Archives for August 2010

After such a long drive yesterday, we were all pretty tired, so we decided to let everyone rest today. We woke up to misty clouds, which seems to be perpetually present here, at least until late afternoon when it all finally burns off. I went out in search of a cell phone signal that was good enough to get broadband, and found a turnout on the road just half a mile from the campground. Spend a few hours working in the pickup, getting maps of the area and tide information, since one trail was marked “impassable at high tide,” as well as making a few essential phone calls. Took a walk down to the beach, and met up with a gentleman who was walking a couple of goats. I waited until he came close and said “I have to ask…” and he responded “Pack goats.” Apparently he was training the animals to carry packs for hikers. It was then I noticed he was wearing a prosthetic on one leg. We had a nice chat about the goats, and had the dogs introduce themselves as part of the training. It was a fascinating concept. Later, Hubby and I walked down to the beach to watch a beautiful sunset over the Pacific.

Set the alarm for 7:00, not knowing what the day would bring, hoping for the best. It was a pretty good drive to the Redwoods, and since we weren’t sure what would be greeting us there, we wanted to get an early start. Out by about 8:30, heading down some beautiful sections of 101. Arrived at the Redwoods Information Office in Crescent City, only to discover these were the same people we had spoken to on the phone who only knew how to say “NO” to everything. I don’t know how they can say “Horses Welcome” and at the same time have no horse camps, no trailheads that a horse trailer can reach, essentially, no access, period. They claim to have an arrangement with the rodeo grounds at Orick where you can park, just not overnight, unless you want to pay $10/night per horse to put them in their corrals. Sorry, but we didn’t come all the way to ride in the Redwoods only to camp in a parking lot along the road. It’s a mystery to me, they have 14 campgrounds in the Redwoods, and not one of them allows horses! Anyway, despite their claims to the contrary, I found the office “help” to be very unhelpful, so much so we simply decided to skip the Redwoods entirely and head straight for our next stop, Mattole Beach outside Petrolia. It was another two hours, and we still had to stop to dump and to shop, so we hit the road quickly, knowing it was going to be a long and tiring day. We discovered a Texaco station with an RV dump behind it, and also stopped at a Safeway just off 101, then headed out. We left 101 at 211, which turned out to be the shortest way, but it was all 20 mph or less for almost 30 miles (no wonder Gracie had said 1:44 for a 54 mile trip!). Though the road was paved almost the entire way, the pavement was very rough, lots of potholes and missing chunks, and the twists and turns were harrowing in places, not to mention narrow, with tiny shoulders on occasion to allow traffic to get by. It was a long climb up the Rainbow Ridge, then we were meandering through grassy fields with lots of cattle and horses and few houses. After staying along the ridge, we were finally met with some spectacular views of the marine layer cover the Pacific. While we were under clear blue skies, the mist/fog layer was obviously just above the shoreline and stretch backed into the ocean as far as the eye could see. It was stunning! Eventually, we started descending, and the grade was so steep in some places, my brakes started that characteristic burning smell. I had to stop once to let them cool, then started using my trailer electric brakes much more often. Just before dropping down to the beach, there was a short section labeled 8% grade, but I guarantee it was steeper than that at the end. I felt like I was practically standing on end! At last we safely reach bottom (and would you believe, there was one point when we met a semi-size moving van coming the way? Thank goodness for those turnouts!), and followed the coastline, practically right on the beach. It was beautiful. We finally crossed back inland a bit to the tiny town called Petrolia, then followed Gracie’s instructions to Lighthouse Road, which ended at the Mattole Beach Campground 5 miles later. The road was “paved” almost the entire way, with just a few patches of gravel repair, but lot of potholes and one section of really washboardy road just before the camp. The camp was right on the beach, except there was a large berm separating it from the tide-line, which provided excellent shelter from the strong ocean breeze. Two of the fourteen sites had highlines for stock, and were big enough for both our units, thank goodness. Despite the difficulties in getting here, there were at least five other campsites already taken, mostly with tents, but everyone was friendly, generous to the dogs and curious about the horses. It was obvious that no horses have been here for a while, the highline area was seriously overgrown with what I later learned were mustard plants. Our neighbor, a professor from UCLA, pointed out the water spigot, and we moved the RV up to fill up our tank. (I had confirmed, twice, that there was potable water here.) Afterward, having given the horses time to get the shore legs back, I set up the highlines for them. It was then I discovered another spigot at a cement water trough just behind our site! It was close enough that we could have filled our tank without moving, but it was so buried in undergrowth we didn’t even see it. Anyway, we put a short hose on it (the trough was full of filthy water, so we weren’t about to use that), making it a perfect way to fill our water tub without have to lift and carry. Yeah! This looks like a perfect spot to spend a week, maybe more! Despite the fact we didn’t arrive till about 7:00, we were all settled in and walking down to the beach, drink in hand, to watch the sunset race down into the Pacific, peeking out from under the marine layer before sliding into the sea. Gorgeous! A long hard day, but with the perfect reward at the end, a place we can stay for a while! Hopefully I’ll be able to find trail maps for the area (according to one website, this is the northern trailhead for the King Range, and has a seven mile loop to a nearby lighthouse as well), but I’ll have to drive back up the road a bit to find a cell phone signal. Just out of reach, unfortunately! Enough signal for my phone to know what time it is, not enough to make or receive calls. Looks like a quiet weekend coming up!

