Is San Francisco really that bad?

[gone]

Wow, 450 comments on a geographical post that was started 16-17 days ago! Actually not surprised, 'frisco (deal w/ it) has always had rabid boosters along w/ people who for whatever reason just didn't get it. Its a city that has dramatically changed each decade, as has much of its population base.

 

[Vaughn]

No, 451...whoops, 452.

 

[Sirius Glass]

I am back after spending a week in San Francisco without one being held up, killed or even being panhandled. The Fisherman's Wharf area has had a great loss of stores and restaurant do to COVID and some of the City's restrictions according to some of the store workers and restaurant employees.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Now 454 posts - just shows how much SF is still a draw, regardless. It's still a great place to photograph. Just use common sense. I'm more a landscape type, so haunt Marin County a lot more, across the GG Bridge, which is a lot easier for me to get to anyway due to driving and traffic logistics. And no need to go to SF to get a taste of summer fog - I get more of it right here, funneled right through the Golden Gate straight across.

 

[Roger Thoms]

And no need to go to SF to get a taste of summer fog - I get more of it right here, funneled right through the Golden Gate straight across.

Well that’s pretty much straight from the tap, probably just as good as the fog we get out here in the Sunset, heck maybe even better since we are about a mile and a quarter up from the beach.

Roger

 

[DREW WILEY]

The SF hills are a bit of a barrier, so along with incoming fog, we get a helluva wind in summer, right off the ocean and straight thru the GG, aimed right at the venturi effect of a ridge gap above a canyon behind us. It's exact the same path commuting and migrating hawks take, to take advantage of the wind currents. I was discussing it with a couple who are pro wildlife photographers yesterday, out photographing birds, but who had just returned from photographing pumas in Torres Paine. I've spotted at least 12 different species of raptors in our flyway. There a windy gap at the proximal end too, above Rodeo beach in Marin, where the raptor census people hide in blinds during peak migration season. I'm not a bird "watcher" or photographer myself, but do love seeing them.

 

[Huss]

I am back after spending a week in San Francisco without one being held up, killed or even being panhandled. The Fisherman's Wharf area has had a great loss of stores and restaurant do to COVID and some of the City's restrictions according to some of the store workers and restaurant employees.

Welcome back, sorry you did not have an ‘exciting’ time…

You teased us that you may post a pic..

 

[Huss]

Some of my favorite motorcycle roads are in that region.

Amen. Beautiful countryside, the kind that you want to savor on a bike or a nice convertible sportscar. Actually a Jeep Wrangler with the top down would do nicely too!

We took a little trip through one of the numerous burn areas past the little hamlet of Strawberry. It was an alien landscape with all the charred trees, but still sadly breathtaking. Nature rejuvenates but now fire is a reality, and if anyone wants a reality check (it was a fluke, won’t happen again etc), try and get a homeowner’s insurance policy out there.

 

[Vaughn]

My sister call those bugeye roads. Her husband built a running ~1960 Austin Healey Sprite out of three that didn't in my dad's garage. I took the bugeye to my auto shop class in highschool a few times to work on it ('72). They drove it from LA to Spokane when they moved up there. A fine car for windy two-laned roads and no need to hurry. If I sat up straight I looked over the windshield and could drag my fingernails on the pavement. Very fun car.

My BIL ended up getting a 1960 Porsche 356 that was a much better commuting car in the Spokane winters. He talked my sister into it as an investment...and it actually worked out that way. He got to drive a fun car for many years until he retired and did not need to commute the 15 miles on the backroads into Spokane anymore -- and at a profit. Hard to do that with a new car after a decade or more of driving it.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Getting a bit off topic, but lots of people who couldn't even get fire insurance before sure won't get it now, and when they can, it will be double the price. And those who did get an insurance payout probably didn't get even enough to remove the burnt mess and replace the foundation alone. I know it very well, having lived in the Sierra foothills way further south, and going through several massive fires in earlier decades.

But for that very reason, my concept of a realistic "fire break" isn't 20 feet, but 20 miles wide. It will inevitably happen to Mill Valley, right across the GG on the slopes of Mt Tam some day, if they don't get their act together. I already happened in the Oakland Hills 20 yrs ago, with catastrophic results. Only in the past two years has some common sense enforcement begun come into play, along with training city fire depts about the implications of a brush fire before it's too late. I ran into the former fire chief of El Cerrito last week on the trail, who was involved in the Oakland fire. That whole city was a bunch of babes in the woods, unaware of the giant monster of a hungry wolf all around them, just waiting for a careless spark in the myriads of eucalyptus trees.

Closer to SF, the Pt Reyes fires are a reminder of how lots of Calif vegetation is genetically engineered to want to burn every couple decades or so. In that case, it was native Bishop pines - not due to beetle kill, but sheer predictable sap exudation upon maturity. But being more of a periodic natural fire effect, most of the old growth firs, live oaks, and redwoods etc weren't effected much.

