Sumeg Yurok Village

The Yurok tribes lived in villages all up and down the coast between Crescent City and Eureka.  The site of one of these villages is in Patrick's Point SP.  In 1990, local Yuroks built a replica village using traditional construction methods and materials.  They use it for cultural events and ceremonies and it is open to the public at other times.  I thought an old-fashioned sepia style of image was in keeping with the spirit of this place.

Trinidad....in California?

We collectively lived in California for 100 years and neither of us had heard of Trinidad.  We were about to.

After spending 8 days at the Klamath River mouth and exploring the coast and redwood forests around there, we headed just 20 miles south to Patrick's Point State Park near the little (pop. 367) town of Trinidad.  Trinidad was "discovered" and claimed by the Spanish in 1775 and became a settled town in 1850.  It was an important lumber and mining shipping center because of its harbor and the vast forests nearby.  Today it is a gateway city for the California Coastal National Monument and has 10 public beaches nearby.  And it has knockout coastal scenery.  We'll be exploring the area for a few more days, but here is a look at some highlights from our first 24 hours.

The view of Agate Beach from Patrick's Point we can see a bit of this beach from our campsite.

Trinidad has a few little lighthouses and one is right on Main Street near the path down to the beach.

This picture was actually taken from the end of Main Street Trinidad.

Moonstone State Beach, just south of Trinidad

We also drove down to check out Arcata, about 15 miles away, home of Humboldt State University and pretty much the marijuana capital of the world.  They also have a very interesting marsh which was "constructed" on the site of a former landfill and lumber mills but today acts as their water treatment plant and creates habitat for hundreds of species of migrating birds.

Tonight we go back to Arcata to see a band called Leftover Salmon, who play a kind of music they call "smash grass" which sounds like what you get when you mix heavy metal and bluegrass music.  Should be fun!

Fern Canyon, Gold Bluffs Beach and Elk!

The most popular/famous sight in Prairie Creek state park is fern canyon.  Ferns grow in great profusion all over the redwood forest, but in fern canyon they grow on vertical walls over 30 feet high and if you don't mind getting your feet a little wet, you can walk through the canyon's winding bottom where some scenes from Jurassic Park were filmed.

We had to cross the creek a dozen times ...

...and climb over jumbles of logs.  But it was worth it!

 Fern canyon's entrance is at Gold Bluffs Beach, where we could take Tucker for a romp.  On our way back to the truck we saw a lone buck Roosevelt elk grazing.

Roosevelt elk nearly went extinct.  In fact, the last herd was down to 15 animals when Prairie Creek SP was created in 1925.  Today they are like pigeons in the park.  Well, not really, but they are plentiful and fairly complacent around people.  It is rutting season and the bulls (1,200 pounds worth) can get aggressive.  In fact, one killed a chihuahua a few weeks ago (now THAT seems like an unfair fight!).  We were thrilled to see one pretty close up at the beach, but when we were driving back home, we saw a small group of cows and one bull walking (no, strutting) across a meadow near the road.

Prairie Creek Redwoods

Back in the 1920's, when people started to become aware of the rate at which the old-growth redwoods were being cut down, organizations like the Save the Redwoods League started buying forest land and working with the state to preserve these forests.  Three state parks combined to preserve about half of the remaining virgin forest.  We visited Jedediah Smith the other day, today we visited Prairie Creek and walked up a road you can normally drive on, but was closed to cars today. We were glad to walk it and saw only one group of three hikers in the couple hours we were walking.

Of the original 2 million acres of coast redwoods, only about 115,000 acres remain.  The battles over these forests even raged into the 90's when people chained themselves to trees to save them and one protester was killed when the loggers started felling trees in their direction.  Walking through the sections of these forests that are preserved brings out the Druid in me and makes me totally understand the passion of the people who tried to save them.  The quiet is heavy and a bit eerie.  Time seems to literally be suspended and Lynnae and I frequently would split up and one would wait five minutes before walking back so we could experience the forest alone.  We have another week around Redwood country and will undoubtedly keep walking in them when we can.

We also took a drive (up another dirt road) to the Lady Bird Johnson grove and up into the grassy hills above the canyons where the redwoods grow.  It was weird to rise above the fog and into the warm sunlight and golden hills.  Lynnae spied an old truck rotting by the side of the road and we stopped to have a look.

Crescent City

Perched on the shore about 15 miles south of the Oregon border is the last town in California.  Site of a major tsunami in 1964 that wiped out much of the town, it is now a run down beach town that is kind of sad but set in a very beautiful area.  The lighthouse is the key attraction in the town and we caught it from a few different angles and at different times (still playing with that crescent moon!)

That is Saturn shining next to the moon.

From the Forest to the Sea

After spending the day before in the old-growth forests, we decided to explore the coast around the Klamath River a bit.  We drove up to two different lookout points, one on the south side of the mouth of the Klamath and one on the north.  We also rushed out to the beach near us after dinner to catch the sunset.  I also wanted to try to photograph the crescent moon in interesting ways.  We were pretty exhausted after lots of dirt road rides and walking up and down bluffs and through the sand, but it was a good day!

First a few pics taken from our campground on the river:

This view of the sunrise mist on the river  REALLY reminds me of Clam Pudding Pond.  A little homesick, I guess.

These were shot from the overlook on the north side of the Klamath mouth looking south:

Next stop was the overlook on the south side of the mouth looking north.  The rock in the first picture below is the same one as in the picture above from the other overlook.

We also explored a really interesting site shown in the picture below.  This concrete block building was built during WWII to look like a farmhouse but it was actually a radar and lookout station on the alert for a Japanese attack!  Now it is primarily occupied by banana slugs.

This little guy is the mascot of my alma mater, UC Santa Cruz.

Sunset and moonset at the beach at the mouth of the Klamath. The haystack rocks you see are very common on this coast.

This building is a traditional Yurok sweat lodge, still in use by the locals.

Not photoshopped (I don't have or know how to use Photoshop), this is actually Lynnae's hand in the picture.