Coastal Drive and Flint Ridge Trail

This day's adventure was to drive the Coastal Drive and walk some of the Flint Ridge Trail. 

Our first stop on the drive was to see the south end of the former bridge spanning the Klamath River.  Read below to see how it was destroyed in 1964.

The Klamath River

The salmon are running so they are being caught as they swim upstream.

So as we continued up the road, we pulled over for this pickup to pass us.  Suddenly he swung the pickup around to go back the way he came.

Then we started seeing lots of vehicles along the road and finally figured out the owners were probably out fishing salmon at the mouth of the river.

The parked cars just kept going....

and going for a few miles.

We came to an overlook where we could see the sand bar lined with fishermen and women.

The river made a sand bar at the mouth.  It then runs left between the banks for quite a while..

before finding it's way out to the ocean.  Seals gathered at the mouth to get salmon and birds hovered overhead for the scraps.

Back up the river a distance all the fishing was being done from boats.

They do this in Alaska too.

Nolan heard one guy say they could only fish while the sand bar was exposed.  The tide would rise and the sand bar would be covered by water.

Another viewpoint further up the road.

The road turned in to a single-lane gravel road.

Sign at the High Bluff overlook

View from High Bluff overlook

There was another trail leading off from the High Bluff Overlook parking area so we took it.  Another fabulous view.

Wished we were a little closer to where the waves were crashing into the rocks but Nolan got this great photo.

Ok, I can look at this view for hours.  There were seal swimming too.

Rock on the top of the bluff.  Looks like it is just precisely balanced in place.

Loved these large grass plumes

The rocks rose higher in some places.

Now for the walking part of our day.

I know we didn't even make it half way.  We were both feeling sluggish so we only walked for 37 minutes going up but came down in 32 minutes.

 

The first part of the trail was just around this pond.

Oh, it's so hard to see in this photo but there is a branch going between these two trees.  They are growing around it.

We crossed over two bridges.

This dead tree was huge!

It was a good home to ferns.

The next large dead tree was split up the trunk.

A view up the trunk.

I just thought the sun through the branches was beautiful.

I don't know if this fern was deformed or just one I had never seen before.  It looked like it was coming out where the rest of the sword fern came out of the ground.

This 10' tall dead tree stump had four large trees growing out of it.  It was huge!

Fern Canyon

Fern Canyon - doesn't that sound like a place you would like to go?  It's part of Prairie Creek Redwood State Park.  It's along the Northern California coast.  You have to go through some of Redwoods National Park to get to it.  The road was a very curvy, and at times very steep, gravel/packed-dirt road.  Fern Canyon was the location for some of the filming of Jurassic Park 2: The Lost World.

What a hoot!  The road was already 1 1/2 lanes wide with pullouts.  It went to 1 lane wide in places.

The sun made the areas of shade and light intense so it was hard to see the condition of the road.

The we got to the actual park, flashed our National Park Pass at the ranger and headed down a much wider and straighter road.

This is one of three water crossings we had to make to get to Fern Canyon.  This picture doesn't begin to show the steepness of the sides.  I was just hoping I didn't tear off the front of the car.  Took it so slow that it didn't touch the banks.

One of the signs had info on the different vegetation we would see.

This sign points out where we were.

Lady Fern

Sword Fern

Five Finger Fern

So we walked up the creek and into the canyon.  We had to climb over a bit of debris along the way.

There were planks across the water in most places but some, we just waded across.

There's a lot of dripping water where the moss is growing.

From the canyon we wondered up the Coast Trail for a while then hiked out to the water.  Remember when I said we did some wading in the creek?  Well my shoes were wet when we got to the sand so it really accumulated on them.

The fog was moving in on us so we knew we had to hightail it south before we lost our way.

We kept seeing seals pop their heads out of the water but we never got a good photo.

Our tracks in the sand.  See how many more steps I have to take to keep up with Nolan.  Mine are the steps on the left.

There's the parking lot.  Whew!  We aren't lost.

Finally we cut back up across the dunes and headed toward the parking lot.

Our little red car waiting for us at the end of the trail.

Another view of the largest water hole we had to cross.

Looking back.

Passing the ranger shack to leave the park.

You know the trees are close to the road when they have reflectors on them.

Yeah, we're safe again.  Oh, you can't read the "tsumami" above the Hazard Zone.

Manys the time we had to duck into a turn out to make room for another vehicle.

On the way back north on the Newton B. Drury Parkway we stopped to see the Corkscrew Tree.

There was a short trail to the tree.

I just thought the sun shining through this tree was beautiful.

Closer view.

OK, the tree is too big for one photo so I took a bunch as I moved around the tree.

 

The bridge over the Klamath River is guarded by two golden bears at each end.