Oregon Country Coast - The Fair, The Coast and Existentialism

Klamath River, CA
Elevation: 4,090 ft. 

I had never seen a play. Well, I suppose I have seen plays in grade school and certainly have dabbled in acting in college - but I had never seen a professional play. Driving into Ashland I was excited to see one of the Shakespearean plays the Oregon Shakespeare Festival was so known for. The play was Much Ado About Nothing, one I hadn’t read yet. I was surprised to see that it was done in a contemporary theme with the soldiers in modern combat attire and the actors and actresses in hip clothing. The actors playing Benedick and Beatrice were sassy, full of attitude and on point! I had never had so much fun at a play before. After the play we roamed about Ashland’s downtown. I had driven past the little town on I-5 so many times before without giving it a second thought but walking past its many storefronts and restaurants I was overcome with the feeling that I should live here. The mix of tourist shops, local foodie spots and wandering, eclectic, dreadlocked youths (homeless or hippie, never sure) made the little thespian town all the more quaint. Did I mention that they had a restaurant that, coming from the BBQ coast, slow cooked the best damn pulled pork I’ve had in a long long time? Hands down the meat cup I got from Home State BBQ set the tone for my 4th break!

After lunch and much meandering we met up with Kim and her friends Teresa and Ben for a free show at OSF’s Green Show stage. It was the Chickspeare Improve group and they were a riot! Taking suggestions from the audience for a play on love they had everyone laughing. One of them even got off stage and began kissing random women in the audience (she was playing the role of a man trying to see which woman would be her true love based on their kiss and she broke the 4th wall and started kissing the audience too), it was hilarious and it was also how I knew I wasn’t in Virginia anymore haha.

We spend the night at Teresa and Ben’s cozy home in Medford. Full of musical instruments, pine cones and all around adorable collected things their home reminded me of the home I want to eventually own. Their backyard was filled with native grasses and plants and their dog, Sandy, was the absolute best!

The next day it was off to food shop and then back to Klamath River to gear up for the rest of break. The mission was the Oregon Country Fair and then a journey down the southern coast. 

The fair was unlike anything I had ever experienced. The only fairs I have been to were small local ones as a child, big state fairs as an adult but never the Oregon Country Fair. in a few words it was like the naked bike ride met a renaissance festival and then crashed into a watered down Burning Man. The sprawling fair took place in the heart of a forest in Veneta, OR just west of Eugene. Vendors sold things ranging from leather belt pouches and wooden wares to edible plants and sustainable energy. I was blown away by the number of colorful costumes people wore, the number of dreadlocked folks (fight the good fight!) and the sheer amount of music. There was a main stage, a second stage and then buskers littered everywhere in between. And food. So much food going from Indian food to vegan BBQ! Unfortunately I was too stingy to pay for a lot of the options. So often were to portions small, the lines long and the prices high. I also didn’t buy much because there simply wasn’t anything that I needed and everything also seemed overpriced. Instead I people watched, listened to music and kept a tally of how many boobs vs. asians I saw. Yep. As wonderful and beautiful and adventurous the PNW has been so far I have to admit it isn’t very diverse. Save the city of Portland of course. Oh and that ratio was 13:8 with boobs being “pair of boobs”, of course. Towrads the end of the day we met up with our friend Matt who was volunteering at the Native Plant Society of Oregon booth. The booth featured edible plants and explained many of their everyday uses. Stinging Nettle even had a place. 

That night we headed westward and camped halfway between I-5 and the coast. Our first stop the next morning was Seal Rock, OR where I finally got to the sea. Walking along the cool, windy beach I dug my feet deeply and longingly into the wet sand. For too long now I have been craving the ocean. The hot, dry days out here in the mountains have so been wearing down my soul (as you know). I love the work I am doing, mostly, but I know more than ever now that I will settle near the sea.

Driving north towards Newport we hit the Oregon Coast Aquarium and the Rogue Ales brewery! The aquarium was the perfect place to start our trip down the coast. It was filled with animals and displays pertinent to the tide pools and beaches we would eventually see. The aviary was filled with coastal birds that reminded me of my cousin Amanda and all of her work she’s been doing with them. I’m not much of a bird person but hiking with her and Khem and learning about the coastal species along the shores have been so interesting to me (a possible future job perhaps). 

