A Wet Winter Hike at Armstrong Redwoods State Reserve

Western Trillium, Trillium ovatum

Date: February 17, 2024

Place: Armstrong Redwoods State Natural Reserve, Guernrville, California

Coordinates:  38.543508, -123.002266

Length: Fife Creek Falls 0.7 miles, Interpretive Nature Trail Loop 2.8 miles

Level: both are easy

On Presidents Day Weekend Pappa Quail and I took the opportunity for a long weekend's getaway and booked two nights up in Guerneville, by the Russian River. The forecast predicted a weather system rolling in that weekend, but that didn't stop us. We arrived at Guernevill on Friday night and on Saturday morning we set out to the nearest park - the Armstrong Redwoods State Reserve. It wasn't raining when we got there, but the sky was dark with clouds. We got some information at the entrance booth, then drove all the way up to the inner parking area where we started our hikes. Our first hike was a short one, to Fife Creek Falls. 

Our hike as captured by my GPS

We had to cross Fife Creek  to get on the trail. Thankfully, there was a bridge there because the creek was flowing high. There were very few cars in the parking area, and very few people around - an older couple and a family wearing colorful rain ponchos. We packed our rain ponchos too and crossed the creek. 

Fife Creek

   Redwood trees are at their best in wet conditions. The weather may have kept human park visitors ar home but the trees looked very lush and very much alive. 

Coast Redwood, Sequoia Sempervirens

A small gap in the trees revealed how low the clouds were. The air was heavy with cool moisture, and droplets were condensing on our cameras. For the time being it was fine to merely cover the camera with a bandana.

We reached the waterfall observation area fairly quickly. It was more lie a cascade than a true waterfall, but it was pretty. There was another couple of hikers there, and we chatted with them for a few minutes. 

Fife Creek Falls

An information board at the observation area said that the falls run after precipitation events of 6 to 10 inches of cumulative rain. We sure were there after some rain, and there was more on the way.  

Fife Creek Falls

We hanged by the waterfall for some time, then started descending back down the trail. On the way I stopped by a moss-covered log that I noticed on the way to the falls to take a closer look at what looked to me like fetid adder's tongue plants. On a brief scan earlier it seemed that none of them were blooming but I figured I'd give these plants a closer look. 

I approached the log and looked closely at the plants. Eureka! I found one of them blooming. The flowers of the fetid adder's tongue bloom for a really short time, and they were just beginning at the time of our visit. We saw the earliest one. 

Fetid Adder's Tongue, Scoliopus biglovii 

Another cool sight I saw just before wrapping up the Fife Creek Falls trail was the emerging curl of a fern's leaf. It reminded me of an early embryo. I guess in a sense, it was. 

 

 We finished the Fife Creek Falls walk very quickly and decided to go on the interpretive nature trail that the entrance booth attendee recommended to us. This trail extended all the way to the park's entrance and the visitor center, with a small loop in the middle. There was the option of looping back higher on the hill too.  

We crossed Fife Creek again, this time of the access road's bridge. The creek seemed a little lower here, I guess some of the water was flowing under the pebbles. 

Fife Creek

The first thing we saw on the other side of the creek was an historical brick bench, green with moss. There was a metal plaque set in the middle, in the memory of Marcus Flohr, a former sheriff of Sonoma County. The bench was erected in 1934, and had 90 years to grow all that moss. 

The clouds darkened the day, but so did the trees which blocked what little sunlight that got through the thick clouds. 

Everything around us was soaking wet. water droplets fell on us from above, if from the trees or directly from the clouds we didn't know. Pappa Quail donned his rain poncho and shortly after, so did I. 

Mushrooms on a log 

The forest creatures loved the wetness. We encountered the family of colorful rain ponchos that we've seen earlier. They were standing over something on the trail and when we came near they pointed a banana slug to us. The banana slug wasn't yellow like those we've seen in the Bay Area redwood forests, but it was big. 

Banana Slug

The water droplets  were definitely rain now. Light, still, but rain nonetheless. The plants loved the rain, Pappa Quail a bit less. 

Sword Fern, Polystichum munitum 

I've been hiking in redwood forests year round, and truly they look and feel their best when it is raining. 

Coast Redwood, Sequoia sempervirens

Redwoods, unlike oak trees, don't develop in too many external shapes. Granted, in a crowded forest where the competition for sunlight is intense, there isn't much space to grow sideways, but it is also the inherited trait of this tree. Other forces however, such as fire, add their mark on individual trees, giving them unique appearances. 

Hulled by fire

The light drizzle continued on and off throughout the first part of our hike. There were many interesting sights along the way, but for the most part I kept my camera covered to protect it. 

I did pull out my camera when we started seeing flowers. Specifically - when we started seeing trillium flowers in bloom. The first trillium we saw was up the slope above the trail and Pappa Quail used his strong birding lens t take a photo, but later we saw many more right by the trail itself, close enough for me to take their photos. Some of the flowers looked like they've been taking some beating by the rain. 

