For the fourth year, hundreds of locals will walk 11 miles from La Jolla to Cardiff to raise money for skin cancer research.
Hundreds will gather at La Jolla Shores Saturday, Jan 11 to walk 11 miles of the San Diego County coastline to celebrate community and fundraise for cancer research.
The “King Tide Challenge,” now in its fourth year, has walkers traversing the beach from La Jolla to Cardiff during the lowest tides, when the sand is accessible.
The walk starts at 12:30 pm to ensure participants finish the 11 miles before the tide rises; the entire walk takes about four hours and ends with an afterparty at Cardiff Beach Bar at Tower 13.
There is no large production for this local event, founded by Cardiff resident Chris Swanner and run by Swanner and two others.
“It’s just a walk with friends,” Swanner said, without balloons, starting lines or timed durations. “It’s a casual thing.”
There is no cost to join the walk and walkers may register right up until the day of the event.
Walkers may donate any dollar amount to the King Tides Challenge Foundation, a nonprofit Swanner established to give back to the Moores Cancer Center at UC San Diego Health, which he credits with saving his life.
Just after losing his wife to cancer, Swanner was himself diagnosed with stage 4 melanoma diagnosis and given six months to live.
He began treatments with Dr. Gregory Daniels, a head and neck cancer specialist at Moores and other oncologists who saved his life.
During this “dark time,” Swanner took long walks to process the experience, he said, often walking from Swami’s Beach in Encinitas south to La Jolla Shores.
“You just have to time it when the tide is super low,” Swanner said, to be able to stay dry.
Friends, wanting to offer Swanner camaraderie and support, began joining him on these low tide walks, and it became an event to raise money for skin cancer research.
“The whole idea is to get people out and exploring and to a place [they] don’t really know about,” Swanner said, adding he reversed the route a few years ago to start at La Jolla Shores so the sun would be behind him.
The stretch of shoreline between Scripps Pier and the north end of Black’s Beach is often underwater and so during negative tides is “such a pristine bucket list area of San Diego that hardly anybody goes to,” he said.
It’s imperative that walkers begin on time at 12:30 pm, Swanner emphasized, as “we’ve timed it so the water is going to be out far enough that you can get around all these areas that you normally can’t get around.”
If walkers don’t want to or can’t complete the entire 11-mile trek, they are welcome to start at Torrey Pines State Beach, Dog Beach in Del Mar, Solana Beach or anywhere else along the route.
“Just as long as you finish and you enjoy what your body allows you to enjoy,” Swanner said.
The celebration at Tower 13 is for those who donated, Swanner said, and will include food, leis presented to walkers and a silent auction.
There will also be live entertainment from the Sloppy Sixths, a 70s, 80s and 90s cover band comprised of UCSD oncology doctors.
The event has grown in its first three years, from a few dozen to about 400 last year, when the foundation donated about $18,000 to Moores Cancer Center.
To register, visit kingtidechallenge.com or email KingTideChallenge@gmail.com.
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