On a recent late April morning, in the hazy half light of dawn, I found myself wearing rubber boots, burdened by several layers of clothing and a shovel, and marching awkwardly through soft sand of the fore dunes to the ocean. There were hundreds of us, bulky and burdened, in a surreal trudge toward the […]
Rees Hughes
Rees Hughes, editor of the Pacific Crest Trailside Reader, lives in Arcata.
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Remodeling Our Wheel Estate
Long ago as a baby-faced innocent, I first read Jack Kerouac’s classic On the Road as I hitchhiked my way around Australia. Too naive to fully appreciate the nuance of Kerouac’s message, I embraced the superficial, carefree love of the walkabout. I liked to think that I was one of Kerouac’s people “who are mad […]
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Coasting (Part 2)
Over the years I have walked as much of the Humboldt County Coast as possible. The extraordinary wild and windy Lost Coast is the equal of any coastal walk I have taken anywhere in the world. It combines solitude with stunning landscape and incredible intertidal shoreline. Not far behind is the Carruthers Cove to Skunk […]
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Coasting
The day before my friend Lars and I had planned to explore a section of the California Coastal Trail, a storm system swept through that was cold enough to blanket Kneeland, Liscom Hill and the entirety of the Coast Range with a thick coating of snow. Squalls buffeted our house into the early morning. I […]
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Star Struck
For the grand finale of a Sierra hiking trip this past August, we got up at 2:30 a.m. and left from Guitar Lake to summit Mt. Whitney for sunrise. There was a new moon that night, and the neon and incandescent civilization was far away. With no competing light in this rarified air more […]
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A Slow Trip Down the Avenue
Sometimes there are things in our lives that we pass by so often we forget just how special they are. Over the years my family has made the long drive down to the Bay Area enough that we have reduced the trip to a series of bathroom stops with a refueling in Willits. The […]
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A Room with a View
What is it about fire lookouts that gives them such an aura of romanticism? The isolation? The simplicity? Gary Snyder, who spent a couple of summers as a fire spotter high above the upper Skagit River in the North Cascades, celebrated the ascetic nature of the lookout: “fewer the artifacts, less the words slowly […]
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Reserving a Lookout
Six Rivers National Forest as well as the other available lookouts in southwestern Oregon and Northern California use ReserveAmerica (www.reserveamerica.com) for bookings and payment. Some national forest lookouts can also be booked by phone at 1-877-444-6777 or online through www.recreation.gov. Reservations must be made at least one day in advance, and can be made up […]
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Tide Pool Mysteries Revealed
“Tide pools contain mysterious worlds, where all the beauty of the sea is subtly suggested and portrayed in miniature.” — Rachel Carson Thanks to the summer solstice and the full moon, the sea will reveal often-hidden secrets in early June, with a string of nine “minus tides” that include the lowest tides of the year. […]
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Flower Power
For most of the year, I seem to be oblivious to the power of flowers to brighten up a room or a relationship. Just ask my wife, Amy. But for a couple of months, about the time winter limps on toward the southern hemisphere and spring begins to assert herself (yes, I do think […]
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Meet the Flowers
From May 4-6, the Spring Wildflower Show will be sponsored by the California Native Plant Society. Held at the Manila Community Center, 1611 Peninsula Drive, it is a free event with exhibits and displays of hundreds of species of flowers, demonstrations on gardening, edible and medicinal plants, rare plants, invasive plants, Native American traditions, native […]
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A Walk on the Wild Side (of 101)
Let me admit my bias up front. It is a shame that the railroad right-of-way between Arcata and Eureka is sitting virtually unused, a public asset that is slowly decaying, a unique resource that could serve as the foundation for a wonderful, multipurpose trail. Unfortunately my perspective doesn’t seem to hold enough high cards when […]