Moments in Dirt and Ink

California Coastal National Monument Click for interactive map After poking around Ocean Ranch , I headed up the hill to Lighthouse Ranch, one of the 6 pieces of California Coastal National Monument that can be visited along the mainland. There's a loop trail, interpretive signs, picnic tables, and a toilet. If you are trying to get a stamp for your National Parks passport, you probably have to go to the Arcata BLM Field Office. Other nearby pieces of the National Monument are the Trinidad Head Lighthouse to the north, which is only open during certain hours on certain days; Lost Coast Headlands to the south, which has a little more trail but the road in can suffer winter damage; and of course most the rocks and islands you can still see at high tide. This is the easiest to visit. The pathway entry from the unpaved parking at Waluplh-Lighthouse Ranch. The path is well established and the edges get mowed. Taking the right side of the loop, the trail comes quickly to t...

California Coastal National Monument Click for map Did you know the Bureau of Land Management also does Junior Ranger programs? In the case of the Trinidad Head Lighthouse, there is both a traditional paper program (called Junior Explorer, but it's the same thing) and an electronic one using the Agents of Discovery app . I've been meaning to try out the paper one except that it seems like a lot of paper (waste!) and it's not as approachable as a PDF on a tiny screen. (Plus it's very hard to take a rubbing on a PDF.) You should be able to pick up the booklet at either the Arcata Field Office or the Trinidad Museum. The electronic one is made for that sort of small screen, so I decided to try it. I was sort of expecting a rehash of the Redwood Edventures Quest for Trinidad , but that's not what I got. So step one: download the app. It is huge. The app is taking 166 MB and it has another 482 MB of data after downloading 1 mission. There's also 1 demo an...

California Coastal National Monument (Map link.) Trinidad, with its sheltered bay, was a hub of activity in the 1850s. Founded April 8, 1850, it is the oldest town along the northern California coast. After a rather astonishing loss of life considering the size of the population, it was determined that a lighthouse should be built on the headland that protects that bay. The light was first lit on December 1, 1871, which makes this it's 150th year in operation. As such, a little extra activity was planned around the regular first Saturday of the month opening day. It is 3 days late, but when you've had that many years, a handful of days just slide. They planned to stay open 10AM-3PM rather than the usual 10AM-noon and had a few extra activities planned around it. People do seem to love the lighthouse and I was a little worried that it might test the parking area by the harbor, but there was plenty of room at the start. I was also needlessly worried about the king tides, wh...

California Coastal National Monument Click for map. I've been waiting for things to dry out a little and some low tide to try this one. That is partly because the Bureau of Land Management greatly overstate the potential of the road to be impassible to small cars, particularly if you are only going to Fleener Creek and not even leaving pavement until the parking area. The other part is because the dirt is a sort that becomes very slick when wet and makes the final transition from trail to beach difficult and the other way can become impossible. Low tide is just because I wanted to be able to get around all the cliffs to make a loop of it. Unfortunately, it seems to have got to that time of year when the weather computer thinks it'll be sunny in two or three days, might rain in five days, but it's foggy today and tomorrow. It keeps rolling along and neither the rain nor the sun come in the eternal fog. It was supposed to be sunny, but it was overcast and a bit foggy....

California Coastal National Monument Click for map. After making my tour of the Ocean Ranch Unit of the Eel River Wildlife Area , I went up the road that little bit to visit the old lighthouse, or at least the base of it, and the little bit of California Coastal National Monument that surrounds it. It is certainly one of the easier spaces of that monument to visit. You just park in the dirt area next to the road and walk through the gap in the low fence. A small (~0.5 mile) loop trail passes around the grounds with a small abundance of interpretive signs. They cover the area history and conservation efforts. Besides the nearby national, state, and county wildlife areas, there is also a Marine Protected Area offshore. Signs at the national monument and the first stretch of gravel trail. The lighthouse foundation remains, but the lighthouse is on Woodley Island now. The rest of the buildings have left even less impression on the land, but the plants have stayed. I expect tha...

California Coastal National Monument Trinidad Coastal Land Trust Click for map. I didn't get to see the lighthouse (or properly visit the national monument) so I came back the first Saturday of the month. The official web site for the California Coastal National Monument is no more specific about when the gate is open than that. On the AllTrails page for the hike , it claims the gate is open 11AM-5PM. I hadn't actually checked as I went past a week before , but there's a sticker on the sign on the gate that says 10AM-2PM. I went out slightly late according to that sign for an afternoon in Trinidad and found the parking lot to be quite a negotiation. Half of it was blocked off with floats connected by thick chains to what looked like highly corroded engine blocks. There's actually more spots on pavement toward the harbor, but I found one in the dirt. The memorial lighthouse has been relocated from higher up on the bluff. The bell beside it is the original fo...

California Coastal National Monument, BLM Click for map. I decided I would have some small adventures on some Trinidad Coastal Land Trust properties, but first another round at Trinidad Head. My first visit was just 24 days after the addition of five mainland units including the head. I actually managed to visit the monument twice in the first month of these additions without knowing it. For the head, the monument is actually just the southern tip occupied by the lighthouse and the trail only barely enters its area at a viewing platform, so the visit is rather technical. I'll have to try to better it some first Saturday of the month when the gate is supposed to open to allow visits to the actual lighthouse. Just over four years later, I could still not know there is a national monument here. The only mention of it seems to be in the Redwood EdVentures Quest for Trinity Head . (Incidentally, there is also a Junior Ranger Program and an information brochure aimed at adults...

California Coastal National Monument Up at the top of the bluff are a few parks including one where one of the area lighthouses originally stood. Not much of the lighthouse buildings are left now. Signs around the little loop describe what was here and point out what is left. Other signs describe the local wildlife and other details of the area. Since the area around includes the bluff top, the Eel River estuary, and the ocean, there is quite a lot of natural things to learn about. Looking down on the beach and first parking area for the south spit on the way to the jetty. The edge of the bluff. The area was flattened for the lighthouse buildings and planted with cypress.