 

[VinceInMT]

Amen. Beautiful countryside, the kind that you want to savor on a bike or a nice convertible sportscar. Actually a Jeep Wrangler with the top down would do nicely too!

Here's a photo from a ride I took in 1980. It was somewhere around Fiddletown.

Nearby I went past Sheep Ranch and saw this place, full of old Volvos, most the same model as mine, a PV544.

But, yes, there are issues trying to locate there now. However, I'm an hour away from the Beartooth Highway now so there is that.

 

[Vaughn]

And then there are those who are trying to 'protect' the gum trees above Berkeley.

 

[Huss]

Here's a photo from a ride I took in 1980. It was somewhere around Fiddletown.

View attachment 327878

Nearby I went past Sheep Ranch and saw this place, full of old Volvos, most the same model as mine, a PV544.

View attachment 327883

But, yes, there are issues trying to locate there now. However, I'm an hour away from the Beartooth Highway now so there is that.

Love it. There is just something about a pic of a motorbike parked alongside a beautiful EMPTY road that makes me long for adventure.

 

[DREW WILEY]

In the canyon behind me, the EB Park District as well as water district have been faithfully culling susceptible eucalyptus, removing excess downfall, and in certain spots on safe days, doing an amount of control burning. The other side of the hill, residents put up sheer hell for years about even fire guards between city jurisdiction and public land messing with their shade or woodsy settings. But after seeing what happened elsewhere these past few years, especially to Santa Rosa, as well as the arrest of a few serious arsonists around there, some significant changes have indeed begun.

Meanwhile, I had already sold my own mountain property impending retirement to a young couple with serious farm equipment capable of dealing with fire protection risk there. They did have to be evacuated due to all the smoke a couple of years ago; but he property and houses did fine. They own the local propane company, so have good income; but all their less careful competitors burned down; so they now hold a monopoly on rural and mountain propane all the way from Mariposa clear south to the Kings River (that's an area as big as several New England States combined, though much of it is uninhabited); and it's an especially active business after the numerous huge recent fires.

The post-fire wildflower display the following Spring from the truly giant fire two years ago was spectacular; and I'm eager to
drive up more the Yos/Mariposa direction end of Feb to see the result of last yrs burn there. Hard to say, since our extra rain this winter is favorable to some flower species, while with others, the rapid growth of tall grass chokes them out. Moderately dry years favor Calif. poppies and Mariposa lilies. And all those SF and Bay Area types rushing to get into Yos as fast as they can on the highway, largely miss the real show going on down in the lower gold country. Fine with me; I just have more to myself.

 

[Huss]

Adventuring in my Jeep in the Gold Country. The issue now is stumbling upon illegal weed grows. It happened on this trail, and we just turned around and got outta there.
I actually felt more in danger there than in any time in San Francisco.

Agfa 1035, Fuji C200




Further north at the Strawberry Inn on Hwy 108, this time with my Pen FT

 

[Huss]

Getting a bit off topic, but lots of people who couldn't even get fire insurance before sure won't get it now, and when they can, it will be double the price. And those who did get an insurance payout probably didn't get even enough to remove the burnt mess and replace the foundation alone. I know it very well, having lived in the Sierra foothills way further south, and going through several massive fires in earlier decades.
..

Pic of my brother's land in the Santa Monica mountains. This was taken 5 years ago - the fire was a direct result of SCE's intentional lack of maintenance of the grid. Savings were passed onto shareholders and to the C level as bonuses.

Brooks Plaubel Veriwide 100



It's been 5 years and insurance still have not paid out a penny to the affected landowners. Their angle is if they wait long enough, the land will have rejuvenated and so the pay out will be less.
As for SCE? They were fined - boo hoo - you know why? There is now a line item on my SCE bill that clearly states it is to pay for the wild fire claims! So the fine is a frickin joke! And the politicians are in on it. Basically they have SCE customers pay the bill for their deliberate negligence! But the politicians claim they showed SCE who's boss..

rant over..

 

[BradS]

Adventuring in my Jeep in the Gold Country. The issue now is stumbling upon illegal weed grows. It happened on this trail, and we just turned around and got outta there.
I actually felt more in danger there than in any time in San Francisco.

Agfa 1035, Fuji C200




Further north at the Strawberry Inn on Hwy 108, this time with my Pen FT

You were practically in my back yard. In an earlier post you mentioned a fire up hill from Strawberry...I guess that must have been the back-to-back (two years in a row) Dardanelles fires that completely destroyed some of my favorite hiking/backpacking areas. Here's a photo of my Toyota at the Wheat's Meadow trail head back in 2015 or so. The area is all gone now...completely burned out. Unrecognizable. Looks like a moonscape.

