Day 4: Overlooks and Mesmerizing Roads

Today we tackled a mix of things.  We are only here for a couple more days, so we wanted to squeeze in as much as possible.  To kick things off, we made the long drive back up into the park along Highway 101.  We headed off down Requa Road to wind our way up a 500 to 600 ft. hill to the Klamath River Overlook.  The neat thing about this location is that it offers one of the few, rare spots in the entire area where you can see miles in all directions.  Besides being able to see the beginning of the Coastal Trail to the north, one also has a magnificent view of the shoreline to the south.  From the parking lot at the peak, there is a little trail that heads off down the hill to an outward spot that sits closer to the ocean.  It was only a half-mile trek, but it was a 300 ft elevation change.  While the picture opportunity was pretty amazing out at this location, the walk back up was grueling to say the least.

After pausing for some snacks (and our breath) up in the parking lot, we headed back on our way.  Today we were bent on making it to the furthest northern reach of the park, the Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park.  Aside from offering another unique scenic drive and various hiking trails, this park was located east of Crescent City and was home to many beautiful rivers.  And of course, the park was the home a couple old growth stands, one of which we were aiming to see today.

What we didn't actually plan for was the road heading into and through the park.  We didn't take the scenic route via Howland Hill Road; rather, we followed 101 up through town and eventually hopped onto Highway 199.  While we were intending to stop at a roadside lot to jump onto the Stout Grove trail, we ended up missing the target entirely.  The highway, you see, was incredible.  It wound its way up through hills and into a beautiful section of redwood forest.  Quite literally, we were mesmerized.  It was similar to the deep, lush stand of forest we had hiked through two days prior, though we were driving through this one.  The road was wet and the air was damp.  The windshield was slowly collecting water, though it wasn't raining at all.  There was a light fog throughout the landscape, one that brought out the deepest of greens in the surrounding foliage.

Needless to say, we drove right through the last little town of Hiouchi and cruised down the road for miles before realizing our mistake.  Despite the loss of time, we didn't really complain with getting the opportunity to drive back through the forest.

I have to say, the trail (once we found it) didn't seem to be the greatest.  Initially it was very close to the highway, so for the first half mile you could hear cars and such going by.  After dropping down and ending up near the Smith River, the trail evolves into something completely new.  It takes on a different character, winding around the landscape overlooking the river.  There were various streams and downed trees here, adding a varied characteristic similar to that of the Tall Trees Trail from the day before.  It was beautiful and well worth the work.  The Stout Grove we came to at the end of the trail was serene in nature.  It was peaceful.  These trees, like all of their brethren we have encountered in the last few days, command an incredible presence.  When you walk among these giants, you just can't help but look up and strain your neck to look higher.  You feel them, without ever touching them.  There is no other way I can put it.

At the end of the day, my family brought me into Crescent City and treated me to dinner at a random hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant.  It was my 21st birthday, you see.  And, lo and behold, the food was incredible.  So if you ever find yourself in Crescent City, go find Los Compadres.  It doesn't look like much, but their food is wonderfully authentic and they offer a host of Mexican imported beer.  So go there.

Here is the link to the photo album for the day on my Facebook page: Day 4 photos

Day 3: Into the Fog

Much better start today.  I can't really express with words the feeling I get every day that we've been walking around these trees, but it is breathtaking.  Today, we were able to get a special access permit to the Tall Trees Grove up Bald Hills Road.  This is a grove that, prior to 2006, was the home to the world's tallest trees.  As they are a major attraction, they restrict access to only 50 visitors a day to prevent the complete trampling and destruction of these beautiful trees.  The restriction is well worth it: this grove of redwoods is absolutely stunning.

Of all of the places I have had the chance to travel to, many have been beautiful and spectacular, but very few have left me in utter awe and silence.  The Tall Trees Trail weaves its way through a mixed forest down a 600 ft. decline over a mile and a half to the Tall Trees Grove, a stand of redwoods as incredible as they are wondrous.  The traditional redwoods dominated the path and the actual trail, but there was a beautiful section of trail around the back end that was entirely unexpected.  Laying in the lowland between multiple hills, moisture from the fog clouds that rolled through often collected here, creating an incredibly moist, lush environment.  The trees around this back section were coated head to toe in moss; all sides were covered in a soft, green blanket of growth.  Not only that, but the moss-covered wonders also held various species of ferns on its branches.  They had plenty of moisture and moss in which to live and take root, so they all got along really well.  But indeed, it had to be one the most stunning things I've ever seen.

On our climb out of this enchanting landscape, we noticed that the air was becoming more humid.  While it had been a bit drier than the day before, today was still pretty humid and cool.  It wasn't until we reached the  trail head again and were driving back out down the road that we saw an overlook shot through some trees and witnessed and ocean of fog rolling through the hills.  After driving a bit further to the Redwood Creek Overlook, we witnessed one of the coolest sights:  A thick fog was rolling off of the Pacific over the hills and covering the landscape.

