Moments in Dirt and Ink

Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park interactive map link The Rhododendron macrophyllum looked spectacular as we drove through Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park the week before. It is a little far for a day hike, but a group headed out to Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, another bit of the Redwood National and State Parks, for a hike. No actual trail was planned at the point of arrival, but once when I hiked a loop climbing both west and east trails, I found only three Rhododendrons on the west side of the creek. Either Hope Creek/Ten Taypo or the Rhododendron Trail are better options than anything on the west. If you want the Rhododendron Trail for Rhododendrons, you really should be on the higher (more northern) end of it. So that's where we went, eventually, via Karl Knapp Trail, and a return along Brown Creek Trail. This last just happens to be a super nice area of trees. We parked across from it to start, then headed the other way on a short connector to Karl Knapp Tr...

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 Click for map I decided I wanted to do the Rhododendron Trail entirely, and up the California Real Estate Association Trail (CREA Trail), and connect the loop via Prairie Creek Trail (now called Karl Knapp Trail) and Big Tree and Cathedral Trees even though the rhododendrons are long gone now. Maybe I'd get to see more of those various parasitic flowers? I really only expected the ghost pipes to still be around in some form, but the others I have found in the area are not such long shots at this time either. All of this encompasses a length much further than I really wanted to go, but I've gotten it into my head that CREA is important to seeing the strange flowers as they seem more abundant along its little trod length. I've done something similar before , when they foolishly closed off parking in the park due to Covid starting. My legs didn't fall off. My feet weren't worn to stumps. Paved trail takes one the short way ...

Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park (Map link.) Back at the north end of the Rhododendron Trail, I was prepared to see what had become of the ghost pipes ( Monotropa uniflora ). They look pretty cool in pictures when in seed, not that I had any idea how long it takes them to get that way or how long they hang around once they do. By this point, I had realized that in forgetting my GPS, I lost the points stored in the GPS for the other monotropes (subfamily Monotropoideae ) along the trail. I had no worries about finding some evidence of the ghost pipes. I set my Hiking Project app to recording the track, but still hadn't proven it was actually saving anything. I started up Peakbagger as a backup since I have been able to save tracks stored in it. Peakbagger is a delight for just being useful while having no ulterior motive. It also needed an extra permission to keep it working in the background, but managed to ask for it with a simple dialog. Sign at the north end of the Rh...

Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park (Map link.) I stopped by another of the short, unconnected trails in Prairie Creek to start the day. I managed to remember my camera this time, but somehow neglected to bring my GPS. So I got out that new phone and started one of the programs that should be able to record a track. Oruxmaps pointed me at some permissions it needed, so I scrolled down and gave it permission to not sleep and then found it difficult to test if it was working as desired. It wasn't keen on taking points if I wasn't moving. Ah, technology. So I started off along the trail that winds low near the stream briefly, then climbs a little way out of the immediate environment of that water. The Moorman Pond Trail is marked only by a grove sign and trash can. As usual, tall trees, each with its own oddities, are in abundance with ferns at their feet. The land drops off quickly to the right where there is a flat with the stream. So I enjoyed the trees as I wal...

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.) After returning to the Rhododendron Trail the previous week to see how the budding parasitic plants were getting on, but missing most of them , I prepared a little more to find them and returned. I noted the actual locations I found the plants, then for good measure checked out where everyone else had been finding monotropes (that is, subfamily Monotropoideae, which includes snowplant) around the park. I'm less interested in the wintergreens (genus Pyrola) or the other wintergreens (genus Chimaphila), but there were plenty of more interesting points left. They seemed to cluster around the Hope Creek Trail. That was a nice find. I'd rather not do the same trail three times in a month. I need variety! And since I've done Hope Creek in the past year , I elected to change the direction and loop counter-clockwise. It may delay the gratification, but will be a little different experience. Of course, there's a whole lot o...

Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park (Map link.) I was out to Prairie Creek once more searching for those funky parasitic flowers that I had missed the week before, but didn't have a full day planned. I decided to stop by the couple of little trails I've not done along the way. These are much smaller than the others and only marked by a trash can and a small sign. They don't even get warnings that a trailhead is ahead along the road. I missed the first, but stopped at the second. All that marks the trail is a trash can and a barely visible sign. The sign says "Little Creek 1.0 mi", which is a promise it can't keep. I started up it, past the sign saying it is a mile. It swings away from the creek, climbing, then stays high and fairly flat. It seems a little less used, but well established. There are a couple trees down across it, but nothing one can't go under or over. A bit of that trail with one of three trees being a nuisance. A little more...

Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park (Map link.) I returned to a looping hike on the Rhododendron Trail not for the rhododendrons but for the promises of things to come that it held nearly three weeks prior . There must be something different, so this time I really did go clockwise and then took a little extra Rhododendron Trail all the way to South Fork Trail, then stayed on Prairie Creek Trail to finish. The fog was thick, so I did not start with the Prairie Creek segment, which was undoubtedly soggy and the encroaching vegetation would soak me through before I got very far. North trailhead of the Rhododendron Trail. This is the one trail with parking only on the southbound side. The initial climb is past some pretty impressive redwoods. The nearby valley of the little stream has a few big trees, too. I had low expectations for the rhododendrons, but they were quickly exceeding those and meeting the expectations I had prior. No dream hillsides full of flower covered bu...