Redwood National and State Parks

Hey folks!
We have finally arrived in San Francisco, and are thrilled to be back in civilization for a few days. We spent the last four nights in various Redwood parks, and backpacked three out of those four nights. The first day we went to Prairie Creek State Park, and set off on a four mile hike into the woods with our packs on our backs. This was my first backpacking experience, and it was definitely a challenge to carry that much extra weight on your back, even if only for a few miles. As we set off into the forest, we were immediately amazed by the size of the trees. They are not as wide as Sequoias, but can still reach about 22 feet in width, and are much taller. We were surprised to find the floor of the forest looking more like a jungle than a typical deciduous forest. There were huge ferns covering the forest floor for as far as we could see, making it one of the greenest places I've seen since we left Central America a few years ago. It is a truly humbling experience to be in a forest with species old enough to have seen a dozen generations come and go. Anyways, we reached our backcountry site in a heavily wooded area, but with the Pacific Ocean visible through a gap in the trees, only a quarter mile away. We spent the evening down at the beach looking at the suspiciously large amount of crab skeletons, and all of the perfectly round and smooth rocks scattered among the sand. It was awesome to sit on the beach facing the ocean, and to be able to turn around and see the forest directly behind us. We headed back to camp near dark and watched the sunset over the ocean through the trees. It was a great day.

The next day, we made the four mile hike back out to our car, and headed south to the Redwood National Park to backpack for the next two nights. We stopped at the rangers station to get our backpacking permit and a map, and talked about our plans to a very nice ranger. He gave us suggestions and advice, but since we were too cheap to buy a decent map, we left with their free map, which was just a crappy sheet of paper with some trails scribbled on it. We had to drive about eight miles into the forest to a locked gate, and then once through the gate it was another seven miles on an unpaved road to the trailhead. By the time we gathered our food, packed everything up, and set out on the trail, it was pretty late in the afternoon. We were tired from the hike earlier that day, and were eager to knock out this two-three mile hike so we could set up camp and get dinner cooking. The first mile or two was great, especially as we walked through the Tall Tree Grove, which was a mile long loop in the middle of the trail surrounding some particularly awesome redwood trees. Then we got to Redwood Creek, a rather wide stream of water that ran through the park. We remembered that the very nice ranger that we spoke to had told us that there would be a seasonal bridge at this creek, and so we stumbled up and down the bank searching for a way to get across. Finally, Elijah spots an orange sign on the other side of the creek, and through binoculars we see that it reads "trail" with an arrow pointing into the woods. It was getting late, our packs were heavy, my feet hurt, and I was thoroughly agitated. With no other choice, we took off our shoes and socks, and since I was wearing jeans I rolled them up as far as I could go, and we began our trek into the water. I don't know why we didn't think to get out our flip flops and water sandals, but by the time it occured to us, it was too late. The water was cold, and pain of our barefeet on the rocky creek floor was drastically intensified by the weight of our packs putting even more pressure on them. From the shore, the water only looked to be about shin deep, but the farther we went, the deeper it got. As we got to the center the water was at my thighs, and all I could think to do was to stare at my brand new thousand dollar camera around my neck dangling just inches from the water. I could barely balance enough to keep from slipping, and I was getting slightly hysterical from the pain in my feet. Then out of the corner of my eye, I see something floating past me. I looked over in time to see the bottoms of Elijah's new zip off pants floating down the creek. I yell out "ELIJAH! YOUR PANTS!" but it was too late. I then realized that when I took the binoculars out of Elijah's pack to look at the sign, I had forgotten to strap his pant legs back onto the top of his pack. My bad. When we reached the other side of the stream, Elijah waded around looking for his pants while I stood in guilty misery on the bank knowing it was my fault that his silly new pants were gone. He finally gave up, and as we walked up to the trail we saw the seasonal bridge stacked up in a pile in the woods, doing nobody any good. Stupid, stupid creek. Anyways, we finished the last half mile (directly uphill might I add) to our ridiculously remote campsite. There was a couple at the campsite next to us that first night, and the woman walked around the entire time with a bear bell around her neck. It was loud, and sounded like a cat collar. We thought it was silly, and laughed.

The next day our neighbors left, and we decided to do a day hike on a trail from the paper map we had gotten from the rangers station. The trail turned out to be very undeveloped and rugged, and after about four or five miles we decided to turn around because we were completely worn out from the past few days of backpacking. On our hike back, we started noticing some huge bear tracks that we did not remember seeing on our way out. Then, after seeing a particularly large track, we heard a huge growling noise and froze. We slowly backed up a few feet and stopped, absolutely terrified. The trail, if you could even call it that, was very narrow, and there was thick foliage on either side that we could not see through. After a few horrible minutes of wondering what it would be like to be left mangled in the woods, we realized that the growling noise was just the creaking of a redwood in the breeze, and we continued on our way. We did not have a bear bell, but we did have two metal water bottles, and we spent the next few miles banging our water bottles together and timidly peaking around every corner in the trail. Finally, the trail widened out, and as we were within a mile of our campsite, we finally started to relax a bit. We were exhausted, and Elijah had gotten bored of banging the water bottles together. It was then, about a half mile from camp that we heard a huge crash up ahead, and saw a black bear dart across our trail. Again, we froze, and backed up. This was no tree creaking, we had actually seen the bear. Luckily, black bears are very skiddish, and it ran off as soon as it heard us. We waited until we couldn't hear it anymore, and we proceeded slowly. We were absolutely terrified. When you see a Grizzly bear in Yellowstone on the side of the road with armed rangers standing by, you pull out your camera and admire the animal. When you are miles away from ANYONE with no way of contacting someone in an emergency and you stumble upon a bear, you freak out. Of course, as soon as we got back to camp the wind picked up for the remainder of the evening, and each and every creak of a tree sounded like a bear ready to pounce. Needless to say, we were pretty relieved to pack up the next morning and hike the two and a half miles out, even the last mile that was the steepest climb I've ever hiked in my life.

We still had one night left to camp, and we ended up deciding to car camp at a well populated state park, with an annoying little boy for a neighbor. Whatever, the biggest animal we had to deal with was a tiny little rabbit, so we were happy. This morning we finally set out for San Francisco, and after the long beautiful drive down the coast of Northern California full of hairpin turns around cliff edges, we have arrived. We are staying at a very nice hostel right in the middle of downtown, and we had a fantastic dinner in Chinatown, and went out for Ghiradelli ice cream with a friend of Elijah's from Ithaca. We will be here for two full days, and plan to go to a Giants game, the Fisherman's Wharf, and Chinatown while we are here. Then on thursday morning we head out to Yosemite National Park! We will be able to blog often before we leave.

until next time,
Laura