A Sneak Preview: Fern Canyon at Van Damme State Park

 

Date: November 25, 2014
Place: Van Damme State Park, Mendocino, California
Coordinates: 39.276754, -123.781831
Length: our hike, in and out - 2 miles
Difficulty: easy

It was nearly 4 pm when we left the beach where we sat after checking out the Pygmy Forest. Late in November - that meant we had just over an an hour of daylight left. We parked at the Fern Canyon trailhead and headed into the quickly darkening gulch.

Our hike at Van Damme's Fern Canyon as captured by Papa Quail's GPS

Fern Canyon is a known hiking attraction up at Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park (also Redwoods National Park), in the north part of Humboldt County, and it was the prime destination of our Thanksgiving vacation. When I did my pre-trip online research, however, I realized that there are other trails along the coast that bear the name 'Fern Canyon'. The trail I post about here, in Van Damme State Park is one of them.

We saw the ferns immediately. In that sense, the name was totally appropriate. There were ferns all over the place, green and lush.

The chikas inspected tyne fern more closely and found a sleepy slug snuggled in the crease of its leaf :-)

Banana Slug

Ferns comprised the bulk of the forest undergrowth. Ferns are 'primitive' plants, in the sense that they were among the first vascular plants to have evolved, and the first photosynthetic sporophytes. And they are still very prevalent nowadays, even in a world dominated by flowering plants.

The trail is flat and wide and very comfortable to hike. It stretches along Little River and goes on well beyond where we went.

Little River

The water flowed gently between the green banks and every now and then we saw a big log lying across the stream.

Some logs rested right by the trail. In a couple of places they were over the trail itself.

And it was on the underside of those logs where I found some of the most beautiful fungi.

These fungi consume dead wood and live inside it as a web of thin threads called hypha (it looks similar to mold). The outside part is the fruiting body - the part that makes and releases the spores.

Taking a different angle and illumination, these mushrooms transport me into a magical woodland. I wish I could post here that wonderful earthy smell of the wet NorCal forest, it is full, rich and overwhelming, and mushrooms make a huge part of it.

Woods Fairyland 

There were ferns all over. That part fit the name, all right. About the canyon part ...

The creek runs through a deep gulch, but I don't know if it qualifies as 'canyon'. Although there were some trail segments that came close to the expected image.

And then again - mushrooms. A slow walk along the creek, a quickly waning daylight, one birder and his mother having a deep discussion and two chikas turning logs over to look for crawlers.
I was looking at the mushrooms.

Some mushrooms looked more 'ripe' than others. They smelled so, too.

At some point Papa Quail stopped. We had walked a mile up the trail and although the trail continued on it was time for us to turn around, so we could make it back to the car before darkness.
I grumbled a little. It was such a lovely evening and I didn't wish it to end.

It was also getting cold se we kept out of the water despite Little River's  inviting tranquility.

We hiked back on the same trail we came on. Even so I found more new mushrooms; they must have escaped my eyes the first time I passed by. Some were already familiar to my from previous trails:

While others appeared new to me. Later I realized that one species can appear differently depending on its stage of development.

Although we were walking a bit faster on our way back I still payed due attention to the surrounding vegetation, ferns in particular.

Five Fingers Fern

In between discussions, Papa Quail had an opportunity and caught a bird on camera:

Hermit Thrush

We were spread out on our way back. Our little family group stretched thinly, with Papa and Grandma Quail in the lead, the chikas dragging themselves silently along the damp path and me bringing up the rear with frequent photo stops, making as much as I can of the waning light.

Back in the car we gave the chikas a snack, hoping to be at Eureka in time for dinner. But the Hwy1 road segment connecting Fort Bragg with CA 101 is very winding and elder chika's motion sickness made us slow down to a crawl. It was very late when we finally arrived our hotel (after a very unsatisfactory makeshift dinner we fixed from things we got at a grocery store in Garberville). At the end of the day and the long drive we were exhausted.

Going West

On our way north Eureka was the mid-point. On the following day we would finally get to our primary goal of this trip - Fern Canyon. THE Fern Canyon. The one in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park up in Humboldt County.

