thick FOG.

[vash]

wow. yesterday I eased my kayak into a familiar lake. it took 5 minutes and i was completely lost. 30 feet visibility max. no biggie since I had GPS on my fish finder, until I didnt. it started acting weird. I found myself in 3 feet deep water when I thought I should be in 20. so lost.

I almost panicked, but I remembered my phone and my boating App. fired that up, rebooted my fish finder and I got back to my truck. my FF indicated I was going in circles. hahahha.. that was a spooky feeling. spooky.

I went back to the truck ate some pork tamales I had in a thermos and waited it out. 1 hour and I could make out the opposite shore. back out. total skunk. hahhaha

[craigster59]

Driving north on I-5 once early in the morning and coming down the Grapevine I hit the dreaded "Tule Fog".

Got off at the first exit (Grapevine) and it was so thick you couldn't see 20 feet in front of you. Completely disoriented, I was expecting a huge semi to appear out of nowhere, coming at me like a Ghost Ship.

Luckily I finally saw the Denny's sign, like a beacon of salvation and pulled in and waited for the fog to burn off. it was no bueno!

[afterburn 549]

That is a nasty hill!

[masraum]

I hit the thickest fog that I can remember seeing or driving in last week one morning. My commute is 84 miles. Often the fog clears up a fair amount about 4 miles from the house. I got about 10-12 miles down the road and turned around and came back home. It wasn't worth driving to work in that kind of fog.

I had never thought about running into that sort of fog on the water. I suppose better on a lake than in the ocean, but neither is good. On a road, you've got the pavement and landmarks "just passed ____ street" kind of thing, but on the water, you're just lost, no landmarks, no nothing, not even specific sounds to help orient when at a lake in the fog. And some lakes are big enough that it's not comforting to think "well, I'm going to be somewhere on the lake". And then a wonky fish finder GPS on top of that. Hell no!

[masraum]

Originally Posted by craigster59

Driving north on I-5 once early in the morning and coming down the Grapevine I hit the dreaded "Tule Fog".

Got off at the first exit (Grapevine) and it was so thick you couldn't see 20 feet in front of you. Completely disoriented, I was expecting a huge semi to appear out of nowhere, coming at me like a Ghost Ship.

Luckily I finally saw the Denny's sign, like a beacon of salvation and pulled in and waited for the fog to burn off. it was no bueno!

Fog is cool as long as you aren't trying to navigate and don't think you're going to be squashed by something.

The bolded text is not something that I'd ever expect to hear or read. LOL! At least it wasn't a Waffle House.

[thingmon]

Low tech compass can be a life saver.

[oldE]

The river is about 1/4 mile wide here. One day I went for a paddle when I couldn't see too far due to fog. I had no problem navigating, but the lack of horizon was disconcerting. There was a hint of blue sky directly overhead, but from there down to the water everything was a uniform grey.
When I beached the canoe on the opposite shore, I took a picture. In the image, it looks like the canoe is sticking out into empty space.

[Seahawk]

Iconic photo:



I have written about the "fog" in the Central Valley before.

There was an Air Force Base north of Merced that would, for all intents an purposes, go zero/zero visibility when the Tule Monster hit. Castle AFB.

Instrument approaches are hard to get in San Diego so we'd head to Castle AFB when the Tule was covering the valley, all in bright sunshine on the way, contact approach and request a series of practice IFR approaches. We could see large towers sticking up out of the fog.

Just the coolest thing to be flying in completely still air, in the bright sunshine then descend on the glide slope into quiet darkness...eerie as well.

We'd hit the Missed Approach Point, not see a f'ing thing, execute the missed approach instructions and climb back into the sunshine at about 500ft.

I think I need a cigarette.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by Seahawk

Iconic photo:



I have written about the "fog" in the Central Valley before.

There was an Air Force Base north of Merced that would, for all intents an purposes, go zero/zero visibility when the Tule Monster hit. Castle AFB.

Instrument approaches are hard to get in San Diego so we'd head to Castle AFB when the Tule was covering the valley, all in bright sunshine on the way, contact approach and request a series of practice IFR approaches. We could see large towers sticking up out of the fog.

Just the coolest thing to be flying in completely still air, in the bright sunshine then descend on the glide slope into quiet darkness...eerie as well.

We'd hit the Missed Approach Point, not see a f'ing thing, execute the missed approach instructions and climb back into the sunshine at about 500ft.

I think I need a cigarette.

That's crazy! I understand "instrument approach", but I feel like it must be a bit crazy to not see ANYTHING until you bump into the ground. And that seems like the kind of thing you'd normally want to avoid in any sort of aircraft.

[LWJ]

Had some nasty nasty whiteout conditions skiing as well as attempting to summit Mt. Hood.

[look 171]

I have been caught in that Tule fog once. It was thick, we slowed to about 15 mph from 75-80 but there's always a dummy with his high beam on.

Got caught few week ago on our bike ride. We were hauling down the road and hit a huge patch of fog for a few miles with visibility of only about 10'. Water vapor was so thick that we had to wipe our sun glasses constantly with our fingers. We ware them for protection, thinking the sun will come out within the next 30 or so minutes but it never did that day.

[look 171]

Vash, that's kinda scary not knowing which way is land and you could have continue out to sea and ended up in Hawaii

[vash]

hawaii is at least nice. I am freezing here.

in my youth. I felt I was some big western big mountain deer hunter. we were hiking a tall mountain range. (deer were in the flats). fog came in and we got lost.

panic did set in. but we sat still. no wandering. didnt want to fall off a steep section anyways. I literally dropped to my knees and whispered a prayer. like that, a thin section of fog rolled by and I saw the tiniest peek at an abandoned cabin. I got my bearings!,,,and we headed down.