We had found the coast of California in Bodega Bay and then jutted back eastward to the mountains. Now we crossed the Sierras once again and found ourselves along the mighty Pacific in Humboldt County, CA. This is Redwood country! This is the land that time forgot...to some extent. For decades young people have come here to either disappear and live among the primeval forest, or perhaps also to find the “Green Triangle”.
The Green Triangle is a roughly measured area where, deep in the forest and up in the mountains, entrepreneurs, to coin a term, have been cultivating, cross-breeding, and harvesting high quality marijuana for decades...like since the late 1960’s. Some of the pioneers are now legendary characters in the annals of the marijuana industry. Some are still here even though the product is legal now. Some have gone “legit” while others still work on the fringes of society selling their harvest to folks in the east who arrive with suitcases of cash. This still goes on. Why? Mainly because the quality of their product is the highest. The buyers show up in motels in and around the coastal area here for their rendezvous, drop their cash with the grower and head back eastward.
Some young people who show here with designs on working in the fields up in the mountains with the illegal growers really do disappear. On bulletin boards in the towns you occasionally see pictures of a young person who has disappeared with pleas for information on their whereabouts. Some are found and a few are not. There is apparently a set of laws up in the mountains that cannot be violated. On certain roads and certain places if you show up as an outsider you will be greeted by men on ATVs with bandannas over their faces carrying firearms. You should turn around. As illegal and clandestine as the Green Triangle society is up there, it is still a society with rules and laws. You don’t break them.
Chinook RV Resort is a lovely little spot on the Klamath River about a mile upstream from its mouth where it spills out into the Pacific. It’s a famous area for salmon runs in the fall. It’s also Yurok Indian land. The Yurok are a very proud and still organized people who have lived in this area for many centuries. Along the beach where the Klamath meets the ocean they have a ceremonial field set up complete with redwood sweat lodges and other buildings hewn from wide, long redwood planks. The first day Diane and I visited the beach the tribe had a summer camp for their children under way. They were teaching them fishing with nets in the traditional fashion. The kids were sleeping out in the field under tents. We thought it was a fantastic thing that they were doing. We politely watched from a distance so as not to disturb the moment or intrude upon their tribal event. I’m sure they didn’t want us to turn it into a “Kodak Moment”.
This particular beach at the mouth of the Klamath is amazing. Driftwood of every shape imaginable has been tossed up on the sand there. The waves crash on the shore where the sand drops off steeply creating threatening rivers of riptide. No one is swimming here. The land juts upward steeply several hundred feet where redwoods take control of the forest. All along the last half mile of the river and out into the ocean surrounding its mouth Sea Lions and seals swim undisturbed. I’ve never seen such a display of sea mammals. Curiously, they venture within 20 to 30 yards sometimes and fix a gaze on us checking out our intentions. Then, they’ll dive back beneath the slippery current popping up for air a hundreds yards away. Once in a while one will surface with an eel in its mouth. The eels seem to be about 2 to 3 feet long for the most part.
There must be thousands of these eels here. Perhaps that’s another reason why people don’t swim here. However, I did see a young Yurok man catching them bare handed in an eddy of the river. I saw ospreys dive and pull them out of the water more than once. At one point an osprey was flying overhead with an eel in its talons and it dropped it accidentally at my feet. Its writhing and flopping about on the sand caused a commotion among the sea birds. I noticed that it had four holes, gills I suppose, in succession along its body starting near its mouth. I tried to pick it up but it was about as slippery as goose grease. No way was I going to keep it in my hands for very long. I didn’t like the feel of it anyway. Its fate was soon decided and it wasn’t pretty. Several birds swooped in and proceeded to peck it to pieces. Five minutes later each had a piece of eel in its mouth and off they happily flew, some to feed their young. Nature...real nature, is a ferocious thing sometimes.
