Redwoods National Park - Day 7

This morning our first stop in Redwoods National Park is at Ah Pah trail – only a quarter mile long. When Mark and I hike, if there’s anything to note, whichever of us is in front alerts the other: “Orchid.” “Mushroom.” “Thorns.”

This morning I lead the way and near the end I step over a banana pepper, which could only have come from someone’s lunch as it’s a tropical fruit, and I warn, “Pepper.”

The end of the trail is 50 feet further, and once there, we turn back, me leading yet. “Pepper,” I say again. Then Mark says to me, “It’s a slug.” I turn and look and sure enough, the pepper has horns. Mark's aiming the camera at it when I see another one further behind him on the edge of the trail. Mark gets a piece of bark and scoops the slug up and carries it over to be in the picture with the first one. It curls up, retracting its horns, but within a minute of Mark putting it down, it uncurls, and Mark gets his shot. We watch them a few seconds, struggling in opposite directions.

As we walk away, Mark says, “Those two probably spent all day yesterday trying to get away from each other.”

Back almost to the trail beginning, we encounter another couple starting the hike. We tell them about the slugs, but they don’t understand. They are French—or French Canadian. On the trusty digital camera, Mark brings up the picture he just took of the two banana pepper impersonators, and we indicate to the couple that the slugs are at the end of the short trail. Mark, who barely traveled out of the tri-state before we met, thought that little communication between the English and the French was pretty neat. (It made me think of how Lewis and Clark and the Corp of Discovery got along so well communicating with the Indians on their amazing journey out to the Pacific. Fort Clatsop, the Lewis & Clark encampment, is to be our final National Monument this trip.)

Redwoods National Park is not short on trails, and I decide that we should take the very next one south, the Ossagon Trail, simply because it leads through four separate ecosystems: forest, prairie, dune, and ocean.

We start through the forest on cushy, level land, and we see the biggest clovers we’ve ever seen!
The intro tape we saw at the Visitor Center yesterday informed us that the pinecone from a redwood, the tallest tree in the world, is the size of an olive. Based on the how big the trees are, we think it should be about the size of a cow.

Further along the easy trail, I spot a red frog. He shyly hops into the big clover. Then I see another one! And Mark spies a newt! He blends in so well with the sticks.

The first three quarters of a mile lead through the forest, but then the trail drops steeply for nearly another mile before leveling out to prairie on the way to the coast. Just before the trail opens up to the beach, we pass some wild blackberry bushes. Mark enjoys several berries (which looked like luscious redwood pinecones) before following me out to the dunes. When he’d caught up, he asked if I were going to eat any. “I don’t like blackberries. I’d eat them if I were desperate, but I don’t like them.”

We walk out to the upper beach, and I sit to empty sand from my shoe. Mark hikes onto the crest of the dune, before it slopes off to the ocean. We didn’t see a person the whole hike down, yet two fishermen stand at the shoreline tossing their lines into the sea. Their truck is parked on the beach.

The fog obstructs our view out to sea so with not much to see, we turn back after a short rest.

Remembering how steep the trail is and having my stomach growl and hearing Mark’s exclamations when he popped a sweet, juicy berry, I decide I am near desperate. At the berry patch we select the plumpest blackberries within easy reach. Mark laments that we don’t have a bucket. As he picks berries from the bush, he sees a bright green, little frog that seems less shy than the red ones I saw in the forest.

To me, the berries are more texture than taste, but I make it up the trail and back to the car (and water) without complaint from a hungry tummy or a parched throat.

We stay in the park until early afternoon, sticking with easy trails since we're worn out from the climb up Ossagon Trail. At Elk Meadow we picnic and hike to a waterfall before returning to Oregon. Redwoods National Park is one of my favorites.