This shot was taken just as the sun had gone down in the late evening.  Crazy, isn't it?  Here is photo of the same area just that afternoon before the fog came in.

Anyway, that's it for me.  I think I'm going to try uploading all of my pictures to my Facebook account tomorrow, then linking the album over here.  By doing this, I figure anyone who wants to see more of my shots of these redwoods can do so.  That sounds pretty good, wouldn't you say?  Anyway, that's it for today.  More happening tomorrow, so see ya for now!

Here is the link to my photos for today: Day 3 photos

Day 2: Into the Forest

Starting off on a slow note (my fault, I slept in this morning), we headed down Highway 101 into the park.  Admission is free, as well as use of the trails also being free, so getting around was very easy.  After stopping at the first visitor's center to pick up a map of the trails, we headed down the road on one of the many scenic drives throughout the park.  I have to say, it was breathtaking.  These Redwoods are truly something to be seen.  In this region, most of the forest is old growth stands, so the forest is thick and the trees tall.  And when I say tall, I mean it.  For those of you unfamiliar to Redwoods, these trees are only found on this small stretch of coastline in northern California and into southern Oregon.  Averaging between 150 to 350 feet in height, they are by far the tallest trees on the planet and live for hundreds of years, though some have lived for over 2000 years.  This specific species of tree can trace its kind all the way back to the Jurassic Period over 150 million years ago.  As John Steinbeck recounts, author of Travels with Charley, "They are not like any trees we know.  They are ambassadors from another time."

To help give you some perspective, I want to share with you a picture of mine from the 6 mile hike we did later that day.  The forest was damp and cool, with the faint smell of the Pacific breeze mixing with the smell of earth and woods.  The sun was again shining brightly today, though under the canopy of these magnificent trees it seemed like a dark, cloudy day.  The air was pure and crisp; nothing like the city air of the city we just drove up from.  The biggest thing, though was the sense of awe it put you in.  It was like walking back in time to a long-forgotten era.  From fallen trees grew more life, and from the earth stood giants unlike anything on this earth today.  You feel small, almost insignificant to them.  They have stood here for many years, some have even lived to see the rise and fall of many empires in human history.  The oldest of them were sprouting when Jesus walked the earth.  They were incredible, to say the least.

Well, it seems to be getting late once again, so I will end my report here.  We plan to hit up some more trails tomorrow and for the next few days, so expect to hear more about the landscape and such in the future.  See ya!

Here is the link to my photos for today: Day 2 photos

Day 1: San Francisco

Didn't have too much time to sit and relax at the end of my week, so I apologize for not giving any updates.  Anyway, let me just jump right into this and explain my adventure thus far.  Woke up fairly early to catch a flight from Minneapolis to San Francisco, where we were greeted to wonderful scenery right off the bat.

Hell of a cityscape, eh?  Coming from Minnesota, it was wet, dark and dreary day.  35 degrees and rainy.  But here, well, it was a whole different story.  65 degrees and sunny as can be!  How neat is that?  ;D

Anyway, after landing we hopped in a rental car and made the long 5 hour drive upstate to a hotel outside of the Redwood National Park where we would be spending the next four days.  at that, I will leave the story, as it has really been a long day.  Adios for now!

Prepping for Spring Break

Today is day one of hell week.  We are fast approaching Spring Break here at Bemidji State University, which means every professor wants tests and papers to grade over break.  It happens to be a Monday today, though by this time one week from now I will be on the west coast of the United States.  But hey, this brings me to the point I wanted to bring up!  My next adventure will begin in San Francisco, California as I get a rare opportunity to travel with my family for a week.  So far, the plan is to spend a considerable amount of time up in the Redwood Forest along the Pacific coast, so you can expect a considerable amount of pictures to go along with the stories.  I wanted to try something new on this trip and actually update this page at least a few times over the course of the trip.  We will see how that goes.  Anyway, that's it for now.  Be ready for updates come the end of this week!  Chow.

