Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul.
John Muir
Logistics, I need a personal assistant to help manage my rides. It’s four PM and I’m crossing the Smith River on the Dr. Ernest W. Fine Memorial Bridge just North of Crescent City. The river is considered one of the crown jewels of the National Wild and Scenic River program. Its waters are free flowing from source to mouth and I barely take notice. I’m a worried mind. Should I ride 22 more miles to Kalmath or hold up in Crescent City? Eurika’s airport is 80 miles to the south. I was hoping to make tomorrow’s 8 pm flight from Eureka to San Francisco and then the red eye flight to Louisville. I pressed the highway sign’s button (pic above) and passed a “white bike” just prior to the bridge crossing. Beware, danger is near. But I kept trekking like the Doo -Da Man. “Lately, it occurs to me what a long, strange trip it’s been.”
I had not made hotel reservations for tonight nor airplane reservations for my flight home. There are several Crescent City motels with vacancies and I can see why. Once again a city with the resources of the Pacific Ocean, the Smith River, beautiful Crescent Beach, the Jedediah Smith Redwoods suffered a 30% poverty rate and 10% unemployment rate. The city had not managed its resources. I wanted to keep trekking.
This morning the Klamath Redwoods Casino was completely booked, but now, while slurping a Mickey D’s Frappe I redialed the casino’s number. There had been a cancellation. I took a deep breath, ” Gnome boy put your red cap on, the Redwood Hotel and the Abalone Grill await.” We had four hours of daylight to travel 22 miles, which included a 1500 feet climb through Del Norte Redwoods State Park. “I’m late! For a very important date! No time to say hello, goodbye! I’m late!”
Early this morning, fog shrouded the Rogue River and the sport fishermen trolling for Chinook Salmon and Summer Steelhead (pic above). Yesterday’s high pressure zone remained over southern Oregon and the anticyclone help create the morning’s low of 42. When the fog cleared, sunny skies and seventy degree temperatures were expected. After a light breakfast, I bought fishing gloves from the camp store associated with Jot’s Resort (pic below). Snug as a bug with layers of clothing, I departed Gold Beach at seven thirty with Gnome boy wrapped in a wash cloth “California or bust.” he muffled. The winter gloves insulated my hands from the damp cold, so I trolled for seascapes on my way to Crescent Beach.
South of Gold Beach, the road with its wide shoulder had limited visibility. My lights flashed, and the bike clipped along soundlessly. The morning fog encased the road like a sensory deprivation chamber. The pic below is just past Kissing Rock at Buena Vista State Park. The surf pounded the shore while a faint gray line distinguished the sky from the ocean.
The road swerved away from the shore and climbed the mountainside. I cranked up the twisting gray Rt. 101 and got lost in the bike rhythm. At 800 ft the fog lifted and the sunshine appeared. The road crested and on the descent the fog returned. With brakes on I “turtled” my way down to Cape Sebastian State Park and the sound of the surf…”Whooosh.” An unspoiled beach, rugged outcroppings, and a panoramic view of the Oregon coast were muted by the ground fog. What prefect morning solitude (pics below).
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No other visitors entered Cape Sebastian State Park. Gnome Boy suggested we rockhound on the beach. After gatorade, a banana, and a brownie, I put my polar penguins back on and rolled down 101. “I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.”
With the California State line thirty miles to the South, the Pacific Coast Highway kept a tight grip on the coastline. From Pistol River to Brookings the steep and rugged coastline was thickly forested with small, scattered sand beaches. I don’t know why, but the closer to California the faster my pace. Two hours later, I entered California, and wondered why I had raced past the Samuel H. Bordman State Scenic Corridor and Cape Ferrelo. But Crescent City was only 20 miles away so off I sped… again, uncertain if I could fly home tomorrow night.
The road had come to own me. The destination was more important than the journey. I had stopped wandering and felt lost, worrying about the logistics. Gnome boy smirked, “Welcome to California.”
Leaving the scrub and the salt tolerant Sitka spruce behind, the Del Norte Redwood State Park climbed 1500 feet over the California Costal Range and occupied 31,00 acres. A mile into the forest the climb began in earnest. The road twisted and turned skyward with an eight degree grade. The afternoon wind filtered through the canopy of Douglas firs at six hundred feet. The highway’s shoulder narrowed and near some switchbacks disappeared. An occasional eighteen wheeler ground by in low gear, groaning to maintain a twenty miles an hour pace. Cars and Suvs followed, like the trailing tail of a kite.