Rogue Ales has to be, currently, my favorite Oregon brewery. Their beers are always so imaginative and full of flavor. Their artwork is reminiscent of the work of Shepard Fairey and it’s obvious that they are a brewery serious about brewing quality beers as they are serious about having fun. Did I mention their parking lot is always filled with big rigs?

Next we hit the road and gunned it south. Our fist stop was Cape Perpetua where we hiked down to the coast and through tide pools. The hike was the perfect mix of well-maintained trail, aromatic conifers and salty ocean air. God am I dreading work tomorrow. 

Leaning down close to an evaporated pool of sea salt I angled my camera low to the ground. My hopes was to capture an out of this world macro landscape. The rim of the pool becoming the distant ridges of some forlorn planet of slat and rock. The distant blues of the sky painting its clouds as the sky of this forgotten Interstellar-esque planet. 

Stomachs grumbling we headed further south. Sunlight was starting to wane and we still needed to find camping. The mission was to be as far south as Coos Bay (the middle point of the southen half of the coast) by nightfall. Stopping in the cozy seaside town of Florence we were greeted by the smell of coffee, waffle cones and seafood.

On the road again we headed south. The sunset was quickly blotted out by stormy clouds. As we passed ATV-filled campsite to ATV-filled campsite we quickly realized that the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area was just that. It wasn’t the pristine dunes of northern Minnesota and Michigan that Eleanor and I remembered. As we approached Northbend, OR we hit a fog bank. It swallowed the trees and the shore and it painted the world a cloudy, forlorn white that I had always associated with the PNW.

Running out of battery so I will have to speed this up, damn the gods for not placing an outlet on this porch. We camped at Eel Creek Campground. At a pricey $20 we were reluctant but it was better than the local KOA or Walmart’s parking lot. We discovered the next morning that it was the trailhead to a 3 mile roundtrip hike to the shore over the dunes the coast were named after. I ran into a guy in the bathroom the night before who described the hike as simply, Tatooine. And Tatooine it was.

As far as the eye could see the sand sprawled endlessly away. In the distance only a faint line of trees could be seen, a long hike lay between us and the cold, sweet ocean. Hiking on sand. It’s hard but something everyone should do. Cool to the touch, it broke away underneath our feet testing the strength of our thighs and knees with each step. After what seemed an eternity the sand broke away to reveal the edge of the forest. Their a well-worn path led through the trees to a boardwalk.

Which then opened up to a coastal shrubland. The likes I’d never seen before.

The ocean was sweet as ever it were. She greeted me with gently waves and a cooling breeze. Why ever did I forsake the gentle power of the ocean for such callous, malicous mountains? Like the Avett Brothers say, we all have worries to give to the sea. 

Travelling ever southward we took a dead-end route down 540 to Shoreacres State Park. What we had hoped was to be on the scenic route that took us along the coast from Coos Bay to Bannon but seeing as how we had taken a wrong turn we decided to explore it anyways. Stomachs rumbling we grabbed a bag of nuts and explored the old estate. But first, here is a rock o’ sea lions. 

The old estate was owned by a very unfortunate Mr. Louis J. Simpson. Who essentially preserved the southern qoarter of the Oregon coast by buying up all the and over the course of his life. Why? Because he was a self-made man and loved the ocean. He built a lavish mansion for his wife for Christmas and she soon later died of illness and a wildfire razed the mansion and his gardens. Bad things happen indiscriminately my friends. Walking along the edge of his old grounds I had an eerie feeling of being in a place rich with history and loss. Through so many things the shore had remained in place. Steadfast and ever flowing the waves were here before him, they are here after him and they will be here long after me. The values we humans place on things and each other seem so small compared to the rest of the world. Us transient, self-important things. The whole notion of our egos are as pointless as war. Unimportant we have only succeeded in ruining this earth. If I don’t dedicate myself and my life to fighting the good fight then I will die a leach like the rest of this wretched world. Anyways. His gardens were magnificent. 