 Western Trillium, Trillium ovatum

Odd meristematic growth also affects the shape of redwood trees. These growths, also called 'burls' can grow in many shapes and forms. The burl on the tree below inspired its name: "Icicle Tree". 

Icicle Tree

The 'icicle' wasn't merely a detached piece of bark r a droopy dead branch - it was made by living meristematic tissue, at the bottom of which little root growths extended into the air. 

Mushrooms also thrive in the rain. In fact, during the wet conditions is when their spores germinate. It's also when dead wood becomes softer and easier to break down and be consumed by the fungus. 

Turkeytail Fungus

For some distance we hiked right by Fife Creek, which was flowing well, if not to the highest. I figured that the rains that followed that weekend raised the flow. 

Fife Creek

One of the things I love about rain forests is how every bit of space is being used as a growth substrate. One of my favorite sights is seeing a dead tree that gets a new life as a growth bed for other vegetation, such as the tree stump in the photo below. 

At some point we took a turn in he trail to open the loop that would lead us to Colonel Armstrong Tree, which I figured was the biggest in this park. We saw some other tree species along the trail, among them tanoak, laurel, and Douglas fir.  I had my eyes mainly on the ground though, trying to keep the drizzle from my glasses.

Colonel Armstrong Tree was indeed very big. I couldn't fit it all in one frame. We met a few other hikers near the tree, most of which arrived from the visitor center area. That was our next stop on the hike.

Colonel Armstrong Tree

We took a couple of moments to find where the trail we wanted continued at, and set out in the direction of the park entrance where the visitor center was. The drizzle halted for the time being so I pulled my camera from under my poncho and enjoyed documenting the pretty sights I saw.

I suppose some people might raise brows at what I see as pretty, but I do find lichen to be pretty, and the grayish-green lichen that grows on redwood trees is an integral part of the forest's beauty.

Lichen

With my eyes mainly on the ground I got to see another early bloomer wildflowers - the redwood sorrel. These were just starting - come spring, the forest floor would be covered with these lovely pink stars.

Redwood Sorrel, Oxalis oregana

Once more we crossed Fife Creek on our way to the park entrance area. So far, there was no change in the stream. The slow drizzle we had earlier didn't add much to the creek's flow.

Fife Creek

There were more mushrooms blooming, though, and the drizzle made them look shiny.

Shiny too were the spider webs that held intact through the rain. Like pearled lace, the droplet beads andged suspended on the delicate web fibers. The spider itself was nowhere to be seen.

Near the park entrance I had the opportunity to photograph a young grove of thin, speed-growing redwoods. For a brief moment the sun broke through the clouds, illuminating the grove in magical light.

Coast Redwood, Sequoia sempervirens

More mushrooms were growing in clusters on dead wood along the trail. This bunch were of the smaller, more delicate kind.

Tanoak, a relative of true oaks, is a common species in the redwood forest community. Very rarely it reaches redwood canopy height by itself, but it often fills up clearing areas and sometimes grows on redwoods as an epiphyte plant. I saw a small tanoak growing underneath a giant redwood and figured it won't get big any time soon.

Tanoak, Notholithocarpus densiflorus

We reached the park entrance area and went into the visitor center which was now open - I packed for this trip in a hurry and forgot to pack T-shirts. Pappa Quail offered me to wear one of his but I bought one at the visitor center with a redwood icon on it, and it fit me better. From the visitor center we discussed the option of returning to the inner parking area where we started our hike on the ridge trail. It would add 4 more miles to our hike, which would include also a good uphill ascend. Pappa Quail was incredulous but agreed to go for it. I paused to photograph some droopy milkmaids which bloomed right by the trail junction of the ridge trail.

Milkmaid, Cardamine californica

 

Lest than a hundred yards up the trail  the it started pouring down for real, a strong rain. Pappa Quail and I looked at each other, and turned around, going back down. Neither of us wanted to do four more miles in strong rain on a muddy slope. We returned back to the nature trail and started quickly northward on the other arm of the nature loop trail.

Trail

 

Both of us tucked our camera well under our ponchos to protect them from the rain. We walked briskly, not taking any photographs on the way back. By the time we reached the last crossing of Fife Creek I could definitely see the rise in the water flow of the stream.

When we arrived at our car the lower part of my pants was soaking wet and my shoes were muddy. We shook off as much water and mud as we could, then hid in the car and had a picnic lunch inside it. I knew there would be no more hiking today but I wasn't quite ready to return to our lodge. Eventually we decided to drive to the coast and explore what we could. 

I was glad that we got to hike before the storm rolled in and that it caught us only at the last part of our hike. I was also glad that our first hiking choice was in a redwoods forest because truly, a redwood forest is the best place to hike when it rains.