CA1 Coastal Highway

Before I left San Rafael I had 2 choices for my route to Crescent City, short faster up the 101 or slightly longer and (I thought) slightly slower by going up the 1 then turning onto the 101 at the end. I use a GPS whenever I travel and let it do the routing for me as I’ve found that way is pretty much going to be much more accurate; the first choice showed a travel time of around 6 hours with the second slightly longer but in any case less than 7 hours. Bottom line is that I took a 6 hour drive and turned it into a 10 hour drive; and no I really didn’t intend to do that. But in any case I was very glad I did what I did.

Driving up CA-1 is something you really need to do at least once. CA-1 hugs the coast lines for miles and can be slow going so if you are in a big hurry you may want to think twice. By taking the route I was able to pass though the many small villages that dot the coastline as well as see some beautiful coastal vistas and from a landscape photographer’s perspective it is not to be missed. I saw a combination of miles upon miles of the Pacific Ocean coastline as well as tree shrouded roads much like Big Sur to the south, only longer and in some cases better. The only thing I didn’t do is stop and take any images of the trees however I won’t dwell on my error.

Here’s a couple images I took along the coast coming up here yesterday, they were taken with either our Canon G-9 or medium format Phase One 645, enjoy!

These were taken just a little further up the coast

I’m head into the Redwood National Park today and will post more later.

don

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