Our last stop before heading eastward for Medford was the South Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve. Estuaries, where the salty waters of the ocean mix and mingle with the fresh water of streams, have always been an interest to me. Since I first learned about it in Ecology 101 I have always been curious about learning more about the types of life that spring up in these diverse ecosystems. Following the trail down through the woods we wound closer and closer to the estuary. The vegetation transformed from coastal forest to a riparian forest rich with moisture loving plants like ferns and the skunk cabbage (one I had never heard of before).

The estuary itself was oddly low. Judging from the time I didn’t think it had to do with the normal tides. It was curious. 

On the road again we began the long drive east. We needed to reach Medford, resupply for the spike and then head to the cabins. But as the miles wore on the heavy weight of sleep began to pull at my eyelids, stronger than the grumbling pains of my stomach. Heart pounding I nodded awake and gripped Rhyhorn’s wheel tightly. Pulling into the small fishing town of Bandon, OR we parked at the Old Town and began looking for coffee and food. It would seem the pattern for small towns across america to close at 1600/1700 and we were out of luck. walking up and down the street we were met with stores either closed, too expensive or too sketch. I felt like this trash fish.

We ended up finding a little oyster shack on the boardwalk that served Americanos and chowder and we were on the road again. Tired but satisfied I started the engine and settled in for the long drive back. Turning onto 42S I thought of how good a warm shower, a hot meal and a soft bed would feel.

Till next time my dear friends,

Chris

Redwood National Park, 2nd Spike and learning to roll with the punches.

Portland, OR
Elevation: 1,073 ft.

First and foremost, I am alive. I have made it through the second spike of our field season and I must say that things are picking up in pace, difficulty, risk and temperature. But more on that all later, first a flashback to my last 6 days off…

We started the day early in anticipation of the drive. The destination was the coastal town of Arcata, CA and instead of the southwesterly winding road of highway 96 we thought it would be safer and quicker to take I-5 to the east southwards and then to cut across on highway 299 effectively making a box around northern California and our study site. The roundabout path granted us the chance to hit Yreka, Weed, Redding, Whiskeytown and Weaverville; towns we would not have likely ever visited. It also skirted us around Mt. Shasta which was a beautiful sight to drive towards. Snow-capped mountains have become a favorite sight of mine. 

From Klamath River to Arcata the temperature dropped at least 20 degrees causing us to quickly throw on layers before catching lunch at a quaint little Pho place. It’s the mild, misty summers of the coast that has convinced me that my future nest will be in a maritime town. I love the sun and the water and the fact that you can have an excuse to throw on a fleece most months of the year. After the late lunch we loaded up on camp foods at the local organic market, grabbed a few beers at a local brewhouse and gunned it for Gold Bluffs Beach. The next morning was cold and misty. We took our coffee and tea on a large piece of driftwood facing the chilly and endless Pacific. Our plan was to get to the Kuchel Visitor Center for maps and information and then to start our backpacking trip at the southern tip of the park. 

We parked Rhyhorn at the Redwood Creek Trailhead and hiked into the woods. The plan was to skirt the creek southward and to find a backcountry campsite along the gravel bars close to Tall Trees Grove 8 or so miles in. Along the way we passed an amazing variety of flora I had never seen. Endless ferns and towering Redwoods dominate the landscape of the small fog belt we hiked along. It is the uniqueness of this part of the California coast combined with the endemism of the Coastal Redwood that catalyzed the creation of the Redwood National and State Parks. To hike among these giants is to walk in a land successfully and gratefully preserved. The greatest thing about backcountry hiking is coming across random acts of humankind. Or rather, humanhumor.

There are, of course, trials to being so removed, or rather, to being so dependent on common human conventions and comforts that can push you out of your comfort zone. An intact bridge over a narrow drainage way for example.

Pushing onward we finally made camp a little past the Tall Trees Grove on a gravel bar at the junction of Tom McDonald Creek and Redwood Creek. There we set up camp, read, filtered water, ate and slept. The mild trail and the cool creek were welcome comforts compared to the harsh, rugged mountains of our field site and we slept like kings. The next morning we were welcomed by the sounds of birds and the drifting, coastal fog. 

