The Redwoods

“The last 24 hours have been kinda hectic, yeah?” Ray commented as we drove away from the Trees of Mystery.

“Yeah, but it’s been awesome.”

After leaving Crater Lake yesterday, we headed South towards the Redwoods. It was about a 5 hour drive, and we were planning to get to the Redwoods just before sundown. We stopped in Medford to buy some essential food items, at your favorite local neighborhood Walmart Superstore. We shopped frugally. Each item we picked up was compared for its value and size. We spent only $25 on food for two people for 3 days.

These are the times I am grateful I had the experience of hiking the AT. At least I know how to shop cheaply for camping rations.

We hung out at a Starbucks for a little under an hour, so we could get on the internet. Then it was back on the road. I folded my first ever paper crane with no guidance. And the adventure began.

As we drove into the Redwoods, the sun was beginning to go down. Well, not exactly. But we drove into a cloud, so there was very little light. It was mystical and dreary. We entered the National Park around 6:30, and drove on 101 South through the Northern section of the park. We were awestruck.

The trees were incredibly huge. It’s hard to get a grasp of just how big they are when you’re in a car, but one of the ones we drove by would have easily hidden our car had we parked next to it. I was marveling at the beauty of these ancient giants, when we passed the campsite that we had been eyeing for that evening. Closed for the season. Crap. It seemed that all of the campsites in the park were closed for the season.

So where to? Our task was to find a place to camp, and the sun was going down quickly. We were tired, from the cold sleepless night before, and ready to set up camp. It began drizzling, or maybe just the cloud that we were in was that thick.

I saw a sign for tenting on the right.

“Let’s try it.”

We hung a right and drove up what seemed to be a huge hill for about 10 minutes. The hill turned out to be a cliff, overlooking the coast. The sight was marvelous, even with the little amount of light that was left.

“We could camp here,” Ray suggested. It was a little pull-out on the side of the road.

“I don’t know, man…in a State Park, they’ll make us move.”

So we drove on. It was starting to look like our chances of finding a campspot were dwindling. But we kept driving South; neither one of us daring to bring up the topic of fatigue and frustration.

We finally found a sign for Klamath Campground, somewhere South of the Northern part of the park. We drove in through the entrance, and saw a family with an RV hanging out with some Christmas lights on their awning. OK, this place looks alright.

We drove down a little road, scoping out tent sites  We came to a fork in the road where you could either loop back around, or go straight on what seemed to me like a pedestrian path. It was covered in grass, though, and there were some barely discernible tire-marks in the path.

“I’m gonna do it,” he said, as he drove steadily down it.

“Wait, stop! There’s an owl,” I said.

On a branch just over the little path we were about to drive on, there was an owl perched stealthily. We crept towards it in the car. It turned its head to look at it in the piercingly strange way that an owl does. It didn’t seem to care about us being there at all. You think the bird cares? Birds don’t care. We took pictures of the owl, until we got too close for it’s comfort, and it flew away into the night.

“That was cool.”

We drove on, and reached a tent site in the woods. There were two picnic tables and a fire ring. OK. This will do. It was raining, so we moved quickly  I grabbed the tent and put it up, while Ray got all of the sleeping gear and brought it over. After the tent was up, I set up a little tarp, so we could sit under it and cook and hang out before going to sleep.

As we were sitting under the tarp, something terrifying happened.

Six rounds of gunshots rang out at a distance that made the hairs on my neck stand up.

“Ray, were those gunshots?”

“Yeah,” he said slowly. A moment of silence.

“Why would someone be shooting a gun at this hour? Here? What are they doing?” I was getting nervous.

“I don’t know…” he said, and his words were cut off by more shots.

We turned off our flashlights and sat in the dark for a couple of minutes. Every time I said something, Ray told me to whisper. We were getting uncomfortable. Some more shots rang out, and they seemed to be getting closer. What if there is just some psychopath hillbilly walking through the campground picking people off? Is this normal? We couldn’t see anything around us.

“You know,” Ray said, “Ayla’s mom told me that owls are an omen for bad things. She said that every time she saw an owl, someone died shortly after. They either bring wisdom or indicate bad luck.”

That was it for me. All I needed to hear. That owl was creepy. I wanted to get out of there as fast as possible.

“You wanna just pack up and go?” Ray asked, just as the thought had crossed my mind as well. “We could be gone in less than a minute.”

“Where would we go?” I asked, knowing he knew just as little as I did about where we could go from here. It was 10 pm by now, and we were in the middle of nowhere. This was the only camp spot for many miles. “I could sleep in the car,” I suggested. We can just go to a parking lot and sleep in the car…”

Some more minutes passed, followed by more gunshots. Ray’s nervousness and periodic reminders to be quiet were disarming me and adding more fear to the situation. I wanted him to think it was normal that there were people shooting in the dark, and we had nothing to worry about, but his thoughts were wandering just like mine.

