What's in a name?

Well it was another amazing day today. I got off to a slow start due to a leisurely breakfast at the Tee Time Cafe in Grants Pass (at right). I only made 85 miles in distance again but had a fantastic hike at the Oregon Caves National Monument.

Once again, the drive up to the park was spectacular, this time driving up a tiny, shoulderless road alongside Sucker Creek. The left side of the road was hard up against the mountain and the right side was a sharp drop off to the creek with a hard curve every 100 feet it seemed. Huge trees grew right by the side of the road and, half way up, around the corner just ahead of me jogs a lanky fool of a teenage boy. Granted, there was not a single other car on the road the whole time, but this idiot (in jeans and a t-shirt, not running gear) is running down the road at full trot where there is absolutely no room to pull over for him. I slow down to see if he needs help (which he obviously does) but he just gives me a goofy wave and keeps on going. If I were Catholic I might have said a prayer to St. Jude (patron saint of fools), but as it was, I just figured he'd learn his lesson when he had to turn around and jog back up this steep ass mountain.

The caves themselves were closed for the winter but there was a cool three and a half mile trail up into the mountains and the old growth forest behind the caves. I had the entire park to myself, didn't see a single soul in the whole place, but the forest was just fantastic. The trail was steep (1100 ft of elevation gain in 1.3 miles) and it was dead quiet, not even birdsong for most of the way. I sat on a bench for about twenty minutes, at one point, and didn't hear a thing but the buzzing in my own ears.

This is apparently the largest Douglass Fir in Oregon, over 40ft in circumference. It was the highlight of this trail, the whole reason to climb up the mountainside. It is a pretty impressive tree, and you'd think that the Park Service would put a little effort into marketing this tree . . . like, by giving it a cool name, like . . . The Woody Mammoth, or Isengard's Bane . . . or maybe if they were Road Runner fans they could have called it Treeificus Giganticus. Alas not. I'm afraid the Parks Department is filled with tragically literal-minded Guardians who could do no better for this magnificent conifer than to call it The Big Tree. So, if you ever go to Oregon Caves National Monument, be sure not to miss taking the Big Tree Trail so you can have a look at The Big Tree yourself.

Driving down from the mountain I got back on 199 to finally cross the border into California and head down to Crescent City and the Pacific Ocean. The trip out of the mountains, down the Smith River gorge this time, was yet another gorgeous drive through wild river gorges and mountain passes. I wanted to stop a couple of times, but it looked like if I kept going I might be able to hit the beach for the sunset. It was such a beautiful day, I was sure an ocean sunset would be the perfect romantic cap to my day. However, coming down out the mountains has had a predictable result this trip, after getting hyped up over getting to the beach on time for sunset and racing through the northern part of the Redwood Forest National Park I dropped out of the last pass and hit sea level only to be met by an impenetrable fog-bank, just like yesterday.
Ahhh, sunset on the beach in Northern California. Oh well, it was still a really cool day.