Okpik Holiday Stay 2012-2013

The first adventure of the year I want to treat you to is one of my winter camping adventures this season.  For the last few years, I've been guiding winter camping trips through the Boy Scouts of America at the Northern Tier High Adventure Base in Ely, Minnesota.  I had my start there as a part-time gig while going to college in Ely, and have come back for weekends here and there ever since.  The season kicks off with Holiday Stay between Christmas and New Years.  This year, we ran the program from the 27th through the 1st, with Boy Scout crews coming from all over the country.
You may be wondering, "Camping?  In the winter?  Are you crazy?"  To answer all of the questions, yes.  Yes indeed.  As I like to tell my crews, crazy is one of the job requirements.  Anyway, I have to mention right off how awesome Northern Tier is in terms of quality and location.  First, the Charles Sommers base where the Okpik Winter Camping program is based out of has top of the line outfitting gear ("Okpik" is Inuit for "Snowy Owl," which is the symbol of the program).  We are the premier winter camping base for the BSA, so we know our stuff.  On top of that, the base itself is surrounded on all sides by the Superior National Forest, which has four million acres of beautiful forested landscape.  On top of that, the base is barely an eighth of a mile from the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, which has over a million acres of pristine wilderness land.  Needless to say, lands where trek with our scout crews are absolutely amazing.
Arriving crews spend the first night on base.  The next two or three nights, however, are spent out "on the ice." My crew actually spent three nights out, of which I am still proud.  Did I mention that my Holiday Stay crew was from Georgia?  Yes, this crew, by far, had to be one of the funnest groups I've ever taken out.
To start, I have to mention that most of these kids had never experienced real snow before.  They did say that the area they were from has had snow before, but only an inch or so at a time that melts in a day's time.  So, to put it truthfully, they were a crew of newbies.  By the end of our trip, however, I had molded them into winter warriors, but we will get back to that.  On top of their inexperience, most of the group had only ever experienced temperatures as low as the thirties.  Thus, the single-digit, and at times sub-zero temperatures, were entirely new to them.  And, as the final icing layer, Ely had just received a fresh snow cover, so we had a good six to eight inches of powder to work with.  Life was good.
Despite the warm southern temperatures they were used to, my crew adapted wonderfully.  We spent our first two nights on the far side of Moose Lake in the Boundary Waters with no issues whatsoever.  We spent a good portion of our time building snow shelters and learning about he wilderness at large.  As comical as it sounds, I tend to have a hard time keeping my crews up past 6:30 pm, as everyone is generally pooped.  We did, though, enough to do a bit of star-gazing both nights.  I want to mention also that it ended up being below zero every night we were out, and my guys slept though it wonderfully.  On the third day we packed up and trekked a few miles to make camp out on Flash Lake, but not before we did a bit of dogsledding!  Yep, Northern Tier actually offers a bit of dogsledding to all of its winter crews.  Not long exposure, just enough to get a good taste of it.  And, of course, to get the bragging rights.  Now, this third night out has become sort of legendary.  Before bed (and after making new snow shelters), I had my crew stay up long enough to watch a lunar-rise.  That is, we watched the moon come up over the horizon.  For anyone who hasn't done this before, I highly recommend you try to see one sometime.  It truly is a magical experience.  In the cold of the night, the lights we saw from the stars and the moon were as clear and as crisp as ever.  It was after bed that things went south.  Literally, the wind shifted completely and started blowing fiercely out of the north.  It was a cold arctic wind, one that brought the wind chill as low as negative twenty-two.  It wasn't until I woke up the next morning that I became aware of problems.  To start, everyone had placed tarps over their shelters to block the wind.  Well, that was before the wind shifted.  After getting up, I noticed that every shelter was blown apart (uplifted roofs and such) and that the big tent we set up on the lake actually became a wind tunnel.  Needless to say, nobody slept that night.  It was, by contrast, a stunningly beautiful morning.  But everyone was tired, groggy, and cold, but we toughed it out.  Why?  Because by this point they were winter warriors and I was their fearless leader. ;)  We packed up camp in less than an hour, then hiked back to base camp, eventually cooking our breakfast on the porch of their heated cabin.
In my experience guiding trips, one of the most rewarding feelings is when you have a group pull through some sort of tough situation.  In this case, that last morning was, by all means, a miserable experience.  But at the end of the day, we were sitting in the dining hall, warm, dry, and worn-out.  All of us were enjoying hot cocoa or coffee, smiling and laughing about everything.  And, being from Georgia, these guys were incredibly proud of themselves for overcoming the whole ordeal.  We had a blast, and they positively kicked ass.  And that, my friends, is something you simply can't buy with any amount of money.  That sort of fulfillment is why I love this job.  It's why I love outdoor education.

For any of you are interested in looking more into Northern Tier experience, check out their webpage at www.ntier.org.  Take it from someone who has had the opportunity to work there, these guys do a fantastic job.

