Moments in Dirt and Ink

I actually got out paper and ink (once) this month! And found the poor paper (and old sketches) had got water damage on the edges since the "dry bag" is many years worn. But that is just edges. And authenticity? A burned out stump along the Clintonia Trail .

Eureka City Park (Map link.) I decided to take the Hikshari' Trail, the southern end of the Eureka Waterfront Trail and part of the Humboldt Bay Trail, in a new season. For the most part, the different season just meant it was drier in the areas that are not bay. I started a little south of where I intended, having turned at the second road after the Bayshore Mall instead of the first, then wandering along to the parking at one of the parks. That just avoids the parts close to a little used road, leaving the parts on the far side of the water treatment plant. The view north over the bay from the park at the end of the road. I headed south on the bike path, but turned onto the gravel alternate almost immediately. It doesn't go very far, but it does it closer to the water. Information sign about the trail at the junction with the Melvin "Cappy" McKinnley Loop Trail, which provides an alternate for a short way. South along the bay from the gravel trail....

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 ...

McKay Community Forest (Map link.) I headed down to the actual, official parking lot toward the middle of the McKay Community Forest for another visit only to find that it is currently locked up tight, which makes it much harder to find legal parking in the area. I should have reviewed the map prior to arriving, or at least brought it along. As it was, I headed south along the road, then turned east where there will be fully accessible trail eventually. I expect that means it will be paved, but for now it is more like the "improved access trail" that will be further out, wide and flat. Some garden escapees seem to be blooming in bright sprays of red and yellow at the moment. The trail follows an old road past young redwoods. The air hasn't smelled like smoke, but the reddened light suggests there's plenty high up. I found a bit of trail heading off to the right and decided to go for it. I wanted to get down to Ryan Creek and from there... take route I ...

Trinidad State Beach (Map link.) I have been neglecting Trinidad State Beach and I decided to rectify that for the moment. There are three main parking areas. One is down by the harbor and the other two are along narrow Stagecoach Road. I stopped at the main parking and picnic area with its paved, pull in parking, and cut across the lawn past one of the tables to an unsigned trail just east of the bathroom. It cuts down to a neighborhood access trail that roughly follows the road to the east. I turned west, which gets into the small trail system instead. One official route down from the parking lot. It is unsigned, but has wooden step improvements. The trail stays fairly high on its way to a junction with an obscured beach view. I looked at the narrow, weed encroached trail heading downward and wondered if that was what I was really looking for. I followed the recently worked to a wide footpath trail upward to find that it probably was. It got to looking more official on...

Friends of the Dunes Bureau of Land Management (Map link.) The mix of plants was different at the north end of the dunes compared to the south end of the dunes, so I simply had to actually stop by the south end ready to record what I saw. While I was at it, I thought I might do the Redwood Edventure Quest that Friends of the Dunes offers . It's been a while since I did one of them. It says start at the Humboldt Coastal Nature Center, and that's what I did. The Humboldt Coastal Nature Center at Friends of the Dunes. There is a little parking at the top, but I don't need to do that extra driving. The nature center was open, but I wasn't feeling the need to go in yet. I walked around the edge to find the Wildberries Trail and the first of the markers. This Quest was the most like a traditional interpretive trail because all but the last are marked with physical posts. These are marked with animals instead of numbers, but I missed the little bit of extra engage...

Humboldt Bay National Wildlife Refuge (Pink. Map link.) I headed over to Hookton Slough. It has a more generous gate timing of closing at sunset. The trail follows an old levee along the edge of the slough almost to the beach below Table Bluff. The wildlife refuge ends there. Since beaches are public, you can probably continue on at low tide, but I've not done this. I just strolled along the levee. Since they don't allow dogs, horses, bicycles, or even running, that's all one can do without a boat. They do allow you to put in with an unpowered boat and start in on the water trails through the bay. The rock armored edge of the levee beside Hookton Slough. I spotted movement in the water and found striped shore crabs in abundance among the rocks put down to armor the levee edge. They seemed to see me, too, and tended to be scrambling away. Not all of them, though. Some stayed out to be photographed, albeit underwater. A couple of the striped shore crabs on the...