Rim Trail and Ceremonial Rock
Patricks Point State Park
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I headed out to Patrick's Point to "see it all". (This park has an $8/car day use fee.) I have missed a couple spots so far. The entrance station was in a moment of being unmanned, so I stopped by the visitor center. The volunteer within didn't know the answers to my camping questions. She probably does know various interesting things about many of the parks, but I wasn't able to form the right questions to get that either. So I left and popped over to see the Sumeg Village. It's not one of the spaces I've missed, but it is in the process of being renewed, so it's not the same as it was.
Then I remembered that the village is actually at the end of my planned loop around the park and returned to the entrance station to have my questions quickly answered by the returned attendant. (It's $5 each to stay at the hike/bike at Lookout Rock and $20 per site at Ryan's Cove hike/boat-in at Humboldt Lagoons. You register at the Patrick's Point entrance station for those. Why wouldn't you make that information easy to find on the parks' web sites?) Then I went around the other side to find the Penn Creek Trail. It wanders over to and around a loop of camping. It was empty in spite of the "campground full" sign at the entrance. I guess some of it is just closed off to reduce the density of people.
The trail winds back toward the road where there are some old trails to connect to the entrance road. I spotted one of the wide and squat wooden markers that are a previous generation of trail marker at the junction. It might have been an official connection once. The scruffy little trail imporved as it started to wind back the other way, crossing a bit of dry stream repeatedly.
I stuck to the longer trail when coming to a junction near the actual Penn Creek, but it wasn't that much longer. I was soon out on the road and making my way to the Rim Trail. Then I walked right past it to go to Palmer's Point.
I then followed the trail down to Cannonball Beach. It was just 15 minutes or so to the low tide of around 0.5 feet. Excellent timing I hadn't actually planned. The rocky beach should be good tide pools.
The cable and wood steps had come unmoored, so were useless to help in making the way down. I followed the rocky path many others had used before me. Then off to some tide pools, carefully trying not to step on anything. Such steps are only possible because others were there before me, too, keeping whatever little things might try to attach from ever becoming big things. Trails form the same way on the ocean splashed rocks as up on the dirt.
I headed back up. On my way up, I chatted a little with a guy sitting at the top of the steps watching the beach combers, including his wife and an otter. None on the beach noticed it as it came up and left again. I certainly never get to see the otters. I stopped by the southern viewpoint, then finally started down the Rim Trail. There's only two miles of it, so even though I had already dallied long and hard at the beach, I dallied some more trying to note the wildflowers better than on the last visit.
I was determined to take all the little side trails, so when Rocky Point appeared, I went that way. It drops about halfway to the shore and there are ways to get closer. I stayed at the major stopping point.
From Rocky Point, the things to see come quickly. I stopped to check out what the hike/bike camp by Lookout Rock actually looks like. There was someone relaxing in it when I went by before. Then I headed up Lookout Rock itself. This is a trail from a different generation that climbs on stones held in place by cement. For a lookout, there's really not so much view from the top. Much of it is blocked by trees.
Next along the trail is Patrick's Point. The ADA compliant trail out to the north end of the point makes a very easy wander to more views of rocky coastline. I stopped, then returned to the Rim Trail and followed it around just a little more to Wedding Rock. Trail goes out to near the top of the rock where platforms and walls were built in the time when the state thought of its park more as a "park" than the "preserve" it is today. Admittedly, that is still balanced with "park" at least a little bit. There are over 100 campsites scattered throughout the place. After the rock, I wandered the rather moist trail north along the edge.
Next along are the Mussel Rocks. This is another spot where one might scramble down to the edge of the water to see all the animals that live in the splash zone. I didn't scramble so far down.
Past Mussel Rocks, the trail takes a longer wander along the top of the cliffs for the rest of its length. The only spurs are a few steps to overlooks.
At the end of the trail, I still had one more destination, so made my way across the camping area to find a trail going to Ceremonial Rock. It was right around behind the bathroom. Signs were missing at some of the junctions, but I found my way.
There are cement and rock steps up to the top of Ceremonial Rock. The top is fenced in to prevent anyone walking off the side accidentally. It does tend to slope a little, then drop outright. I stopped at a lower overlook before climbing to the top.
Nearly back down, I turned to follow a fainter trail that was only obviously built because there are a few built steps on it. This is the Ceremonial Loop Trail, which has a little climb on the north side before joining back up with the more used trails. I returned the way I came, then turned to make my way back to the entrance station area. I skipped the village since I'd stopped there on the way in. Perhaps I should have stopped to check the native plant garden, too. I did stop by the rhododendron by the entrance station, which is likely a planting.
©2021 Valerie Norton
Written 2 May 2021
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I'm aware that the site is not really phone friendly, I'm just not certain what to do about it. That's another thing I need to spend some real time on sorting and it needs to be soon. Another problem is that "follow by email" thing is handled by Feedburner, which will stop doing RSS to email list in June. It has become some sort of magical element of my page that has no source and can't be removed, so there's other reasons to just totally redo the window dressing of this blog soon.
I doubt the Blogger app will help. It's meant for posting and doesn't even do that well, unless there's some other Blogger app.