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.

00: narrow and steep steps
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.

01: up the hill
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.

02: trail sign with leaves obscuring
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.

03: many green and one yellow leaf
Just one yellow leaf among the (fairly evergreen) rhododendrons

04: some yellowed leaves
A few more scattered yellow leaves

05: low level of thick 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!

06: sign, bench, and graveled trail
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.

07: thick and green area
Ah, trees

08: small umbrella
It's really getting to be mushroom season

09: built up trail
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.

10: road with painted crossing
A zebra crossing with some signs and a wider spot to cross Fickle Hill

11: new segment of trail and sign
Our new segment of trail from the top

12: trails vanishing under trees
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.

13: leaves that sit low to the ground
The flowers are getting ready. There's leaves here for inside out flowers and redwood violets

14: metal bridge with fish design on the railing
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!

15: tall trees
And still the tall trees

16: nearly completely red leaves with spikes along the side
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.

17: some leaves, some yellow
Another slight spattering of autumn color

18: sign on a road
A return to junctions marked for the Arcata Ridge Trail after many that are not in the upper part of Arcata Community Forest

19: swirls of wood and burn
There are some special big stumps along the way

20: more fungus
Little puffballs

22: many green leaves with a few very red leaves
A cotoneaster gives over a fraction of itself for the season

24: reddened undersides
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.

25: brown spots on green leaves
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.

27: trail into green
The trailhead at West End Road

28: circles of purple flowers
Almost no flowers except a few invasive selfheal

29: smaller leaves with blotches
The alders are going with blotches too

30: little purple flower
The other flower found was an invasive geranium

31: trees in a ring
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?

33: light yellow leaves among redwood flats
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.

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

35: two very large stups
And what the loggers took

36: big ferns
The grandness of giant sword ferns

38: bridge and trees
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


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