Fern Gully!

Yesterday we went to Prairie Creek State Park to go check out Fern Canyon (I prefer to call it Fern Gully). You can either drive to the beach and walk about 3 minutes to get there or you can hike in 5 miles and 5 miles out. I wanted to do the long hike, so that's what we did (Zac wasn't really too pumped about this). He started to feel illish about a mile in, so he turned around and I kept on going. He ended up driving to the parking lot by the beach and we met there - perfect timing too.

The hike was a good one. Lots of redwoods and weird fungus happening. I saw some fresh (real fresh) bear scat at one point when the trail got all thick and overgrown, so I became mildly paranoid for a while. No bear encounters though (damn!). That orange fungus was pretty awesome. It was huge! I noticed a tree about 70 meters off the trail that had probably 200 orange mushrooms on it. I don't advocate spur trails so I didn't go check it out...but there was a downed tree, so I think if i really wanted to, I could have gotten to said fungus infested tree without crushing any veg. Either way, I'm liking the bright orange fungus. Anyone know what it is? The one below looks like a whole lot like a baby owl, eh? Guess it's just a bunch of mold growing on a mushroom. Not a baby owl.

Check out this tree...it's a Redwood that must have had it's top come off in a storm or something and grew back all umbrella-like. Never seen one like that before, pretty neat! The one below that is a pretty good size Redwood that looks like it got hit and split in a wind storm. It's actually still alive. I don't think you can see it in this picture, but there is a few feet of new growth up on the top. Hearty fellows, they're pretty badass.

The reason I wanted to do the hike in was because Fern Canyon can be really popular, and you can see it just by driving to it and walking a couple minutes. So, it draws in some obnoxious people who don't really appreciate the natural world. I really think there should be applications to visit National/State Parks, etc. Ahem, anyway. Fern Gully Canyon is definitely worth it. Apparently they filmed parts of Jurassic Park II there. However, no dinos were observed. Cool spot!

The creek emptied out onto the beach. That's where we saw the geese mentioned in the last blog entry. There were some rocks on the beach, as demonstrated below. So yeah yeah, even though it's a popular hike, it's still worth it. And there actually weren't thaaattt many people there yesterday. But I really like solitude in the out of doors, so more than 2 people is a lot for me. You should do it (the 5 mile hike in) if you're in the area, do it!

Things that Fly

These are some birds. Could you tell? Well, they are. We watched an Olympic Gull chow down on a starfish a couple weeks ago. I was pumped I actually had the camera on me and snagged a photo of the awkward moment. Niice. Below is from the Arcata Marsh on an extremely foggy morning (Marbled Godwits and Willets) Didn't make for great pictures, but I kinda like this one even though it's dark and weird.

A couple White Fronted Geese at Prairie Creek State Park. They don't usually hang out around here, so that was nice of them to stop by. I didn't have the 'big' lens that day, but managed to get a decent shot somehow.

Here's a couple crappy shots of a White-tailed Kite and a Red Shouldered-Hawk. There were 13-15 kites at this one little spot. They were all over the place. I like 'em, really pretty birds.

And here's a female Harlequin Duck on the South Spit...another one who doesn't generally spend much time around here. I like their chubby looking faces.

We checked out a conservation area by the Department of Fish and Wildlife the other day (Fay Slough). That's where we saw all the kites, the Waxwing and the White-crowned Sparrow below. This guy right here (Song Sparrow) is from Hookton Slough, which is part of the Humboldt Bay NWR.

Couple days in the Trinity Alps

Left Friday to hike into the Trinity Alps. This was a good decision all around since the place is insanely beautiful. We did the Canyon Creek hike, which according to the guidebooks is the "Yosemite valley of the Trinity Alps" so I was worried it was going to be packed. It wasn't. We got lucky. We passed two people in the first 8.5 miles, so that was pretty good. I think it draws a good summer crowd, but then people get afraid of the cold - as they should. We did a total of a little more than 17 miles, so we took it a bit easier than the King Range/Lost Coast trip. Pretty gradual incline which made for a rather easy and vert scenic hike.



Not many wildlife sightings (mule deer an an alligator lizard, various birds, one snake) but lots of great trees like Jeffrey Pine, Brewer Spruce, White Pine, Douglas Fir, California Red Fir, Western Hemlock, Pacific Yew, White Fir, Incense Cedar, CA live oaks, Cottonwoods, Aspens, etc. Tons of chest high ferns and azaleas also. Some were even changing colors, so it was nice to see a little of that fall color. So the Brewer Spruce is the rarest spruce and only grows in the Klamath Mountains (where we were), so that's pretty badass. We saw a lot of them.
We ended up camping between the upper and lower lakes in a completely unsheltered spot. The scenery made up for the cruel and bitterly cold winds though. Friday was a full moon (yay!) and since the whole area is surrounded by granite peaks and two big lakes, it was like day once the moon came over the mountains. Pretty awesome. If it hadn't been so cold, we could have easily done a night hike without headlamps. So pretty. There were some some mule deer who came into the campsite a few times during the night. They made a pretty good attempt at trying to get into our packs. They got nuthin. Lots of little unknown succulents around. Tried my hardest not to step on the little guys.
The morning was painfully cold. Horribly, painfully cold. However, there was some pretty fancy fog happening over the lower lake. Very nice. Check it ooot.

I managed to drag myself out of the tent to snag a few pictures but then chucked myself right back in that there little bubble. I had those handwarmer things that you shake to warm up, but they were expired. I figured they'd work anyway. Since when do expiration dates mean anything? They didn't work. One exploded all over Zac's bare hands. So then he had to go wash his hands in the cold cold lake. He was unhappy with this scenario. I found it slightly entertaining. Chaos ensued. (not really). Eventually we got up and made several Jetboils worth of coffee (anything steaming would have done) and waited almost two hours for the sun to make it over the mountains. It took it's sweet time, but without the shine, I pretty much was immobile. See Exhibit A below:

After we thawed out to an acceptable extent, we hiked up to El Lake. It was a decently steep little climb with beautiful views of the Canyon Creek Lakes. It was freaking awesome. Lots of Brewer Spruce and fantastic rock walls. The third picture is one of the Brewer Spruce. Good lookin' tree.


We headed down from El Lake, picked up our packs and started the hike out. There were some pretty intense storm clouds brewing over the peaks on our way back down. It was all pretty much downhill, so we made crazy fast time. It started to rain about the las mile, so we timed it perfectly and jogged the rest of the way to the trailhead. The light on the lake was perfect when we left. I like this shot a lot -

Anyway, great hike! There's a few more mountain lakes past El Lake that I'd like to check out in the spring. Here's a few last shots of the ferns and madrones.