Past & Future

In contrast to the North Coast greenery of the previous post, here are a couple of high desert views looking toward the Mono Craters in July of 2006, scanned from Fuji Velvia.

I used to make a lot of quick trips to distant places until somewhere along the line I began to get sick of all that driving. The nail in the coffin was having to relinquish my four-day workweek to go back to five days. With all due respect to the Eternal Now, I get wistful looking back at all the interesting places I used to photograph so many years ago, and I look forward to having the time in another couple of years or so to re-acquaint myself with the natural beauty of California, and in a more leisurely way than I could in the past.

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North Coast Dash

We managed to snag a two-night stay at the Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park campground--the only openings that were available all month.

It was a heck of a lot of driving for such a short stay, but I needed to refresh my memory of how excellent the redwoods up in Humboldt and Del Norte counties are.

We visited the Stout Grove up near Crescent City and the Lady Bird Johnson Grove to the south, both of which were truly awe-inspiring, but the trails right around the campground were also excellent.

I brought a trail cam in case Bigfoot would make an appearance, but we settled for a gray fox that traipsed through around midnight.

The Elk Prairie for which the campground is named had a dozen bulls in residence.

Fern Canyon was a hugely popular spot, with lots of cars parked at the end of the dusty road. I was last there in 2008 when I spent a night camping at Gold Bluffs Beach. I didn't recall there being any more than a couple of cars there at the time. Fortunately, the trail itself wasn't all that crowded, so we were able to maintain "social distancing," and most people wore face masks.

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Potential

I moved the cams back to an area I've used during the dry season before. Right now there's still a fair amount of water everywhere, but soon pools like this will be rare patches of Eden for the local wildlife. I like this spot for its potential. I can just imagine a nice wildcat coming here to drink, and in my dreams maybe even a puma.

A second cam is pointing down the length of the log that you see in the background of the top image. I'd love to see a weasel go across it, but I'm not sure weasels come up this high on the mountain. Way back in the '90s I found a dead weasel just lying on a log across Redwood Creek. I took it over to the rangers at Muir Woods because I didn't know what kind of animal it was. I left it with them in case they wanted to preserve it for an exhibit, but I've never remembered to check back to see if they did.

Which reminds me, I passed a road-killed squirrel on the way up to Rock Spring Saturday morning, then went back to move it off the road so scavengers can make use of it without getting run over themselves, or having the carcass too flattened to hold much promise of gustatory delight.

Just the usual suspects so far: deer, raccoons, robins, juncos, a flycatcher, and several band-tailed pigeons.

Here's a deer's-eye view of the cam.

It was a beautiful day for a ride up the mountain. When all I want to do is check the cams and just experience the mountain for an hour or so I'm grateful to be able to bike up instead of having to drive. The round-trip distance of 44 miles is pretty close to the limit of what I'd want to do on a weekly basis in hilly terrain, though, even with an e-bike.

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