Moments in Dirt and Ink

Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park Click for interactive map I thought I'd go see the gnome plants in Prairie Creek, then, realizing they haven't been spotted until later in the season, decided to see what has become of Ossagon Trail over the years since I took it. It's a short trail, so I decided to meander along to Fern Canyon via the California Coastal Trail (and the little waterfall that should be less little today) and then loop around over Friendship Ridge before coming back. Or I might do it the other way around. Being a weekend, Fern Canyon would be crowded, but the weekend was the break in the rain. Sunday should even bee a sun day, so that's when I went. Signs and paved parking and even trash service at the trailhead for Ossagon Trail. Ossagon Trail is one of the few in the park where you may ride a bike. It is not, in spite of defacement of the sign, a trail where you may walk your dog. Neither the state parks nor the national park allow dogs on th...

Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park (Map link.) Since I've noticed that I've walked almost every trail in Prairie Creek, the ones that I haven't have started to stand out. There's a mess of little things interconnecting by the campground that I might not ever do short of finding myself actually camping there, but the Clintonia Trail is a stretch up high in the Murrelet State Wilderness that makes some shorter (and perhaps more approachable) loops available through the old growth redwood trees. So I headed out for it with a thought to maybe visit the ghost pipes again afterward. There were still quite a few other visitors around and I needed a bit of luck to grab a shady parking space between the visitor center and campground, then wandered the tracks over to the biggest trailhead in the whole park behind the visitor center with its big sign of historical destinations. (I keep focusing on "Butler Backpack Camp", which presumably became Ossagon Camp, which ...

Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park (Map link.) After hiking Hope Creek , I still had a few hours before dark to wander trails. Where to find a gnome plant? Since my GPS is rather primitive, I had elected to name the points in it according to how accurate they were. Knowing the accuracy helps me not get wrapped up in looking around an area only defined to ±1km, but wasn't as helpful for finding a specific plant. There were quite a few points near the visitor center and a couple up on West Ridge, so I decided it was time to finish off walking West Ridge. (As I walked it, it's parts total: this south bit, the middle , and north .) Parking near the visitor center was a little crazy. People were waiting for the 15 minute spaces next to it. I found one space near the campground and there's approximately half a mile of parallel parking along the meadow, so they weren't actually about to run out of room. I wound my way likely the long way around to get to the visitor cent...

Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park (Map link.) Is it too late for the Eastside Rhododendrons? Or still too early? I don't think they like these dryer winters. Nothing has looked happy yet, unless it's on a forest edge and might be getting watered. It is getting late, though, so I thought I might go off to see them, then I thought I'd take a shorter drive to maybe be disappointed and went for the Rhododendron Trail instead. I decided on a route that would get me on a trail or two I hadn't hiked while hitting the north portion of the Rhododendron Trail, then got myself to a trailhead. There is a level of guesswork in finding trailheads in Prairie Creek. They have very nice signs, but the ones you can see while driving are generic warnings that there is a trailhead in 500 feet and there may be pedestrians crossing. I was aiming at the north part of the loop, but landed at the south side. I didn't feel strongly enough about it to move, but did flip my direction fr...

Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park Click for map. It is my opinion that on any given day, Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park will have the best weather anywhere. Well, at least it's most likely to have good weather. It is possible a few other people have heard, or maybe it was just that it was a Friday, because there were quite a few people in the various turnouts. There were fewer as I got north and by Zigzag #2, there were only two cars there already. This is actually the north trailhead for the Prairie Creek Trail and the spot I crossed the road to start back when I failed to find any rhododendron blooming along the Rhododendron Trail . It's too late for those now, but the redwoods are always about and tall. Getting started at the signed trailhead. They sign suggests a loop with Zigzag #1 if wanting a longer hike. The biggest trees live down right beside the creek. Everything is well signed. The Prairie Creek Trail turns south and Zigzag #2 turns north looking l...