This beach is known for its fishing. It is a highly sought after area during the salmon run in the fall. During the day, right before and after high tide, you can catch perch here. Typically a half dozen to a dozen dedicated souls trudge the half mile of sand to get to the mouth at those times. It seemed most of them were the same folks day after day. Most of them were from our own campsite at Chinook. Usually, they are rewarded. We took part in that ancient art ourselves many times during our stay here and the fish are fairly good to eat. Some of the folks at our campsite fish every single day. Every single day they come home to the camp with their reward. I don’t know how much fish a person can consume before they actually become that fish, but apparently these folks are trying to find out. This singular spot at the mouth fast became one of my most treasured spots I’ve ever visited. During our last visit here Diane and I caught two river otters playing together and grooming each other on the banks of the river near some trees that overhung the shore. We watched them for a good ten minutes before they discovered us. Even then they didn’t seem to mind us watching, so long as we understood it was their world and not ours.
With the ocean shore being so alive and fascinating and alluring, it is easy to forget the main reason we came here. It’s the redwoods! Ancient, mist-filled, fern engulfed, and wild flower framed, the forest endures here as it must have been for thousands of years. Every single sense of ours was burning with awareness when we would hike through the area. It’s how I dreamed it would be, only better. In your dreams you can’t smell the forest or really touch it or feel the mist waft over your face. You don’t feel the warm sun beaming through the rare holes in the forest canopy. You can’t smell the moist perfume of the redwood bark or feel the unpacked earth give under your feet.
Dash and Heidi reveled in the forest as well. Have you ever seen a dog smile? Have you ever seen a dog smile for hours on end while they run their legs off and stuff their noses with a million different odors? They love the forest as much as we do. It’s a toss-up as to whether they love the beach or the forest more. I suppose it’s a toss-up with us, too. We spent hours on end in various areas around Klamath discovering the redwood forest in all its complexities.
One morning I particularly remember Diane and I were hiking along the Coast Trail high above the ocean below. As we walked the first mile or so we began to see bear scat. First one pile over here, then another over there. It seemed every hundred yards or so we would see another. Even for amateur bear watchers like us we soon figured out there were a lot of bears in the area. Diane suggested, rightly, that we better turn around. That’s when we noticed that the entire area was festooned with blackberry bushes. The thing was, there were not many berries left on the bushes. Hmmm…. If it eats like a bear and poops like a bear...it must be a….right! We turned around right quick.
On another day we found an outfitter to rent us kayaks and we floated down a gorgeous river perhaps ten miles from its own mouth with the Pacific. Through the redwoods it coursed clear and purposeful, yet not overly challenging. We thought for sure we’d catch trout here or maybe even a rogue salmon, but there was no luck to be had that day. It didn’t matter. I could hardly fish for staring at the beauty, gape-jawed most of the time. My God, it was even more inspiring than I could have imagined. Even the rocks on the riverbed were pretty. Colored gems were everywhere it seemed. Wherever we seemed to go or visit in this area we were dazzled with the deep solemnity and beauty of the forest and the diadems of light sparkling on the water, be it ocean or river. The interplay and reliance of each aspect of life form on one another is so much more noticeable here. It’s so much more on a grand scale to witness, I suppose.
An aspect of this gypsy life we life that I probably don’t talk about enough is the people aspect, the relationships you form, albeit mostly short-termed. It was at Chinook that we met Dusty and Cindy Parsons and their little rescue companion, Dottie. As unpretentious a couple as you’ll ever meet. Dusty and Cindy are the genuine article. We bonded almost immediately. Turns out we share most of the same interests and enjoy mostly the same aspects of gypsy life. I noticed Dusty early on during our stay at Chinook. He was seemingly always helping other folks out with things they needed help with. He’d be the guy you could count on for help and advice. You can tell by simply looking at him and the way he holds himself that he has experienced a lot of living. You want to know this guy.
Cindy, on the other hand, is as bit more quiet and reserved. She notices everything around her. She sees what most people don’t. She is super aware of nature and light and how the two play together throughout the day. She has a heart of gold. She’s an accomplished artist. Her face glows radiantly when she is happy or sees something she likes. Both Cindy and Dusty have a great sense of humor to boot, laughing out loud often. Dusty and Cindy are true Human Beings in every good sense of the phrase. We loved hanging out with them and hoped our paths would cross again often down the road on our Vision Quest. How could they not? We are souls on the same path.