Moments in Dirt and Ink

Centerville County Park and Beach (Map link.) I keep hoping for a sunny, or sunnier, day to hike out to the mouth of the Eel River once more. It's July, it isn't going to do sunny. Even when it is sunny a mile or two inland, the beach is shrouded in fog. I also keep hoping I'll contact the Wildlands Conservancy to find out a little more about their properties to make it a more interesting hike, but that doesn't seem to be happening either. There are two properties in the area. The southern property is Sounding Seas Dunes Reserve , which is open to the public and "may be reached by hiking north from Centerville Beach County Park". (Pretty much everyone except the county calls it Centerville Beach County Park.) That is the complete information offered for location. The northern property is Eel River Estuary Preserve , which may be visited by reservation only. There were some grants many years ago to try to make it more accessible to the public, but those ...

Pioneertown Mountains Preserve We backtracked out of the minor maze of dirt roads and down another dirt road past only one unsigned intersection to a well graded parking lot to start the second peak of the day with the Hundred Peaks Section hikers. This one is a little longer a hike, but entirely on trail. It is curious how much a difference this makes even on terrain that is simple to cross. Some make use of the facilities before we start the experiment to see how much of a difference it makes between the routes to the peaks today. The trail starts from the south side of the overflow and bus parking area. And we are off. The sign spells out the entire mileage for those who find math very difficult. We start off on an easy, flat trail, then flirt with an old driveway and drop down steeply into a wash. There are two more quick, steep, and seemingly arbitrary crossings of the wash before we start a steady climb to an old road. A long line of spires to the south ...