Posts Tagged: Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park
How I lost, then found, my mojo
When I lost my mojo, even this beautiful road view in Death Valley left me listless.
For the first time in five years, I lost my mojo. Then I found it.
Actually, since we started this amazing adventure, it’s been pretty smooth sailing, and complaining about any small problems just seemed in bad taste, seeing as how most people our age are still working, and we’re living the endless-road-trip dream-life. I mean, come on, stop sniveling, you ungrateful assholes.
But this summer began as the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad summer (with some fabulous, very good, extra great moments).
Gathering silver and gold on America’s backroads
The Epic Van with two Casita pals perched on the edge of the prairie at Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park.
Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver, and the other gold.
So says the iconic scout song I learned as a Brownie, too many years ago to count.
The sentiment is true. The past four years full-timing in The Epic Van has been a testament to this theme. We’ve driveway surfed from Washington to California to Kansas to New Orleans, looking up old newspaper colleagues scattered to the four winds. We’ve broken bread with relatives near and far. And we’ve camped with and made fabulous new friends on the fly in Idaho, Montana and California.
Back to the workplace in the redwoods
Tom and Judy standing by the sign at the entrance to Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park.
By Tom Nichols
After almost 2½ years of shirking, I went back to work as a volunteer.
The terms: Twenty hours of work each week, split with Judy, in exchange for a campsite with electricity, water and sewer. After two years of freestyle travel, we committed to spend March, April and May as information center volunteers at Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, a U.N. World Heritage site about 40 miles north of Eureka, California. To upgrade our campsite from the maintenance area to a beautiful spot on Prairie Creek, we agreed to cabin hosting, which meant light housekeeping for four utilitarian units with bunk beds and living space but without kitchens or bathrooms.
Ferns: Green on green in the ancient forest
A fern fiddlehead unfolding.
In the ancient forest at Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park in northern California, you walk beneath some of the tallest trees on the planet, immersed in a green-on-green world dripping with ferns, their amazing fiddleheads unfurling in the spring. Ferns cover the forest floor, drape from the branches and trunks of the trees and line the 50-foot walls of the world-famous Fern Canyon.
Waist-high sword ferns surround our campsite, delicate deer fern and lacy lady fern line the sides of the trails. The deer fern has two types of fronds, sterile ones with broader leaflets, and reproductive fronds with much narrower leaflets that contain spores on their undersides.
Leather fern form mats in the redwood canopy, creating hanging gardens with up to six feet of soil and blooming blackberry bushes. Bracken ferns cover the prairie, nearly hiding the reclining elk munching there. And in Fern Canyon, a World Heritage site and an International Biosphere Reserve, five-finger ferns flutter from canyon walls.
Guests welcome: Marshmallows, Marbled Murrelets, Fern Canyon, scotch
Corbin sitting in his very cool trailer.
Who says nomads can’t have house guests, or Epic Van guests, or actually, campsite guests. Just because we don’t have a house, or extra beds, doesn’t mean we can’t have people “over.”
In the three months that we were volunteering at Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, we had three sets of guests. First, Corbin, one of our son, Nate’s, former college roommates, stopped by for almost two weeks in his months-long tour of the West, then my mother, step-brother and sister-in-law, came for four nights, then my former colleague and always friend, Jen, and her partner, Reg, came for four nights.
We loved all of them, and each visit was unique. They enriched our sometimes solitary lifestyle. And they brought a feeling of home to our traveling abode.
Top 10 cool facts we learned about redwoods
There are three kinds of redwoods - coast redwoods, which grow along California's northern shores, giant sequoias, which grow inland in California, and the Dawn redwood, which is native to Asia.
In the three months we volunteered at Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, we were mesmerized by the beautiful trees from which it takes its name. Sadly, most of the old-growth redwood forest was mercilessly logged. Less than 5 percent remains, most of it in parks established after wealthy patrons purchased tracts in the 1920s, mostly from logging companies. Prairie Creek has one of the largest pieces of original old-growth left and several of the world’s top 10 tallest trees. Here are some of the interesting things we learned about these majestic trees. And, although pictures cannot capture their grandeur, I have included some photos.
Update: It’s a harem
Two of the male elk on the prairie.
A quick update on our elk, the four (former) “bachelors.”
Bachelors no more. Over the past month or so, the guys attracted more guys and, hooray, two females, one of whom is very, very round and, I suspect, very, very pregnant. The elk herd is called a harem, and these lovelies are fetching enough to do a dance of seven veils.
Now, the gang of 11 wander the prairie, munching and, occasionally, people watching. The males’ new antlers are growing quickly, up to an inch a day, covered with luxurious gray velvet.
I often stop to watch as they lie in the tall grass, chewing at leisure, and I anticipate the babies to come.
Here are a few new photos.
The commute: Then and now
Our current commute is the half-mile Redwood Access Trail from the campground at Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park to the Visitors Center.
Then: Arizona 202 to The Arizona Republic in downtown Phoenix, where I was a reporter, 8 a.m. returning at 6 p.m. Tom took the same route off-peak, 2 p.m., for his evening shift at the paper, returning at 11 p.m.
Now: Volunteering at Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park in northern California, Tom and I walk from the campground to the Visitors Center on the Redwood Access Trail, a half-mile rise of nine feet through old-growth redwoods, ferns and blooming redwood sorrel, leaving at 8:45 a.m., returning at 12:45 p.m., three days a week.
Toasting success: A 10-mile hike, one of my longest
Ferns and lichen along the trailside.
Well, give me a high-five.
Yesterday, I hiked nearly 10 miles, one of the longest hikes I’ve ever done, and although my feet and legs hurt last night, I’m still standing this morning.
Drifting off in the drippy rainforest
California's coastal redwoods are the tallest and among the oldest living things on earth.
I want to know. Have you ever seen the rain comin’ down on a sunny day? – Creedence Clearwater Revival
I love the sound of rain. Especially on the roof of The Epic Van. And in our current spot in California’s redwood forest, I’m getting to listen to lots of it.