Last Saturday was a warm, sunny respite between storms in coastal San Diego County, so we decided to explore some potential bike routes near the new house. The high point, literally and figuratively, was the bluff above North Ponto Beach.
Forgot my phone, but my wife got this shot looking north toward Carlsbad Village. The WNW swell was still quite high from the bomb cyclone up the coast the day before.
Note the loose pebbles recent storm waves have piled up against the base of the cliff. The bigger waves pick up these lemon- to grapefruit-sized rocks and bash them repeatedly against the cliff face. Sometimes the rocks even get airborne. This powerful erosive process, called "wave abrasion", is the main cause of sea cliff retreat in SoCal.
The photo above from a few days earlier shows much higher rock piles against the cliff face at South Ponto Beach just a few miles away. The storm waves have temporarily stripped both beaches of most of their sand, while other beaches nearby retain theirs with no rock piles. A fascinating dynamic I one day hope to understand.
BTW, when I arrived at South Ponto that day, some kind of cosmic convergence appeared to be underway...
But I digress. Went back to North Ponto on Sunday to get more photos, as the route's also about trains.
This busy main line carries passengers and freight to LA and beyond. Pictured here is the Coaster, a bike-friendly north-south commuter line serving coastal San Diego County from Oceanside south. Plan A is to use the Coaster as an ebike extender.
Dirt roads like this follow the tracks for a few miles on both sides. Maps don't show the access points. You just have to poke around to get onto them -- and no better way to do that than by ebike.
We saw these maintenace cars in action the day before.
The first-order topography here is a staircase of wave-cut marine terraces generally increasing in elevation and age as you go inland. Wave abrasion acting over 200,000+ years of steadily rising land and sporadically falling sea level is largely to blame. On the last leg home, I passed this undeveloped terrace with kids criss-crossing on bikes.
I wanted to join them, but the only way through the fence was way too steep for an old guy on a 63-pound ebike.
A better look at the fine mackeral sky.
Don't ask me how I know 
