Fort Bragg & The Ecological Staircase

We are just 3 miles north of Fort Bragg at MacKerricher State Park. There is a very large, freshly painted whale skeleton at the entrance, and this past weekend was the Fort Bragg Whale Festival. Unfortunately, we have yet to see any whales on our coastal adventure. The ocean is full of white-capped waves, making it impossible to see any spouts.

But we did see a local comedian, Stu Stuart (Yes, the guy has two first names!) perform at the local pub - North Coast Brewing Company, so we had a few laughs and shared (yes, shared!) an Old Rasputin X Imperial Stout - very yummy! Tim - we promised we'd try a variety of beverages on this road trip - so we tip this glass to you, my friend!

Mark Ruedrich, local brewer, made this beer in the tradition of the 18th-century English brewers who made imperial stouts for the Russian ruler Catherine the Great. She was so taken with this kind of beer she had the beer made in England and shipped over, or so the legend goes.



From MacKerricher State Park, we biked into Fort Bragg via the Ten Mile Trail (Note: This trail is also known as The Old Haul Road - named for the logs that were hauled along it to the local mill). Funny thing... The Ten Mile Trail got its name not for its length (it's only 3 miles one-way), but because it ends at the Ten Mile River. Hey - at least it sounds like we traveled quite a distance! And get this, the Ten Mile River is so named because it's 10 miles north of the Noyo River. This made us start to wonder - is there even a fort at Fort Bragg? The world may never know (actually you can check out Wikipedia if you're interested).




It was an incredible ride - passing dunes and around the rims of 40 foot cliffs.


We discovered The Mendocino Cookie Company in the heart of Fort Bragg - our favorite one - The Backpacker Cookie!

We climbed down to Glass Beach. Interesting story about this small beach - back in 1949, it became a public dump! In 1967 the beach was cleaned up, but not all could be cleared away. Broken glass continues to wash up on the shore. It is maintained by California State Parks.

Fort Bragg is the largest city on the Mendocino County coast, but it was originally established as a military outpost to maintain order for the Mendocino Indian Reservation in the 1850's. We really like Fort Bragg. It is a classic blue-collar community with a relaxed spirit and is environmentally and politically conscious.

The community is currently protesting the Navy's proposal to expand their testing area, which currently is not in Mendocino County.

Right now, most training exercises and testing is in or around the Puget Sound. Ah-ha! Maybe that's why we didn't see much sea life while we lived in Washington...

The Navy admits there are adverse impacts on marine life, but they don't expect to kill any marine mammals.

What are they going to test? That's what community members want to know. From what we've heard, they plan on using the space for aerial drones (unmanned aircraft), experimental sonar buoys and underwater explosions. Scary thought - this could affect the annual whale migration...

It was interesting to hear locals discuss pros and cons.

Humboldt and Mendocino counties are well-known for their marijuana crop. It was also interesting to read an article in the paper titled Marijuana and the Teen Brain. Fascinating!

And here is a sticker commonly seen on cars and business doors protesting Bush's proposal to drill for oil in the northwest.



Our next stop was the Jughandle Creek National Reserve and climb the 5-mile loop Ecological Staircase. Unfortunatley, the park entrance ran out of self-guided tour pamphlets, but nonetheless, the hike was phenomenal. We decided to create our own narrative for the numbered sites.

We eventually landed in a Pygmy Forest, one of many in Mendocino County. I felt right at home amongst these tiny trees!
The trees don't (and can't) grow higher than 10 feet tall or much more than an inch thick.



These cute little trees are a great contrast to the skyscraper redwoods we've seen which, on average, grow 367 feet tall and 22 feet in diameter at the base!


We had originally planned on staying at Russian Gulch State Park, but the campgrounds were closed for the season - not sure what that was all about! So we drove to Van Damme State Park, which turned out to be a wonderful park.