:: Prairie Creek Redwoods SP Trip - November 11 - 13, 2005 ::

:: Friday November 11, 2005 @ 6:00 AM::

The plan was to meet at Lisa's house in Berkeley and leave from there by 9 AM. I wanted to make sure that the rest of the group was not waiting on me since I had the furthest to go, so I made sure to leave my place by 6 AM so that I would still get there in time even if I hit traffic.

...

I was the first one to arrive at Lisa's house and I don't think she had gotten up yet. I gave Forrest a call to see if he was on his way over yet and he was still getting his stuff ready. So I decided to take a nap in my truck for a little bit. Later on Lisa came out and had me go pick up Tracy. After I picked up Tracy we came back to Lisa's place and got our stuff ready for the trip. Not long after we got our packs ready Forrest and Jay showed up. We were on the road by 10 AM.

...

The drive up to Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park was fairly uneventful. We didn't run into much traffic getting out of the Bay Area, we stopped for bathroom breaks a few times, and we stopped at Wendy's in Eureka for lunch. Once we got to the park we went to the campground and searched around for a proper campsite. On the way to the campground we saw some elk hanging out near the ranger station. It didn't take us too long to find a decent spot since there was hardly anyone else there. We found one right next to the creek with some overhanging trees. It was a bit damp but we figured that it would work. Some of us stayed at camp and set up the tents while the others went to find firewood. They ended up coming back with some weird particle board log type things that looked like they were stolen from IKEA. It took quite a while, but we finally got those particle board pellets to burn. Once they got started they burned for a while.

...

We woke up from a night of eating lots of smores to find that two mice had gotten into our bear locker. The girls made a lot of noise when they saw the mouse and Forrest was trying to smash a mouse with the bear canister. Luckily, for both Forrest and the mouse, that didn't happen. We noticed that they had gotten into a few sandwiches, but the rest of the food was in pretty good shape. Tom W and Svetlana had showed up in the middle of the night and were getting up along with us. We had a breakfast of bagels, bananas, and other assorted treats before cleaning everything up and getting ready for the backpacking trip. After we cleared out camp we drove to the trailhead where we continued to get our packs ready. While the others were getting ready I went inside and got a few postcards along with a few patches. For some reason I collect patches when I go to state and national parks. I should really do something with them. After we had everything settled (we didn't have to pay any kind of backpacking or backcountry fee, so we only paid a $6 parking fee) we were ready to go. We started on the trail at 10 AM.

...

As we hiked through the forest I thought about how easy the hike was. It wasn't the typical multi-thousand feet elevation gain in the mountains backpacking trip. The forest was nice, cool, and damp. I couldn't even see the top of the trees, and there were too many to count. One the biggest reasons for us coming to Prarie Creek Redwoods State Park was the old growth forest. It is a 14,000 acre park full of thousand year old trees that make you feel like you are on another planet. But the highlight of the entire trip was Fern Canyon. Imagine walking into a canyon with sheer walls. Instead of the walls being sheer rock, like they would be just about anywhere else in the world, these canyon walls were covered with ferns. From the bottom to the top, all ferns, all the time. I love ferns, and I've never seen so many in my life. One cool thing about Fern Canyon is that you can easily get to it even if you don't want to hike 4 miles like we did. There is a short trail from the parking lot at the beach. It probably isn't even a mile from there to Fern Canyon. After stopping for some photos and lunch we pushed on toward the parking lot and the beach.

...

We stopped at the parking lot for a quick break and then proceeded on toward the beach. It must have been raining a lot lately because the path was completely under water. Luckily for me I had my tevas and water proof socks. So I put them on and helped build a bridge of logs so that the rest of our crew could make it through the water and to the beach. We checked out the beach for a while and then decided to move on to our camp for the evening.

...