 

[Sirius Glass]

In the canyon behind me, the EB Park District as well as water district have been faithfully culling susceptible eucalyptus, removing excess downfall, and in certain spots on safe days, doing an amount of control burning. The other side of the hill, residents put up sheer hell for years about even fire guards between city jurisdiction and public land messing with their shade or woodsy settings. But after seeing what happened elsewhere these past few years, especially to Santa Rosa, as well as the arrest of a few serious arsonists around there, some significant changes have indeed begun.

Meanwhile, I had already sold my own mountain property impending retirement to a young couple with serious farm equipment capable of dealing with fire protection risk there. They did have to be evacuated due to all the smoke a couple of years ago; but he property and houses did fine. They own the local propane company, so have good income; but all their less careful competitors burned down; so they now hold a monopoly on rural and mountain propane all the way from Mariposa clear south to the Kings River (that's an area as big as several New England States combined, though much of it is uninhabited); and it's an especially active business after the numerous huge recent fires.

The post-fire wildflower display the following Spring from the truly giant fire two years ago was spectacular; and I'm eager to
drive up more the Yos/Mariposa direction end of Feb to see the result of last yrs burn there. Hard to say, since our extra rain this winter is favorable to some flower species, while with others, the rapid growth of tall grass chokes them out. Moderately dry years favor Calif. poppies and Mariposa lilies. And all those SF and Bay Area types rushing to get into Yos as fast as they can on the highway, largely miss the real show going on down in the lower gold country. Fine with me; I just have more to myself.

Eucalyptus with all its natural oils, burns like a torch once lit and they are not indigenous.

 

[DREW WILEY]

don't wanna go politico - but if every utility lawsuit was paid relative to current extraordinary climate happenstances combined with irresponsible unregulated sprawl itself into hazardous fire areas, the entire State power grid would go broke and defunct, and there would be no realistic funds left to improve it without staggering Fed help. There are tens of thousands of miles of power lines involved, many on steep terrain.

I know all about PG&E and SCE shell game hanky-panky of the past, since they were the primary competing employers down in the canyons themselves, and like all good country folk, their tiny company towns couldn't keep secrets about the big city boss "suits" they despised. But nobody is gonna take the place of those two corporations in terms of more than a hundred years worth of infrastructure development, which includes some of the most remarkable engineering achievements in world history.

Insurance companies are in the business of gambling risk against its probability of occurring. And in really big events, they do stall payment and try to drive hard bargains. I saw all that up close with respect to the Oakland Hills fire and the sheer criminality of two of the several insurance companies involved (and there were some convictions). But in that case too, people still waiting five years for payment while the companies tried to wear them out and haggle them down. But nearly all of that involved really high property loss payouts. It's just gonna keep happening until everyone wakes up to the fact that it's not "business as normal" any longer as far as climate is concerned. We're at the end of a burning rope.

Photographically, I'm an omnivore, and have long done shots of burns - not journalistically - but for sake of the remarkable exotic hues and sheens they produce, and the intense blooms afterwards. My own property had over fifty species of wildflowers on it, up to 32 blooming at once certain Springs.

Across the River canyon, however, gotta be careful about the meth and pot operations, and the combination of meth with white supremacist ideology, as tiny-minority as it is even there. That is the south end of the Sierra narco counties which Brad S. just warned about; and he was not kidding. Not only in the big city, but in the woods too, ya gotta keep your eyes open, know your "neighborhood", and have the common sense to back off is something feels unsafe. I grew up with some of those now dangerous meth deadheads, so know the mantra. They were bad enough when it just rotgut fortified wine which was their ticket.

 

[faberryman]

Let's see, inflation, divorce, pulp mills, whorehouses, fog, rain, wildfires, wildflower habitat ruination, crooked insurance companies... It seems carrying a camera in SF is the least of your worries.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Let's see, inflation, divorce, pulp mills, whorehouses, fog, rain, wildfires, wildflower habitat ruination, crooked insurance companies... It seems carrying a camera in SF is the least of your worries.

Inflation is worldwide.
Divorce is an upgrade.
...

 

[Huss]

Miraculously I wasn’t robbed of my Xpan when I took this pic. Bringing it back on topic does SF suk

 

[Huss]

I either took this one during an earthquake (or as they say in SF, Tuesday), or it was multiple exposures.
With the LC-A 120 - this would be my all time fave MF camera if Lomo could make one that will last more than 10 rolls of film. Seriously I would pay $1000 for this camera if it was built to last.

 

[CMoore]

There is crime everywhere, just like shark attacks and car wrecks.
I was just in SF last weekend.
I walked all over The Financial, North Beach and SOMA.
Like many, many,many times in the past...........i had no trouble..

 

[MattKing]

When I think of car wrecks, this thread is one that comes to mind ......