Arcata Ridge Trail

Arcata Community Forest

(map link)

I got back to Arcata just in time to participate in a volunteer work day on the long awaited last segment of the Arcata Ridge Trail. It was a little closer to finished than the work solicitation email seemed to imply. In fact, there was a city worker along for this one who had placed a couple signs in the ground before we got there and the trail was officially open! It's also a little steeper than originally designed and a bunch of crushed rock got vibrated into place at the bottom to try to mitigate the worst of it on that work day. I came back a couple days later to finally, truly, hike it end to end. Not like that last time.

There's still projects waiting to happen, like replacing these narrow steep steps that are meant to give a worker access to a water tank and have been pressed into service as main entry to the Sunny Brae part of the Arcata Community Forest

So up the steps and past the signs with maps and rules and even a bit of suggestions of what to do with invasive plants and upward still to be quickly engulfed in the tall trees.

Looking up the hill and through the forest layers: fern, huckleberry, redwood

The trail splits shortly for hikers and bicycles. I took the hiker route. Then it splits for road or trail. Follow the crests on the trail upward. It crosses and gets close to the road as it goes.

A huckleberry obscures the first of the trail crests to follow

There's only a few hints of the season among the largely evergreen forest.

Just one yellow leaf among the (fairly evergreen) rhododendrons

A few more scattered yellow leaves

The thimbleberry will eventually lose all their leaves

Then I got up to where I had once seen that "future home of the Arcata Ridge Trail" sign that was then replaced by a "no trespassing" sign. Nothing like that is there now!

Current home of the Arcata Ridge Trail

So, instead of a long walk off to the side, then a long road walk back, one can now wind upward through a greener space to come out with only a very short offset from the trail on the other side.

Ah, trees

It's really getting to be mushroom season

Lots of work had already been done on this trail

There's wood slat fencing to help the public differentiate between city and private property as the wedge of land with trail approaches Fickle Hill and the crossing. There were such elaborate ideas on what the crossing might be. Of course, it's a zebra crossing and some warning signs. Are the others just for some requirement to "consider other options"? I was flipping through the Humboldt County plans for the California Coastal Trail and there's a suggestion to keep it along the north and south spit and provide a ferry for hikers to cross the Humboldt Bay opening, which just sounds like a money-no-object brainstorm rather than a serious proposal. Here, you could have a bridge over the road. Or a zebra crossing and some signs.

A zebra crossing with some signs and a wider spot to cross Fickle Hill

Our new segment of trail from the top

And on to the second to last bit of trail completed

The penultimate section on the other side of the road seems to be setting in quite well. Down I went toward the section where more crests are needed to mark the junctions.

The flowers are getting ready. There's leaves here for inside out flowers and redwood violets

The fancy bridge marks the north end of the two newest sections of the Arcata Ridge Trail that allow connecting the two pieces of community forest

The signs at the bridge are no longer decorated with an admonishment to turn right back around when you get to Fickle Hill. The people have won! Our trail is built!

And still the tall trees

The Oregon grape (with one "grape" on it) is an enthusiastic participant in autumn

I managed to make my way through the various turns without consulting the georeferenced PDF map I got from the city, but pulled it out for a pair about to turn around on the Community Forest Loop Road ("8" on the signs) to show that they could just continue around instead.

Another slight spattering of autumn color

A return to junctions marked for the Arcata Ridge Trail after many that are not in the upper part of Arcata Community Forest

There are some special big stumps along the way

Little puffballs

A cotoneaster gives over a fraction of itself for the season

The redwood sorrel lets the underside of its leaves redden in all seasons

I passed through the easement on a bit of private property and dropped down to finally wind beside Janes Creek. Even the maples weren't putting on much show. There had been some frosty nights, but it wasn't enough to get them going.

Spotty maple leaves for the season

And so I came to the end of the trail. The lumber yard was being noisy. I tagged the blacktop of West End Road and turned around for a yo-yo.

The trailhead at West End Road

Almost no flowers except a few invasive selfheal

The alders are going with blotches too

The other flower found was an invasive geranium

A fairy ring of redwood trees

I finally found one good show of autumn, which seemed to be a leafy section of a particularly tall redwood tree. Since when did redwoods have leafy sections?

A small piece of an impressive poison oak vine with large branches stretching out as far as the redwood branches, all in a uniform light yellow

It's hard to find the poison oak in this forest, but this particular plant is impressive. It climbs some 40 feet up and stretches almost as far out as the redwood supporting it.

Passing that one half burned out tree that the loggers left, tucked in the trees on the left

And what the loggers took

The grandness of giant sword ferns

Ready to just hike up and over Fickle Hill

The whole Arcata Ridge Trail comes to just a tiny bit over 5.5 miles, so not exactly a difficult one to through hike, or even yo-yo. My hike was ever so slightly over 11 miles. It's possible to add on a mile or two more by taking excursions along the various loops.

*Humboldt album*
©2022,2023 Valerie Norton
Written 2 Jan 2023