Outdoors

Every kayaker needs a hometown run. That go-to river that you skate out of work a bit earlier than usual to paddle before it gets dark; a creek you can count on for fun when the rain starts to fall. Willow Creek is a standby run for North Coast kayakers, close enough to paddle a […]

Part Two of Dan the Faller Man’s story. Read Part One: My Worst Job In which Dan the Faller Man remembers his choker-setter days, Feb. 28, 2008 Dan’s week-long stint in the Headwaters Forest was just one of many part-time jobs he held outdoors and in the woods while a student at the College of […]

I met Dan DeArmond last summer on the property I hoped to subdivide and buy. My friend Dick and I were thinning trees on the entire parcel in preparation for the subdivision. We planned to improve the forest health by clearing around the largest healthiest trees, open up some areas around the homes for improved […]

Sara and I went abalone collecting with our friend Mike last summer, but haven’t gone since. If the weather and the sea were nicer I imagine we would have been hooked. I love to clam, especially on the East Coast, where the water is warm, the bottom is fine white sand easy to rake and […]

S o there we were, drinking beer in a stinky little white car at 11:30 on a Sunday morning, thinking about kayaking 15.8 miles down Ten Mile Creek into the South Fork Eel River. The rain pounded. We were in downtown Garberville waiting on our friend Ed, who was trying to get gas. The power […]

Last summer, I went out with my friend Elias Elias to count marbled murrelets, the small, endangered water bird that nests on old-growth tree limbs. We tented the night before in the Prairie Creek campground and got up at 4 a.m. to count the birds as they left the forest for their salty breakfast at […]

Winters are horrible back East and I used to dread them. Here in Humboldt, though, the first rains of fall bring out the mushrooms, and the rest of the season is an Easter egg hunt. I love to disappear into the damp green woods while the rest of the nation freezes. It’s a thrill to […]

When I moved to Humboldt County 15 years ago I spotted what I am convinced was a ringtailed cat crossing Samoa Boulevard past the Sierra Pacific Mill. The long, ringed, fluffy tail was unmistakable, though I have yet to verify this sighting. This is part of the mystery the Pacific dunes hold for me. Now, […]

Looking toward Pedrazzini Park from Cock Robin Island. Photos by Hank Sims. You think of the great Humboldt County outdoors and first you think of one of two things: deep dark redwood forests or stark, windswept beaches. Afterward, you think of the mountains, the oak-and-madrone scrub to our east and south. Then the bay. Dunes. […]