Charles Hall, San Francisco State University student in 1968, after trying unsuccessfully first with cornstarch, then Jell-O. ) I suspect, with vehicle access to the beach from several roads, both the north and south, he was just one of many who valued the timbers for their functionality and/or provenance.

Though I’ve heard second-hand that the remains were set on fire, I don’t know when or if it was deliberate. It must have been done in wet weather as there is no sign of a burnt landscape in the 1987, 2002, 2004. or 2005 pictures. Maybe somebody out there knows the details.

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction, Angelo. Enjoy. John Vonderlin