We went north on the coastal trail past a few waterfalls and through mud and water until we made it to Ossagon Creek which is where we camped. It was nice to be done backpacking for the day. We put our packs down and headed toward the beach so that we could watch the sunset. I found some nice, smooth, granite rocks at the waterline while the others were walking up and down the beach. It was a nice sunset. After the sun went down we walked toward a herd of elk so that I could get a few photos and then headed back to camp. We set up the tents and Tom W worked on starting a fire. The wood that was laying around seemed to be dry, but he had a very difficult time getting it to burn. He was eventually successful though. Once the fire was going and the tents were set up we starting making dinner. We had chili out of the juice containers and pasta with tuna and pesto. All in all it was a good dinner. After everyone had dinner we started working on dessert. Lisa and Tracy attacked the marshmellows while I had some hot chocolate and a banana boat. A banana boat is a banana sliced down the middle (but not all the way through) so that you can put marshmellows and chocolate in it. I think you usually want to wrap it in tin foil, but since there was none I kept it in the peel and cooked it over the open flame. It was quite good. After everyone had their fill of food and entertainment we cleaned up and went to bed. We did roughly 7 miles today.

...

I woke up to the pitter patter of raindrops hitting the tent. I quickly realized that the 20 % chance of rain in the forecast had hit the jackpot and I was wishing I could do well in a casino with 20 % odds. I looked around the inside of the tent and found that water had seeped through the bottom of the tent. Luckily for me my air mattress kept me from getting soaked, but the parts of my sleeping bag that were not on the air mattress did get wet. The paperback book that I brought and was reading the night before was sitting in water. Oh joy! Then I saw that my headlamp was sitting in the water as well. It is a good thing my headlamp is bomb proof. I had to work slowly to keep the rest of my gear from getting wet, but I put things away one at a time and they stayed dry. I also realized that I wouldn't be taking any pictures so I put my camera deep into my backpack. At some point in the process I put on my rain gear and was ready to go outside.

...

Our hike back to the car was wet becuase it rained on us the whole time. The amount of rain significantly lessened as we got deeper into the forest, but that was a function of more trees being around to capture the rain in their branches. We took the ridge trail most of the way which was significantly more difficult than the hike on Saturday. Part of the way through the ridge trail we took a detour which would take us half a mile further overall, but it was flatter and significantly easier overall. In the end I think we got back to the trailhead sooner. The rain kept getting lighter and lighter until it was a fine mist at the trailhead. We made it back to the trailhead at 1 PM. Our mileage today was 7.5 miles.

...

Our hike back to the car was wet becuase it rained on us the whole time. The amount of rain significantly lessened as we got deeper into the forest, but that was a function of more trees being around to capture the rain in their branches. We took the ridge trail most of the way which was significantly more difficult than the hike on Saturday. Part of the way through the ridge trail we took a detour which would take us half a mile further overall, but it was flatter and significantly easier overall. In the end I think we got back to the trailhead sooner. The rain kept getting lighter and lighter until it was a fine mist at the trailhead. We made it back to the trailhead at 1 PM. Our mileage today was 7.5 miles.

...

It didn't take us long to get changed out of our wet clothes and cleaned up. After we left we headed south and stopped in Eureka again at Wendy's of all places. I remembered that Lisa had been talking about Wendy's chili and sure enough she got some. After our short lunch break we got back on the road. As we got closer to the Bay Area there was more and more traffic. One thing that is dependable is that there will be traffic getting back into the Bay Area on a Sunday night. After I got dropped off in Berkeley I threw my stuff in my truck and drove back down to San Jose. It was a traffic filled drive that saw me return home at 9:30 PM. Not too bad overall.

...

Overall this was a fun trip. It was a bit of a drive to get up to Northern California's redwood coast from the Bay Area (roughly 7 hours each way) and I was glad that we had three days for the trip. If you go in the offseason (anytime other than summer) you should have no problems getting backpacking permits in the state and national parks that comprise the old growth redwoods. Although I'm not happy with my photos I'm glad I didn't bring my good camera because our last day was full of rain. If you go to the redwoods or northern coast of California in the fall or winter you will want to bring raingear. The weather report for our last day said there was a 20 % chance of rain and it ended up raining on us all day. Fern Canyon is awesome and I would highly recommend it. The beach was also great and the redwoods speak for themselves. Since I finally got to backpack in the old growth redwoods I'll probably stay closer to home and backpack in the Santa Cruz mountains to get my fill of redwoods in the near term unless there is some spectacular feature that requires me to go far. All in all this was a highly enjoyable trip and I would recommend it.