<< Yachats and the Road to Orick

05/12/21 - West Ridge and Prairie Creek Trails

We woke up in Orick with elk in our front yard, as advertised. We were in the redwoods, so we did a forest hike, a loop combining two trails starting not far from our cabin. We took the high road out and went north on the West Ridge Trail and returned on the low road via the Prairie Creek Trail. We crossed a small stream, possibly Prairie Creek itself, then climbed into the redwood forest. We were surrounded by great trees, woodland flowers and enclosure of the forest itself.

The trail climbed quickly at first, then more slowly. Some of the trees were immense. There is no way to capture their size in a photograph. We have some big trees back home in Olympic National Park, but the scale here was different despite the familiar ferns and flowers.

We descended on the appropriately named Zig-Zag trail, then entered an overgrown section with high bushes and some swamp land. We headed back on the Prairie Creek Trail which followed the road at some distance. We crossed a few bridges, but one bridge was completely out. Luckily, the stream wasn't high, so we stepped from rock to rock and crossed dry shod.

The trail was busier as we neared the end. Since it followed the road, people could stop at one of the parking lots and head a short way to see some fantastic trees. There were several fallen trees as we neared the end of the trail, each carved with a tunnel high enough and wide enough for the trail to pass. It was a wonderful, exhausting hike.

Dinner was takeout, a pair of New York strip steaks from the The Larrupin Cafe. We started with a salad, roasted garlic, tapenade and toast points. Then there were the steaks with mushrooms and marsala and a blue cheese dressing. It was a great meal to celebrate a great hike.

One order of elk

Not shamrocks - Though, given the size of the redwoods, they are appropriately huge.

More undergrowth

False Solomon's seal

The dappled forest

More trilliums and their forest friends

One of the big trees

More forest

A banana slug

The swamplands

One of the bridges

Keywords: flowers, trails, california