“OK.” said Ray, this time pretty seriously. “It’s a yes or a no. What’s your answer?”

“Yes. A hard yes,” I said, without hesitation.

And that was it. Without another word, we packed up in the dark. I took down the tarp, while Ray took all of our belongings to the car. We had everything in the car within 2 minutes. Go time.

We started driving again, and our goal was to get out of that town. We drove out of Klamath, about 10 miles, and the road entered the State Park again. We saw a little sign for tenting, to the right, and took it. It was so late and dark by now that it didn’t quite matter where we were going to sleep. I would have been up for anything but that place we had just fled. We drove up a little dirt road, and passed a sign that indicated that camping was closed for the season. Again. We disregarded it and kept going.

Up the hill, on a dirt road, we couldn’t really see what was around us, but there was a little driveway that led to nowhere on the left. Ten feet from the turn into it, there was a rock pile preventing us from going any further. So we just parked right there, and took out the tent. After a couple of futile attempts to wedge the stakes into the ground, we threw the tent back in the car, and grabbed for the tarp.

In the Rockies, I mountaineered through snow and hail and camped with just a tarp over my head each night. So it occurred to me that we could just sleep under a tarp, and attach it to trees instead of using stakes.  We didn’t really have to worry about animals or exposure here.  I fashioned a tent-like tarp, and set up our sleeping pads beneath it. We got his mp3 player and sat on the ground listening to music and thinking of the events that just made their way into this story.

Getting cold, I drifted off to sleep to the music. I woke up an hour or so later, and realized Ray was not there. The music was off, and in the pitch black darkness I couldn’t find my headlamp.

“Ray!” I shouted. I got scared for a minute. He had been sitting there listening to music when I fell asleep, and now I couldn’t see him or hear him, and I was still a little on edge from earlier. I stumbled to the car in the darkness, and opened the drivers side door. I figured that would be where he was. I opened the door and put my hand where I expected to find him in there, in the driver’s sear, but there was nothing. Shit. Where is he?

“Hey, can you bring me a blanket?” Ray was in the passengers seat. Oh thank God. I could sleep soundly, knowing at least he was not dragged off by a bear.  Or a hillbilly.

In the morning, we opened our eyes to see for the first time where we were. We were in the middle of some new-growth Redwoods, off of what was apparently a service road in the middle of nowhere.

Wow. I laid on my back for a few moments looking up at the massive trees above.

I lay there looking at the trees for as long as I could, until it was time to start moving.  Just as we were getting ready to cook some breakfast, I heard a car coming up the road.

“We’ve got company,” said Ray.

Forest service, at our service.

The lady Ranger got out of her car, parked just behind ours.

“There’s no camping in the National Park,” she said sternly.

We explained what happened to us the night before. We apologized. It was the only place we could find in the dark. We were tired. Etc.

“Ok, I’m just going to run your names and make sure you don’t have any warrants or anything. Do me a favor and stand by the back of your car here so I can see what you’re doing. I’ll be right back.”

“Do you have any warrants?” I asked Ray, half jokingly.

“There might be this one…but probably not….murder…”

Funny.

She came back over. “You guys are fine by me, but you can’t camp unless it’s a designated site. I will be back in 20 minutes to see that you’re gone.”

And that we were. Back on the road.

We stopped at the Trees of Mystery, which was a bust.

Stupid amusement park.  There’s a story to be told here, but I will save it for some other time.

We drove South on 101 to Trinidad. Ray’s mom told him to go check out Moonstone beach in Trinidad. So we decided to drive there to cook up some brunch.

The beach was amazing.  We walked over onto a sandbar and cooked delicious “packed Ramen,” as I call it.

We sat on the beach, and relaxed.  I watched 2 seagulls spend their day together on the sand.

I wandered off into a cave, on the shores.  It was fun to explore.  I had to wade into a little tide pool to get to it, and it was dark and scary inside.

We decided to leave the beach and head back into the Redwoods around 4.  We went on a different road into the park, and parked by a trailhead for “Big Tree.”  I found the name amusing.  We left the car and walked down the trail.

No words that I could conjure up at this moment can really describe what it was like to walk into that forest.  It’s amazing what some really old, big trees can do to a person.  I was just filled with a feeling that was a mixture of awe, wonder, joy, and disbelief.  I took off my flip flops and walked on the forest floor.

It was springy and spongy, and completely soft to the touch.  The trees around me made me feel like a child.  I was full of the child-like explorers spirit.  I had question after question, just like I used to when I would go to a new exciting place with my parents.

It was fantastic.  We walked through the Redwoods until the sun went down, finding our way back through minimal light.  We got in the car, and started driving in the dark.  What a day.