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...

Redwood National Park Click for map In the once upon a time, after backpacking around Redwood Creek , I stopped by Lyons Ranch and Dolason Hill Prairie . Then I only hiked down the trail as far as the historic barn, about a mile. I decided it was time to take on the whole trail. With temperatures climbing a bit inland and it being wise to consider this a mostly inland trail, it would be a warm day for it. The current conditions page lists the trail as only "partly open" due to downed trees. On the one hand, this page still lists the central portion of Rhododendron Trail as closed for the collapsed bridge that was cleared away and trail smoothed to make the small creek crossing easier years ago. It makes the bold statement that the seasonal bridges in Fern Canyon are both in place and removed. On the other hand, this is a National Park page and they might be better about the conditions of trails that are actually in the National Park, like Dolason Prairie Trail. (On...

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 ...

Redwood National Park ( map link ) I found that quite a few of the local rhododendrons in the Arcata Community Forest were blooming, even dropping flowers on the ground so you can't miss them, and decided to make a second try at the Lost Man Creek Trail. It may or may not have rhododendrons. I checked the conditions page to find the trail is open. It would still be open the next week, too, but the road would be closed. The trail climbs 10.5 miles to a second trailhead on Bald Hills Road. I wanted the bottom part without so much hiking to get there, so I didn't wait. I arrived to find no mystery "trail closed" sign contradicting the web site like I had before. So far so good with the plan. The trail starts off in an old growth forest, then travels into an area that was logged shortly before the area became a National Park, eventually climbing to a ridge where the other side is still being logged today. The rest of my plan was to get to that ridge with young but ...

Redwood National Park ( map link ) I got to Lost Man Creek only to find a "trail closed" sign which possibly shouldn't have been there. (I asked after since the online status indicates it is open and my informant in the visitor center was certain of many things including that that sign or the web site needed clarification.) I glared at the sign containing no statement as to why it exists, then remembered I wanted to hike Berry Glen again. ( The previous hike is here .) Lost Man Creek would have been a new trail, but Barry Glen has more old growth. It's a sweet trail with sweet extras at the end points. Maybe a little bit of highway noise, but have you seen the trees? Let me show you the trees! Picnic area and trailhead where once redwood logs were stacked. Berry Glen goes up the hill directly ahead where the trees are large and not off to the left where they decidedly aren't. As is typical in National Parks, dogs are not allowed on these trails. There a...

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...

Redwood National Park (Map link.) I decided to give the Tey-wo-lew section another chance. (And since it's so short, I could maybe visit those ghost pipes again after.) My first time along it , all I knew was there was a line on the map. I didn't know it was the main highway until that was rerouted inland, then was the Coastal Drive until getting gated a couple decades ago. Finding a wide, fairly level "trail" that was sometimes paved and even lined, was an unwelcome surprise. The day happened to be fairly foggy, so I didn't get any of the views. I checked to make sure there was a reasonable chance of some clear coastline before coming. Unfortunately, my camera managed to make it onto the floor instead of into the car, so that coastline got photographed with a cell phone. It's a shiny new cell phone and it has three cameras, so we shall see. It was bought so I'd be on the T-Mobile network instead of the dying Sprint network, not for a good camera, s...

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 ...