So..... we'd managed Granite Peak. The weather, though, did not makes us feel charged to climb another peak, though. So... we decided to head west towards the coast, and see if things got any better. We realized they probably wouldn't, but perhaps a wet beach hike would be better than a wet mountain hike. Off we went westwards on highway 299 towards Eureka. The drive was quite pleasant and involved a lot of sun, suprisingly.
We arrived on the coast early in the evening, and decided that yes, we would try another hike tomorrow, this time somewhere along the coast. One of my hiking guides recommended a fairly long but flat loop hike in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, not far north of where we were.
The next morning, true to form, the rains returned. We resigned ourselves to this and got out all our wet gear, and headed to the Park's visitor center and to the trailhead of our hike. Even though it was a Tuesday and raining, a large group of hikers were preparing to go out on an outing of their own.
Prairie Creek Redwoods SP
The loop hike we were planning to do involved a lot of coastal rainforest walking and a bit of coastal walking. We were hoping to hike through a particularly interesting lush canyon (called Fern canyon), but we were told that it was "pretty wet" right now (tell us something we didn't know!).
From the visitor center, we took what is called the "Miners Ridge" trail westward to the coast. The trail climbs 500 feet up to the crest of a ridge, follows it along for a ways, and then winds, in twists and turns, down to sea level, eventually reaching the coastal flats. All of this was through immense stands of immense redwood trees; everywhere was thick rainforest lushness.
The rain continued, on and off, much as it had been doing for days. Towards the coast it did let up and we did have a few peeps of sun. Stupid tantalizing weather!!
When we reached the coast, we started up along a gravel access road. In retrospect, this was a mistake - we should have found our way right to the beach and hiked up along that, but by the time I realized there was no access from the road to the beach we were already a good ways up it, and so we continued north to the next access point near Fern Canyon. From there we headed out to visit the beach, enjoying the pounding surf and the relative solitude while having a nice light lunch.