Before our ride, I decided to call our next stop, the Redwoods National and State Parks, to get more information about their horse camping. Their website declares that horses are welcome and that there are several areas for horse camping, some with access from a road, others in the backcountry. Well, that didn’t really turn out to be true. The women at the office said that none of the horsecamps were near a road that was easily accessed, and that parking at the trailheads was prohibited. This contradicted everything I had previously read about the Redwoods, and what had previously been told to me on the phone, so now we were stuck. I spent a couple of hours frantically trying to figure out alternatives, but all took us way out of our way. This was a big problem. Finally, we simply decided to go there and check at the ranger station, as we have had so many experiences where the people in the office really had no idea what was actually out in the woods. Having made that decision, we saddled up and took another ride, this time heading out under bright sunny skies and warmer temps (low 70’s), toward Bluebill Lake, which supposedly had a trail around it. Well, we never found the trail, but we did follow a road and cross the dunes, a rather boring landscape, actually. The footing was tough on the horses, as the sand was deep, so we tried to stay more on the vegetation. Again, my gelding pitched a fit or two (his way of showing his unhappiness with the extra work he was being required to do), but settled down once we headed back toward the beach, having backtracked and circled through the campground. They were much calmer on the way to the beach today, though they still had a bit of trouble getting near the waves. Going southbound was worse, going northbound causes less problems. Obviously we need to work on the other side of their brains (as anyone who’s done any training can attest, you have to teach the same lesson twice every time, because horses truly have two sides in their brains, and both have to be taught the same thing. Really!) After heading south for a while, we crossed back over the berm and came back across the dunes, which had firmer foot over vegetation off the trail, and were back in camp in no time, having had a couple of lovely trots, and a few short hair-raising gallops across the open fields and up the sandy trail. They really don’t like this soft sand, and I can’t blame them. I tried to take the dogs for a short walk up the trail, and it was really tough! Anyway, we’re off the beach and back to the forest (hopefully!) Tomorrow.

Well, the time has come to do laundry. Though the RV has a stack washer/dryer, one must have water and a drain for it to be useful, and we’ve had neither for months, so we’ve reached the point of running out of clothes, so a trip to town is a must. I went to a laundromat (having acquired a bunch of quarters at a car wash change machine a few weeks ago), only to discover they used plastic cards that you had to buy from a machine with bills (no quarters). The price seemed very expensive for the machines, the process seemed too complicated, and there was a stern woman who worked there looking over my shoulder, so I decided to move on to another laundry. Gracie (my Verizon GPS) led me to another laundromat, one without a sentinel, but that was also plastic cards. I guess that’s all the rage these days. Anyway, the price of the machines was considerably less, so I was happy I moved. Several hours later, and after a side trip to the hardware store, I was heading back to camp. Even though the weather was damp and was sprinkling intermittently, we decided to take a short ride to the beach just to see if we could persuade the horses into the ocean today. After all, it has been since last October since they’ve been on a beach (on Assateague Island, Maryland), and they had to be persuaded there, too. So we saddled up, happy we didn’t need boots, and took the mile trail to the beach. The sand was soft, and the footing so different, the horses were snorting all the way, with my gelding pitching a fit or two on the way. They just about settled down when we crested the berm where the beach lay. They were all a-twitter for a while, but it didn’t take long for them to relax a bit, at least until we tried to get them nearer to the water. That took some patience and time, but eventually, success! Feet in both oceans! And in less than a year! Pretty cool! We headed back to camp, delighted with our results, looking forward to a little celebration. As we were putting the horses away, Judy came by, and we invited her over for a drink. She came by a bit later, and we sat at the picnic table and chatted for several hours, getting so involved that she apparently missed dinner, which she had planned to have with her son and his family at the next campground over. He arrived with a covered plate, then he got involved with the conversation and we chatted for a while more before he had to get back to the family and Judy left to have dinner. We did the same, had a pleasant evening before landing in bed, content with the day.

