Living in the North Bay, it can sometimes be easy to forget what makes this place such an attraction to the world at large—great food and wine, beautiful scenery, myriad outdoor activities, fine art and spiritual enrichment. It’s a feast for body and soul. We live here, so why not take advantage of all the North Bay has to offer, and be a tourist in your own backyard? No need to travel. As we savor the spring and anticipate the coming summer, we thought we’d survey the many ways to feed your mind and body in the North Bay, or more often than not, feed both at the same time. —Stett Holbrook
Go Climb a Rock
In the pantheon of outdoor enthusiasts, none are quite like the close-knit rock-climbing community. Perhaps it’s the unique way they face and overcome real fear in their endeavors, perhaps it’s the singular exhilaration of reaching a supposedly unreachable goal, most likely it’s a combination of all of the above and more. No matter the reason, the one thing that’s quite clear is that when someone falls in love with rock climbing, it’s a lifelong affair.
Here in the North Bay especially, with no shortage of amazingly rugged natural terrain, rock climbers are everywhere, and anchoring this community is Vertex Climbing Center in Santa Rosa. Built in 1995, Vertex was one of the first climbing gyms in the Bay Area, and it’s the place to learn anything and everything about the ever-expanding movement. The indoor climbing walls will test your mettle whether you’re a beginner or an expert. The training also includes yoga and breathing classes to help with mental concentration.
Once you’ve got your training out of the way, it’s time to take it outside, and Vertex leads the way and provides the gear for several outdoor climbing experiences around the North Bay. Try your skills either on the two-day-long Sonoma Coast Bouldering tour, the Anchors climb at the immense Goat Rock near Jenner and the Leading Edge climb at Mount St. Helena in Calistoga. Just don’t look down. 3358 Coffey Lane, Santa Rosa. 707.573.1608.—C.S.
Take a
Cooking Class
“Farm-to-table” is the overused phrase of the moment. It’s supposed to connote a virtuous restaurant that sources its ingredients from local purveyors. But if you really want to revel in the cornucopia of local farms and ranches, don’t leave it to a restaurant to do the cooking. Do it yourself.
Even though the North Bay is chock-full of great restaurants, time and budget require us to cook for ourselves most of the time. But it’s easy to get caught in a cooking rut and make the same old thing. I know I do. Goat cheese soufflé and roast chicken became dinnertime staples of my repertoire, so much so that my family protested because I made it so often. So I had to reach for a few cookbooks to mix it up. What I really needed was inspiration. And I knew where to get it. Located just off the Sonoma Square, Ramekins offers a wide range of cooking classes each week.
This month there’s an intro to Burmese cuisine and rustic Italian cooking. Next month, they’ve got classes on summer sushi, Lebanese barbecue and craft cocktails with chef David Bush and mixologist Jeremy Sommier from Oso restaurant. Ramekins even offers a tour of local carnicerias. Clearly this is no ordinary cooking school. Most classes are between $95 and $125. If you still lack for inspiration, you’ll have no one but yourself to blame. 450 W. Spain St., Sonoma. 707.933.0450.—S.H.
Fly a Plane
We all love the scenic beauty of the North Bay to be sure, but even if you’ve traversed every inch of this area on foot or on bike, you haven’t seen everything. Sometimes, to appreciate this area in full you have to get high—really high, like 10,000 feet high. That’s where North Coast Air comes in. Located at the Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County Airport in Santa Rosa, this flight school and aircraft-rental business not only offers scenic and educational air tours that span the Golden Gate to Napa Valley, but North Coast can take you as far as you want to go with pilot training and schooling, so you can take to the skies on your own.
These two- and four-seat Cessna planes are a lot different than the bulky commercial flights you’re thinking of, however. The rush of the engine and thrill of banking alongside a hilltop is a breathtaking experience. If you’re not too sure about all this, an introductory flight is the best way to get off the ground. Meet an instructor, meet an airplane, get in the seat and see for yourself if flying is for you.
If you fall for flying small aircraft like so many others have, North Coast Air also helps with the FAA schooling and paperwork as well as the flight training, and within weeks you could be a certified airman (or woman). North Coast Air flies seven days a week, and you can book a tour by calling 707.542.8687. Find them at 5010 Flightline Drive, Santa Rosa.—C.S.
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Learn to Surf
Admit it. You’ve always wanted to learn how to surf. Or maybe you took a few lessons in Hawaii or Mexico but never stepped foot on a board again once you got back home. Sure, the water is cold here, but modern wetsuit technology makes that moot. Shark attacks? You have a better chance of getting hit by lightning. Stop making excuses and get in the water. As a Californian, it’s your duty to do what landlocked landlubbers can only dream of.
