Posted by Karen on 28-May-2010
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I arrived in Eureka last night and settled in at the Redwood Acres Fairground for the long weekend. Today I headed north towards Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park and along the way I stopped in McKinleyville for a geocache at the World’s Largest Totem Pole and boy is it tall! Just before the park I spotted a herd of Roosevelt Elk resting in a field and I’m glad I stopped to view them because they certainly weren’t at the designated viewing area on Davison Road in the park (maybe they didn’t get the memo about where to be, hmm). Davison Road took me to Gold Bluff’s Beach and finally to Fern Canyon. Fern Canyon is where parts of Jurassic Park 2, The Lost World were filmed and yes, it does all look very pre-historic. Fern Canyon is just that, a tall narrow canyon will lots of ferns growing up the canyon walls. At this time of year, the creek flowing through the canyon is still flowing pretty good and after about 5 minutes I gave up any notion of being able to dodge the water and resigned my self to just having wet feet, but it’s worth it. At the trail head, I met another solo hiker with a camera named Christina and so we headed off together to walk the canyon. The canyon is only about 1/3 of a mile long, but it’s a very cool walk. At the end of the canyon, I looped around to another (dry) trail and made my way back to the SUV. At the parking lot, there were a couple of Roosevelt Elk grazing and you realize that they really are big animals when you’re semi-close to them. On the way back to the trailer, I stopped and enjoyed a bit of the sunset in Trinidad at the memorial lighthouse.
Posted by Karen on 15-May-2010
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After enjoying all the wood carvings and kissing the bear, Pauline and I took a left turn and headed towards the Sinkyone Wilderness State Park and the coast. Sinkyone is one of the most remote state parks I’ve visited; to reach the north entrance of the park you traverse through the mountains of the King Range Conservation area and the last 3.5 miles are a narrow, winding pot-hole-filled dirt road. Pauline was a trooper and didn’t show any nervousness peering down the steep embankments on her side of the SUV, but she did show excitement when she spotted the heard of Roosevelt Elk below us. We arrive at the visitor center and after a nice chat with the park hosts, we enjoy lunch in the barn protected from the ocean breeze. Afterwards, we continued along the coast road and when it ended, we hiked down to Bear Harbor, a tiny black sands beach that’s very pretty. We explored it for awhile, enjoyed talking with some folks that were camping out there and then as we were leaving, Pauline, said get ready to take the picture when I fall into the water while crossing this creek to get back out… I had the camera aimed, but she never fell, handled the log hopping like a pro actually! On the way out, we took the road past Shelter Cove to see the lighthouse and then it was back across the mountain to our campsite.
Posted by Karen on 17-Sep-2006
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Van Damme State Park really is a nice place to wake up. I packed up camp while slow cooking some breakfast, that little stove really is not very fast! Before leaving the park, I took a quick walk down the Fern Canyon Trail, which follows Little River, to try and find a hidden geocache. When I reached the second footbridge, I decided I’d gone to far and turned around thinking I wouldn’t find the cache because of poor satellite reception, but the clue saved me and led me right to it. Next I headed over to Point Cabrillo Light Station where Bruce Rogerson, a certified light house keeper and member of the Point Cabrillo Lightkeepers Association was our docent guide for a tour. With his charming Scottish accent he shared the history of the lighthouse and the restoration efforts. There couldn’t have been a more perfect days on the coast this weekend, sunshine and hardly any wind, not your normal seaside weather.
Posted by Karen on 30-Apr-2006
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Lisa, Mary, Theresa, Jason, Paige and I headed to North Table Mountain in Oroville again to tackle the waterfall loop as described on Leon Turnbull’s Water Falls West webpage. The highlight of the Waterfall Loop route is Phantom Falls. There are no trails in this area, so it was a cross-country trek all the way. We had our GPS units to guide our way and we headed towards Phantom Falls. Along the way we saw a wide variety of wildflowers, an occassional butterfly and we saw a swarm of swallows gathering mud from one of the little creeks to build their nests; coincidentally, the swallows were building their nests over as Phantom Falls, as we delightfully discovered when we arrived over there. As we continued towards Phantom Falls, we saw and admired two unnamed waterfalls cascading down a ravine edge. And shortly after, we came to Phantom Falls and enjoyed lunch there on the ledge across from the falls. After lunch, we headed back to pick up the loop and try find the other four falls that are in the area. This was the first warm spring day (finally the rain has take a break!) and the 90′F weather took it’s toil on all of us. The area has very few trees, other than those in the ravines, which also have a lot of poison oak that we were trying to avoid. We made our way to two more falls and we found California Newts swimming in the creek feeding one of them. Heading back to the car, we all decided to skip the last waterfall and the map and make a more for a more direct route out of the area. It was a long day, but a good day. We grabbed a bite to eat in Oroville and then hit the road home.
GPS Stats: • Odometer: 8.21 miles • Total Time: 6:46 • Moving Time: 3:42 • Overall Average Speed 1.2 mph • Moving Average Speed: 2.2 mph
