Tall Trees Trail And False Klamath Cove

We live in an amazing part of the world. Sometimes we pine for more services that don't require an hour and a half drive, but then we have days like this. A couple weeks ago, we had a beautiful day and we drove down to Orick to get a permit to hike the Tall Trees Trail. It is a crazy-steep trail that leads, as the name suggests, to a grove of particularly tall redwoods, including the tree that was measured by National Geographic for the article that eventually led to Redwoods National Park. The hike led down to the Redwood Creek drainage and the trees at the bottom were, indeed, very, very tall!!

We had a great day. We put our feet in the creek, saw frogs and dragonfly nymphs, hiked a gorgeous trail and stopped at the beach on the way home to satisfy Darcy's ocean fetish.

We also became famous! Once you get down to the actual Tall Trees Grove, the trail makes a mile-long loop. As we were getting back to the start of the loop, I happened to look down and saw an eggshell. It was from a marbled murrelet -- an endangered bird that nests only in the tallest redwoods.

We were very excited to see it and spent quite a bit of time admiring it and debating whether (as I prefer to believe) it was cleaned out of the nest after the baby had hatched or if it was an unfortunate example of predation by a raven or other murrelet-eater. But once Michael started mentioning it to other park staff, the excitement grew exponentially. All the marbled murrelet experts have been chiming in opinions about hatchling vs. predation and one of them thinks he's identified the branch the nest's on in this tree:

It was a very special experience and one that we've been assured is probably a once in a lifetime occurrence. Apparently, it's almost never happened before. Luckily, the rest of the hike can be recreated whenever we want, although never quite the same.

This view, for instance, isn't going anywhere any time soon unless there's a very serious storm. We spent quite a lot of time on this gravel bar, playing with rocks and water and eating lunch. That's Michael with Darcy in the backpack in the foreground. It's hard to get a photo that does justice to the massive size of the redwoods. This one comes close, but it's still a little short of the mark.

Once we returned to the trail after our gravel bank rest, we went through a section that captivated me. Throughout this area, there are trees that are completely covered with moss, lichens, ferns, and various other hangers-on. There's a short section of 101 near Klamath that is a tunnel of these green trees. I love them. I can't believe they can live with all the extra vegetation covering their trunks and branches, but apparently, they do. The trail guide claims that all the vegetation is made up of true epiphytes that don't take nutrients from the tree itself at all. I guess I should believe it, because the trees are leafing out these days! They are really magical.

When we were leaving the gravel bar, Darcy didn't want to leave the water. And we convinced her to leave by promising that we could stop at a beach on the way home. We stopped at False Klamath Cove, which is a beautiful stretch of beach across the "highway" from the now-closed youth hostel. For those of you who think that 101 is a six to eight lane monster, this is our version of 101: hugging the thin strip of flat space between the rocky edge of the beach and that steep hill.

We always think that we'll be able to keep Darcy from going in past her ankles. Or we think it will be too cold for her. Or something. She started this beach adventure fully dressed with her pants rolled up to her knees. By this picture, the pants were already soaked and the shirt was getting there, too.

Michael was her shadow for most of this beach visit, making sure that she didn't just walk straight in, which is what she seems to want to do. He got maybe just a little bit wet.

Or maybe a lot! Darcy's down to just panties at this point. She ended up "wearing" my shirt for the ride home because there was nothing dry of hers. She had fun, though, and once again, we had to take her up to the car screaming that she wanted to stay. Somehow, the fact that she's so cold her lips are turning blue and she has lobster-red legs doesn't make her want to get out of the water AT ALL.

All in all, it was a good day.