Day 4: Mel's Birthday!

signs of a recent bear! fine print at the bottom: "a fed bear is a dead bear"
view from where you park to hike in to flint ridge camp
birthday dinner in the car! overlooking a beautiful foggy ocean.
elk across the 1 from the visitor center

beach that the redwoods national park visitor center is on

fallen down tree-this is the underside of the roots! along the buck creek trail
hiking in humbolt redwoods along the tall grove trail

beautiful sun up high in the lost coast as we left our camp spot.

Got up to beautiful sunny skies because we were above the clouds that were at sea level. On our drive out of the lost coast we saw a mountain lion just trottin down the road as we came around a corner. He was too quick to catch a photo of though. We headed to the avenue of the giants in humbolt redwoods s.p. which is ridiculous! So many redwoods and so many other trees- very dense! Almost immediately we saw a wild peacock on the side of the road just walkin along. We hiked buck creek trail and the tall grove loop too. Tall grove loop is really quick, .5 mile loop but it’s pretty awesome as you’re first introduction into redwoods. The buck creek trail is cool, as it’s along a creek the entire way, but the creek wasn’t flowing much while we were there. Maybe more in the spring? Then we drove north, stopping to get treats in Arcata, and then stopping at the redwoods national park visitor center! There were elk there to greet us too! Across the street is an area where they just hang out a lot I guess-probably about 20 of them just lounging around, eating and looking back at us. Then we went to our camp spot – flint ridge walk-in. Here you park on an ocean cliff, and hike a half mile into the camp. The camp is very secluded, but you can hear the waves down below, so that’s cool. There’s 11 sites? And its’ free, along with it being free to be in the redwoods park, which is awesome. There were signs saying a bear had been seen in the camp getting left out leftovers, so we made sure to pack everything up properly. When we pulled up to this spot also, we ran into a guy hiking the entire pacific coast trail! Go to Trailbums to check them out. He pointed out to us a bunch of grey whales down in the water. It was super foggy, but they were so close to shore you could still see them! It was awesome. Recap: I arranged for a mountain lion, peacock, elk, and whales to say hey to Mel for her birthday. we were so exhausted that night from teh day's activities that i don't think we even bothered making a fire; we just crashed.