Having been in sight of the beach for several days, Hubby and I are anxious to get our feet wet in order to fulfill our objective, and today is the day we’re going to the place that will let us do that. After the usual shopping stops, we found the Wild Mare Horse Camp (again, no thanks to the office staff whom I called for directions), a well appointed campground with tarmac pads and plenty of corrals. We selected a site large enough for us, although we were disappointed to discover that the previous occupants hadn’t bothered to clear out their corrals (shame on you, whoever spent time in #6!). Water was nearby, but wasn’t a spigot, so we had to become creative, using a tub to fill with water, then using the drill pump to get it into the RV tank. Didn’t take long to get settled in, one of the advantages of a more developed campground. Met a backcountry packer name Judy who shared pix and stories about her adventures, looking forward to swapping more stories tomorrow.

We decided to take another, shorter ride today, leaving on Horseshoe Lane, a trailhead heading east out of the camp. It was an old roadbed for a while, with some gravel, but it wasn’t long before it petered out and became another nice trail. It weaved throughout some of the oldest trees we’ve seen yet, obviously having been missed in the conflagration much of the rest of the area suffered 70 years ago. We took every loop, having learned by now that every trail here has a purpose to it, not just trails for the sake of trails. We weren’t disappointed. This trail’s end loop took us to a well-placed bench (of which there were many in this forest) with another fantastic view of the shoreline. Truly a fantastic spot, and being just off 101 makes it even more convenient. Highly recommended!

Wow! What a fantastic ride today! We were out about 4 hours, covering the 10 mile outer loop, with great views of the Pacific Coastline and one looking right down 101 for miles. The trails had just a few spots with some stone, but mostly they were dirt and pine needles. Again, the forest seemed ancient, with moss hanging from limbs and covering all the stumps, but this time there were very few cut stumps. Apparently there have been fires and wind storms that all but flattened the forest back in the 1930’s, so the oldest trees were more than 70 years old, which around here makes them a good 30 inches in diameter. The trails had placards at every intersection, making it impossible to get lost, and there were even informational placards discussing points of historical interest and one that showed animal tracks so that you could get to know who you’re sharing the trail with, from muskrats to bears. Be sure to take the short loop up to Cape Mountain, there’s a regular little museum exhibit up there, with blown up pix of what the forest looked like in 1934 after it had been razed by Mother Nature, not to mention a great place for lunch. The trails were well groomed, no problems at all. We even passed through the Dry Lake Trailhead, which, in addition to a parking area for day use, also has an area with multiple corrals, a group camp as it were. All in all, this one definitely goes to the top of the list for trails, making the only drawback the lack of easily available water and the lack of knowledge on the part of the folks at the ranger station.

After breakfast, I headed down to the nearest town of Florence, and found a hardware store. I explained my problem, that we wanted to remove the top of the barrel (it was melted on), and she referred me to their equipment/tool rental place a block away. A very nice man on a scooter chair named Bob helped me. He whipped out a skilsaw and was soon cutting through the top like butter, then he wouldn’t let me pay him (his Friday the 13th present). After thanking him profusely, I went to the Safeway next door to get Hubby the dark chocolate we had forgotten early, then back to the hardware store for drum liners (55-gallon garbage bags), then down to the car wash to wash out the barrel. Fortunately, though it looked and felt like oil, it washed down easily under high-pressure soap and water. Then I found a 76 gas station with a handy hose, lined the barrel, and proceeded to fill it to the top. My plan was to twist-tie the top to keep it from spilling, but there wasn’t enough left at the top, so I bungeed the lid from the metal grain can on top, and put the top that we cut out from the plastic barrel and bungeed that as well, both fit well enough to do the job. Drove slowly back to camp, spilling very little. After filling their two big tubs about halfway up (three portable buckets apiece), we still had almost two-thirds of a barrel left, so this should be plenty for the weekend, especially since there’s likely to be water on the trail. Had hoped to get a short ride in, but too much work to do, and Hubby had the need to take a nap from his exertions while I was gone, so we called it quits by 4:15, opened the bar and settled down for the night.