The coasts of Marin and Sonoma counties are generally not friendly to neophyte surfers, but that’s why God created Bolinas. Bolinas has served as the training ground for many a North Bay surfer. And it happens to be best in the summer when the water starts to warm up a few degrees. The folks over the 2 Mile Surf Shop will teach you what you need to know. The shop offers laudably small (usually three to six people), 90-minute lessons to get you in the water and on your feet, however briefly. The cost is $50. They also rent board, wetsuits and booties, and offer private instruction for $120. Lessons in humility are free. 22 Brighton Ave., Bolinas. 415.868.0264.—S.H.
Ayurvedic Alchemy
Developed thousands of years ago in India, Ayurveda is one of the oldest holistic practices of self-care, believed by many to promote good health and maintain balance among mind, body and spirit. In the North Bay, Ayurveda practitioners at the dhyana Center in Sebastopol have been creating individualized approaches to self-care through this ancient tradition that includes yoga classes, oil massages and education.
And when I say yoga, I don’t just mean 20 minutes on a mat striking poses. The bevy of classes at dhyana Center vary from the quick and energizing Yoga Alchemy to the inwardly expansive and meditative Yoga Nidri, also known as “yoga sleep.”
The dhyana Center also houses a self-care sanctuary to soak and steam your worries away and even an herbal apothecary bar and lounge where you can sip fresh and healthy “mocktails” based on Ayurvedic doshas, aka the bodily humors that make up our inner constitutions. There is also a full service treatment center where massages and warm oil are used to enhance the immune system and relax the nerves.
Ayurvedic practices also come across at the dhyana Center through a variety of educational workshops and events. Nutrition, aromatherapy and massage technique classes are all being offered throughout the year, and if you want to get serious, the center will take you on a day-long retreat called a Pancha Karma to unwind the emotional and physical stresses you’re caught up in and really get away from it all. 186 N. Main St, Sebastopol. 707.823.8818.—C.S.
Take a Winery Bike Tour
I once did a Dry Creek Valley winetasting tour on bike. It was August and about 98 degrees. I didn’t plan my ride well and there were long gaps between wineries. As I staggered into each air-conditioned tasting room, sweat poured off my body. Not a good look when you’re trying to appreciate the finer points of Dry Creek Zin. Lessons learned: Don’t bike around Healdsburg on a near triple degree afternoon, and don’t go without mapping out a route. Better yet, let someone plan your two-wheeled tour. Someone like Sonoma’s Goodtime Touring Co.
The bike tour company grew out of Penny and Doug McKesson’s bike shop, and became its own business when the bike shop closed. For $129, the five-hour guided tour includes a bike, helmet and a locally sourced picnic lunch. Each tour guide is versed in local history, wine making and cycling. The leisurely ride includes stops at small and notable wineries that aren’t available for sale outside of Sonoma. (Note that the cost doesn’t include tasting room fees.) Why join a tour rather than bring you own bike and do it on your own? Convenience for one. Lugging a bike can be a hassle. An even if you do, you may not have a bike rack.
If you don’t mind a few stares and nerd catcalls, they also offer Segway winery tours through their partnership with Sonoma Adventures. You might look a little goofy as you drive one of the pushmower-looking devices around, but you’ll be in little danger of breaking out into a sweat. 17898 Riverside Drive, Sonoma. 707.938.2020.—S.H.
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Three Times
the Soul
The idea here is that you’ll get your spiritual house in order, and find that one special spot, or maybe a few of them, to play the role of place-based soother of the soul. Or at least that’s the goal. I’ve always been a sucker for a spiritual narrative that hints at the Journey—and prefer it to be set to music. I think of a lyric from Guided by Voices, “I got up at 7 o’clock / Drove myself up to the lookout rock,” as the perfect architecture on which to hang your meditative moment, your hangdog soul looking for guidance and the good foot. And coastal Marin County provides one lookout rock after another.
This is what we do in the land of aching beauty and the sublime: we find our own balance and engage with a living narrative that maintains, sustains and enhances it.
I live in a tiny seaside town in West Marin whose many spiritual benefits lend one to never want to leave—and whose residents, many of them, consider Bolinas itself to be a sacred space.
But leave I must, and over a year of departures I’ve carved out a provisional trio of points of spiritual reference that I can reach by heading in one of three directions, basically, out of town: the Frogs Hot Tubs in Fairfax, the Vedanta Retreat in Olema and Red Rocks Beach outside of Stinson Beach.
I will say that I approached a recent Sunday visit to Fairfax’s Frogs Hot Tubs (10 School St. #B, Fairfax; 415.453.7647) with a bit of trepidation. I eased the car over the super-winding Bolinas-Fairfax Road that morning with some backdrop of worry that this maiden voyage to the legendary hot-tub hippie hangout would be a frustrating mess.