From Petite to XL: The Pygmy Forest and the Beach at Van Damme State Park

Date: November 25, 2014
Place: Van Damme State Park, Mendocino, California
Coordinates: 39.264248, -123.736827
Length: 0.33 mile
Difficulty: very easy

Grandma Quail was the first of our family to step on California ground. She did so a long time ago, touring around the Golden State with Grandpa Quail and another relative who'd showed them around.  The evening before our hike at Russian Gulch State Park she was telling us anecdotes from that long ago trip.
"There is a forest of dwarf redwoods somewhere around here," she recalled. Maybe we can check it out."
After spending some quality time with Google at the hotel room that night I soon found what she was talking about. It was called "The Pygmy Forest," it wasn't redwoods, but pygmy pines and cypress, and sure enough, it was nearby - it was in Van Damme State Park, just a few miles south of Russian Gulch SP.

Needless to say, the Pygmy Forest made it on our list for the day. So after a good, hearty lunch picnic at Russian Gulch SP we headed south to Van Damme SP to check it out.

We could have hiked to the forest through the park but after a short debate in which some hurting knees and floppy chikas had the upper hand be drove around the park through the town of Little River to the nearest access point where we could park the car right by said forest. From there, the entire hike is just a 1/3 of a mile of a really easy boardwalk loop.
The trees around by the parking lot were no pygmies but beautiful full-size pines.

Bishop Pine (Pinus nuricata)

Soon enough though, were had entered tree Lilliput kingdom.

Surrounded by full-size trees is a small patch of forest where similar trees that can be decades and even hundreds of years in age, grow to be shrub size.

Bolander Pine (Pinus contorta ssp. bolanderi)

Information boards, strategically placed throughout the loop, tell the story of this forest. In short - old soil. This area is an alluvial plain that has no drainage and there is no turnover period for the soil accumulated there. It is, therefore, a very poor soil that cannot support the growth of full size trees.

Pygmy Cypress (Cupressus goveniana ssp. pygmaea)

And not only do these trees look stunted, most of them look pale, sick with lack of iron.
Not all of them though. Some of the cypresses we've seen did look quite comfortable in petite appearance.

Pygmy Cypress (Cupressus goveniana ssp. pygmaea)

We didn't actually see the old soil of the forest. It was covered with fallen leaves and patches of lichen.

Lichen

But the biggest surprise at the Pygmy Forest were the rhododendron bushes. That they were there - not a big surprise. Also not their smaller than normal stature. But they were blooming! In November! And not just one random flower but many. A beautiful site it was, and also a disturbing reminder that the environment wasn't 'behaving' as expected. Not this winter.

California Rhododendron (Rhododendron macrophyllum)

After our visit at the Pygmy Forest it was time to keep our promise to the chikas and take them to the beach. Not that it was such a sacrifice :-)
The beach at Little River isn't a part of the state park and we didn't do any hiking there except from the car to a nice spot on the beach. There we sat and observed the ocean and our fellow beach goers, both human and avian.
The humans we excluded from the photos.

Assembly at the Beach

I saw two types of birds on the beach - Black Oystercatches and Seagulls.
Papa Quail on the other hand, felt like having been invited to a party and kept photographing each and every bird he saw. Later he sat with me and explained to me in pained patience that not all gulls are alike. That there were several gull species on that beach that afternoon and they were clearly distinct (yeah, the spot on the bill was dark instead of red or the legs grey instead of yellow. How could I not tell the difference?)

California Gull

And that at least one of these very distinct gull species was a very rare sighting: a European Common Mew Gull that is never seen in California. Well, we saw one :-)

Common Mew Gull

I guess I'll fever make a true birder. Seagulls are the true test of one. Not only will I need the ability to tell the different species apart but I'd also have to care enough in order to do so ...

Herring Gull

And maybe there's hope for me still. After all, I did learn to identify the Western Gull (and some other gulls) from all the rest.

Western Gull

Oystercatchers are much less confusing and much more amusing. Papa Quail photographed several of these beautiful shore birds that day and I liked best the one that was bathing in the brackish estuary water.

Black Oystercatcher

We spent a long and relaxing hour at that beach, enjoying the sun and the peace. At some point I saw a cormorant drying its wings on a far rock and tugged at Papa Quail's shirt. But he was tired by chasing all those gulls and shrugged me off claiming it was 'just a cormorant'. So I reached over him, grabbed his camera and photographed the bird myself. There.

'Just A Cormorant'

 The sun was getting lower and we struggled back to our feet and shook off the sand. With only one objection (little chika's) we agreed to go into the park for one last hike that day, just to get circulation going in our legs again. And so we headed back into Van Damme State Park, to hike the Fern Canyon.