Got up about 7:00, got out by 8:30, heading west until we picked up 101, the famous Pacific Coast Highway. A little while later we saw our first glimpse of the Pacific Ocean, in effect completing our cross country trip, from sea to shining sea, though I said it doesn’t count until the horses get their feet in the Pacific, the way they did in the Atlantic on Assateague Island last October. That will have to wait till next week, when we’ll be actually camping on the beach. Meanwhile, we had more immediate challenges to solve. We knew that the campground we were going to had no potable water, and the stock water was somewhere 1000 feet from the camping area. Though I tried to find out from the local ranger office whether we could reach the water with our truck, I couldn’t get a straight answer. I spoke to two girls who didn’t know anything other than what was on the website (which I had already read, thank you very much), then got transferred to someone’s voicemail, but who didn’t call me back until after we had already arrived. We stopped in a small town to try to find some kind of storage tank for water, but all the local farmer’s coop had was a 63-gallon one that fit into the back of a pickup, which would have been perfect except it was over $200 (yes, I’m the thrifty type). As we were leaving, though, I saw a plastic 55-gallon drum by the front door with a sign asking for food donations. I went back in and asked if they sold those drums, and was told no, but the lady at the desk asked around, even getting on the phone to find out who had them, and discovered they were from a feed store just up the road. So she called them and handed me a phone, and sure enough, they had one. If we wanted it, it would be sitting by the back door of the loading dock, and we were free to take it, no charge! So we ran by and picked it up. It was dirty, looked like it had some kind of oil stuff in it, but it turned out to be something they use of cow teats for some reason. We put it in the back of the pickup, not sure whether we would need it or how it would work, but convinced it would be useful at some point. We continued to head south on 101. Though we were driving right along the coast, the turn into the forest took us up a narrow road that climbed into the hills (it’s hard to call something 1370 feet above sea level a mountain). I let Hubby go first to scope out any problems, and he started out rather disappointed at the campground, and particularly in the distance to the water, which, in fact, was actually down a switchback on the trail, better than a quarter mile away, with no hope of being able to lug any up to the campsite. Contrary to what the ranger gals told me, it was not a pond or lake, but a trough with a hose coming out of a spring to fill it. It would have to be walking the horses there until we could modify our newly-acquired barrel. We found a pretty nice spot facing a bank of trees, and after getting the horses in their corrals, spent an hour getting the satellite dish set up. Afterward, when the horses had had time to eat some of their hay, we decided it was time to get them to the water. They had had a long drink when we filled the RV tank at a campground up the road, so they weren’t desperate. Anyway, I put my bridle on Apollo, and swung myself on to his bareback, something we had never done together before. He wasn’t quite sure what was happening and pranced a moment, then settled down when he discovered he could now reach clover. I let him graze a bit, letting him (and me) get accustomed to this new feel. Hubby handed me his mare’s lead, and off we went! I sensed that both horses were a bit curious about what this new thing was, but were on their best behavior, almost like they were trying to help me out! Good horses! We made our way to the trailhead, then down the trail, which has a pretty good grade to it. Made it down to the trough without incident, and they both had a good long drink. Back up the hill (I’m not ashamed to say I had to hold onto his mane to keep from sliding back too far), and got back to the campsite in one piece in just a little over ten minutes. Everybody happy at the new experience! Off to bed with a list of things to do in the morning!

Excellent trails, soft footing, almost no rocks. Beautiful old growth forest, with huge stumps covered with moss. You can practically see the burly lumberjacks in red plaid flannel shirts, hefting long-bladed two-man saws on those giant trees, a mule team hitched to a wagon nearby. Some areas were almost primordial, with moss hanging, lots of moisture, the ground on both sides of the trails completely covered with green ferns and low bushes, at times growing into the trail, which, surprisingly, had only minor and old signs of use. Really a beautiful ride, except… the trails frequently crossed the gravel forest roads, which were constantly in heavy use by these loud, mosquito-like motorbikes. Fortunately, the motorized and non-motorized trails were almost never the same, unfortunately they sometimes paralleled each other, and often crossed each other. This wouldn’t be quite so much of a problem if the riders adhered to the 25 mph speed limit, but they rarely did. We were lucky to have only one incident, when Hubby and I had stopped to look at a map kiosk at a trailhead, and he had gotten off his horse for a minute, when suddenly we heard the telltale buzz coming from up the road. Before we even had a chance to react, two cycles buzzed by at top speed, sending his horse toward him, stepping on his foot and knocking him over (which, at least, is better than having her bolt with him on top of her), and my horse snorting in a tizzy for a few seconds but with no place to go. They were gone so fast they didn’t know what to do, which I guess is a good thing. It’s a dangerous place, and though it’s obvious the forest people have tried to reduce conflicts, there is still major room for improvement. I would suggest a Horse Crossing sign and 5 mph limit at every crossing, at least that might minimize the racing that seemed to happen constantly on every straight-away of the road. And this was during the middle of the week, I would hate to see in on the weekends! It’s easy to see why the horse camp was empty and pristinely clean of any signs of horses ever being there, though it was a lovely setting. Not many large sites, though, and the one we used (#10) would have been perfect if it hadn’t been for the immovable fire grate placed right smack dab in the middle of the best place to park an RV. Oh, well, maybe someday we’ll find the perfect horse camp. We’ll keep looking! Packed up all the extraneous items in preparation for tomorrow, then relaxed for the evening after our 5-hour ride.