I’d read online, probably on Yelp, that Russian sauna fanatics from San Francisco would descend on Frogs on Sundays, and do things like pour beer all over the sauna’s hot rocks to create steam.
This was not my vision for a peaceful, grounding sauna encounter. And by the time I got to the Frogs parking lot, I was muttering, to no one in particular, that the Russians could have the Ukraine, I just wanted a peaceful, meditative encounter with a hot sauna. I had worked up a resentment, and it wasn’t even noon yet. Not good.
So I walked in, dropped a $20 with the friendly guy at the front desk, got a towel and a tour—and the late-morning silence left me feeling more than just a little goofy, and relieved. No Russian sauna fanatics today. Whew.
The Frog’s been around since the high-holy hippie days of yore, and offers a few options for day-trippers. There are a couple of private hot tubs for rent, a public hot tub and a couple of saunas. The top deck is a clothing-optional, sun-worship zone with some chaise lounges and umbrellas. It’s a comfortable and easygoing atmosphere, total “body beautiful” zone with ample shapes and sizes and orientations wandering around. Your experience may differ, and online reviews do pop up with the occasional creep sighting.
The sauna on this blessed morning was empty and sweltering and provided the perfect tonic for an insistently brow-furrowed brain clattering. Sweat the assembled toxins, and clear your mind of the dark thoughts that clamor for monkey-mind annoyance at things you can’t control, such as the threat of many drunk Russians. You’ll feel lighter and looser as the sweat pours out. Now jump into that ice-cold tub of water. Yowza! Repeat until you’re blissed-out, and head to the Vedanta Retreat.
I like to think of the Vedanta Retreat (9799 Hwy. 1, Olema; 415.663.1258) as a kind of destination of intention; it’s enough to know that it’s there. Most days, I’m commuting to work up Highway 1 for the first bit of the haul to Santa Rosa—and have become intimately aware of every curve between Bolinas and the Olema turnoff onto the Sir Francis Drake. That’s a kind of meditation in itself. For the first year or so that I took the ride, I’d pass this humble little wooden sign along the way, just outside of “downtown” Olema, that announced the Vedanta Retreat. Blink and you’ll miss it.
The retreat offers stays of up to five days for people who are serious about their spiritual practice, and aren’t just scamming for a free vacation in West Marin. A Bolinas friend brought me there one afternoon for a tour late last year—and it’s a wonderfully mellow compound with all the West Marin check-offs: a creek, some cows, lots of trees and meadows. A groundskeeper let us wander around to our heart’s desire and told us if we wanted to sign on for a retreat, that we’d have to get cleared by one, maybe two, swamis.
The retreat is hooked in with the Vedanta Institute of Northern California, based in San Francisco. There’s a big house on the grounds with a library room that’s loaded down with religious tracts of all persuasion. I haven’t been back since I took the tour, but it’s enough to just see the sign along the road and know what’s going on up the dirt road, over that little bridge and around the bend—it leads to enlightenment.
Meditate on the sign as you cruise south past the retreat. Stay on Highway 1, blow past the unmarked turnoff for Bolinas, and you’ll soon be led to my favorite beach for spiritual guidance and rejuvenation, Red Rocks in Stinson.
One of my go-to meditation enablers is that I like to sit and think about the visual and aural power of the crash of the surf against big boulders. I’ve always been drawn to this idea of the very soft thing colliding with the very hard thing—and how both sides wind up giving a little. You can’t see it, but every time a crashing wave hits the boulder, the boulder gives a little of itself to the sea. I think of the dissipating sheen of water across the shimmery stone, and let go of whatever it is that needs to be let go. Ideally, this exercise is done while you are nude and in the lotus position, on top of one of those boulders, in the heat of an afternoon filled with cavorting hippies.
There’s a glut of such opportunities for those seeking a soul-scrub at the littoral edge. California’s got rocky coastline
in spades, and so there’s a subjectivity here that’s born of convenience—I live pretty close
to the beach that I’m most drawn to in these parts, just south of Stinson Beach along Highway 1. It’s the first parking lot out of town, on your right.
Red Rocks is special for a few reasons. One, you have to work a bit to get there. It’s a short hike down from Highway 1, but it’s kind of rugged and lends to a feeling of accomplishment when you finally arrive at the small and very rocky beach (look for the naked people playing Scrabble). The beach also features a kind of sea cave at the north end that you can hang out in during low tide. It’s the coolest thing.
There are numerous and well-worn gravel-and-sand perches on the beach for you and your towel. But I like to find a flat, warm rock at the edge of the shore, on an incoming tide, and let it all wash over me. I’ll eat an apple and say a prayer for a loved one who is ailing and then plunge into the cold surf—so naked it hurts.—T.G.