At one thousand feet, the road flattened, and the shoulder resumed as I pulled into Vista Point. More strikingly, a thin mist drifted across 101 (pic above) and highlighted the majestic Coastal Redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens). I rode among the earth’s tallest living organisms to mile marker sixteen. Damnation Creek Trailhead (1100 feet) appeared on the West side of Rt. 101. A few feet down its dirt trail the sounds of the highway faded away. Mariah hummed a sweet forest lullaby. In the background, a high pitched song bird whistled, “Pretty, pretty, pretty.”
The Pacific Ocean, one mile away and a thousand feet below crashed into the shore. Dense ocean fog rose up the coastal range, as the surrounded Redwoods swayed and blue skies peaked through the canopy and clouds. Beads of water collected on evergreen needles and soaked the tree’s bark. My feet froze, I couldn’t move. I gasped and held my breath while witnessing the forest’s magic. Her sleight of hand was quicker than my eye. (pic above and below). The forest breathes. Del Norte lives.
“G’day, mate. Breathe! Inhale… slow, deep, breaths! Ranga, a “Stryla expat” with his side kick “Red” hopped upon a lichen covered outcropping (pic below). “Ay, fill your lungs, it doesn’t get any cleaner than this mate! We call’m God’s Rays or Redwood Rainbows. Either way it’s a ripper, Mate!”
“Oi mate how ya going this S’Arvo?” Ranga waved his walking stick over his dominion. “You’re not knackered from that climb, Ay? Forest bathing are ya? Welcome to my new world, “my California !”
After welcoming us to “his California,” Ranga poured “mead dew,” a concoction distilled from fermented honey, raspberries, and spiced juniper gin from a canteen in his backpack. As you might guess, minutes later Gnome Boy and Ranga were “loose,” and rolling out “Gnome sweet Gnome jokes”. I finished the gatorade while they carried on about their common ancestry. We never did discover how this Aussie emigrated to California. Ranga’s last pun, “The Redwoods were Gnome Man’s Land.”
Gnome boy with a slight slur, chimed in, “Slow down, let the moment wash over you. Don’t focus on the future or worry about the past. In the forest Nothing is ornamental. Everything, including needles, are exactly where they are to be.” “Just breathe.”
Ranga didn’t want to be a “Dobber” but, “Redwoods shed more than needles. Redwoods speak evergreen. They gossip constantly, and sing resurrection songs. They wrangle over water rights and root space, and can hold a grudge for a two thousand years.”
I couldn’t get a word in edgewise between the two chatting, woodland gnomes. With all of their advice I couldn’t understand why they were not sitting on a mushroom quietly humming, “OHM” (pic below). Instead, they were washing down the last tastes of “mead dew.” Go figure! Gnome boy did invite Ranga back to Fox Hill Farm for a taste of Booker’s Bourbon just before he nodded off.
Ranga’s Redwood home had breathed for over two thousand years and grown to 350 feet, which trumped Gnome boy’s 500 year old oak tree by Cox’s Creek. Gnomes fixate on their tree. While they slept off the mead dew, I tried visualizing both gnomes in Napoleon’s uniform. But the notion evaporated on Damnation Creek Trailhead (pic below) thanks to Shinrin-yoku. I could smell the sun, warmed bark, watch the timbers sway, inhale the fog bathing the forest, and enjoy the sun-driven wind drying this timberland. Even here they call the wind Mariah.
It was all downhill from there. Literally, Route 101 came down from the clouds and rolled past the Trees of Mystery tourist attraction (pic below). I checked in to the Klamath Redwood Hotel owned by the Yurok Indian Tribe. What a ride!
After a long hot shower I strolled past the casino and into the Abalone Grill. I inhaled smoked, wild-caught, Chinook salmon over a bed of fettuccine, bathing in a white wine sauce . Like I was taught by two sleeping Gnomes, “Inhale the future and exhale the past. Shinrin-yoku.”
if that isn’t nice I don’t know what is
so on down the road i ride