Summer at Smitty's

I wasn't exactly sure how to begin this story, so I might as well start at the beginning.  Spring of 2012 was coming to an end and summer was just around the corner.  It had been a tough last semester at Vermilion, so I was having trouble finding work for the summer.  I had worked the previous summer up in Ely and had a blast doing it, so I had already settled on staying up another summer.  It was almost entirely out of the blue that a family friend happened to call me up and ask if I could come work for him.  Of course I jumped at this opportunity and ended up having one of the greatest summers of my life, but I have to tell you, the people are what really make this place special.
After returning from my backpacking trip with some fellow classmates (as you may recall from my previous story) I immediately moved into my little room on Smitty's property and began working the next morning.  Now, some of you may be wondering who or what Smitty's is.  You might even be wondering where the hell it is.  For your convenience, here's a map to see!
Smitty's on Snowbank is a resort located on Snowbank Lake on the northern edge of the Arrowhead region of Minnesota.  For anyone familiar to the area, it's on the Ely side of the of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, 30 - 40 minutes down the Fernberg (highway 169 heading east out of Ely) at the very end of a little dirt road named Snow Lodge Road.  I cannot stress enough at how wonderfully located this place is.  First, Smitty's is located on Snowbank Lake, a huge, beautiful lake in one of the most breathtaking landscapes in the continental U.S.  Dotted with hundreds of islands ranging in size from a couple feet across to over a mile across, Snowbank Lake by itself offers incredible scenery.  On top of that, the water clarity goes down over 15 feet.  And, of course, the fishing is stupendous.
Now, let me get to where I fall into this.  I worked here, from the spring all the way to August.  I know it was just one summer, but it was one fantastic summer at that.  Ron, Julie, and Denny are fantastic people to get to know.  The thing that struck me the most while I was here was just how close the guests were with these guys.  Most of them have been coming back to the resort for the last 10, 15, even 20 years.  Some have even been coming since they were kids, now bringing their own families along.
Anyway, enough of the antics.  What I really wanted to talk about were the fabulous adventures I had working at Smitty's.  And yes, I meant that.  FABULOUS adventures.  As I said above, the location of this place is fantastic.  Half of the lake itself is actually in the Boundary Waters, with various portages leading off to other lakes deeper in the wilderness.  I had the opportunity to camp on a few locations around the lake during the summer, from locations around the shore to locations on some of the bigger islands.  My favorite location, hinted to me by the man himself, Ron Schmidt, was a cedar grove on the southern tip of Harri's Island, the largest of islands on the lake.  Aside from being a majestic cedar grove and being awesome in its own right, this site has fantastic local for anyone who enjoys sunsets.  Let me describe this one to you:  It was the end of a long day at work and my day off was tomorrow, so I decided to pack my things and boat out to this cedar grove spot.  The wind was subsiding in the evening glow of the setting sun, as I proceeded to not set up a tent, but a hammock.  For me, location was everything.  To my delight, I found two sturdy trees along the shore, so after hanging it up I prepped for bed.  You may be thinking, "Bed?  It's summer!  Why go to bed before sundown?"  Again, it was long day of good, hard work.  I was ready to fall over.  As I lay down in my hammock, I recline back and take in the glow.  The sun is just starting to come down across the lake, barely touching the tops of the trees.  I lit up my pipe and slowly took a puff, instantly relaxing.  And then, absolute peace washed over me.  If not for just this evening, it was perfect.  I lay there, puffing my pipe with the sound of the water quietly lapping at the shore beside me, watching this moment go by.  The glow from the sun went to a deep orange, bathing the sky in hues of red, purple and pink while it tucked itself lower and lower beneath the treeline on the other side of the lake.  It was, by all accounts, breathtaking.
Now, I have a thousand more stories to tell about this place, but the last thing I want to say is that Ron will make a man out of you.  I'm not entirely sure just how hard he is on all his staff, but he would constantly slap me around and keep me guessing.  But I don't mean this in any negative manner.  No, this man used to be a teacher once upon a time, and teaching is something that I can see has never left him.  I talk more about him than the others I met up here because I generally worked with him more than anyone else, so I got to know him that much better.  Among other things, this is the guy that I will credit with really teaching me how to fish.  Never in my life have I had someone go fishing with just me and talk me through all of the weird little things fishermen are supposed to inherently know.  Again, city kid born and raised.  My mom grew up in St. Paul, my father in Guadalajara, Mexico, which is a city of over 7 million people.  So neither of them really knew about fishing.  So, Ron shaped me up in this regard.  On top of that, this summer was pretty hard on me.  I had still been going through after shocks of some hectic times in the spring, among them the ending of long-term relationship with my high school sweetheart.  As we learn in life, matters of the heart can make the deepest of wounds.  By default, these are the hardest wounds to heal.  Whether Ron or anyone else knew it at the time, I was still hurting.  It was rough.  But they helped.  Ron especially helped.  Whether it was on purpose or not, I still don't know.  But he slapped me around enough and built me back up so I could at least be me again.  For that, I could never thank him enough.

Anyway, for any of you wanting to check out this beautiful lake and the awesome resort I mentioned, check them out at www.smittys-on-snowbank.com.  Adios!