The hike out was much quicker than the hike in. There was little else to see but stopping to bid farewell to trees we had passed on the way in. Once we got to Rhyhorn we resupplied on food, water and clean clothes and, bidding farewell to the trail, gunned it for Fern Canyon.

I will admit much of the motivation to backtrack to Fern Canyon was because of it’s role as a film location for Jurassic Park II. The unique canyon was right off the coast and held enough moisture to be home to countless Five-Fingered Fern. Hiking through its cold waters and staring up the walls and logs immersed me in such a primeval aura that I half expected a Velociraptor to come tearing around the corner. 

In an attempt to place ourselves more northward by the end of the day we hit the road after Fern Canyon and didn’t stop until we reached Crescent City. We didn’t expect the town to be so…tourist dependent as it was. Having just been in Fern Canyon we were surprised and uncomfortable being in the rundown, beach town. Small hotels and motels lined the main street and industrial buildings and dilapidated houses filled the rest of the space. The goal was to get information from the park headquarters located there but it was closed and instead we opted to have dinner at the local Thai restaurant. Though the owners were extremely kind and accommodating, what I had was less Drunken Noodle and more cheaply stir fried, day-old noodles with random leftover vegetables and too much spice thrown into it. Heading back down the coast we aimed for the Nickel Creek campground. It was ideal because it was along the coast and was an easy 1.5 mile hike from the parking lot, the caveat was that it was a parking lot notorious for being broken into - what can you do? We stopped at an overlook for some cell phone signal to call loved ones and to watch the sun set.

The next morning we walked along the beach and bid the Pacific farewell. The rest of the trip was going to be inland traveling northwards into Oregon. The mission was to get to Cave Junction by that night putting us in a good position for our rendezvous with the Medford Interagency Communication Center’s radio technician the next morning. We needed him to reprogram our Oregon-issued Forest Service radios to better work with the californian repeaters of the Klamath-Siskiyou Mountains we were working in. Along the way we stopped by pull-off in the Humbolt-Toiyabe National Forest to do a rainy last hike among the great Redwoods while Lilly got a much needed trail run in (runners, you know). It is truly amazing and humbling to have so many great trees made so accessible by roads and byways. It is amazing and frightening to me knowing that these giants were almost logged to the point of no return and has made me so grateful for all of the hard work conservationists have been doing these long years and years to come to save all endangered members of our world, charismatic or not. I knew in my gut that I was fighting a good fight that may, on the surface, seem hopeful and without reward but that there existed success stories like this and that no one can ever expect a success story if no one is fighting. 

Radios reprogrammed and returned we stinkily and starvingly hit up Medford REI for supplies and Food 4 Less for food and beer for the next work spike. Piling everything into Rhyhorn for the last time we made our way south back to our cabins and to our warm beds. It would be only the third night I’ve spent in a bed since May 21st. 

Now, back to the second spike. First off I have to apologize for this being such a long post, I haven’t had much signal or wifi access as of late and when those are within reach I haven’t had much energy for anything other than reading and sleeping. I have begun to find the glow of a screen tiring and painful and the endless world of smartphone apps (even instagram) to be overwhelming and stressful. Perhaps good changes? Anyways, back to the post.

The second spike of the field season was difficult for me for many reasons. First off we were now on our own. Rob and Alan from Smithsonian and OSU respectively had returned to their usual lives and it was now my teammates and I in charge of the field season. No longer did we have guides or supervisors to turn to when we had questions or to rely on for decision making. With Kristine gone from the team the leadership position fell to me and, not having lead a team formally before I was beginning to panic at the amount of detail that I no longer could let slip off my shoulders. It was a godsend and a grateful blessing that my team turned out to be understanding, supportive and extremely independent. Quickly we turned the decision making to the whole group and became a sort of consensus-based self-governing field crew. The great Klamath Field Crew of 2015 haha. Having received GPS and map coordinates from Alan we packed the trucks with supplies, food and maps and hit the road for the first assigned site of the spike. The destination was the 2002 Stanza Fire.

Ascending up the mountain the roads began to narrow and become unkept. Many places were blocked by downed trees and rocks and some parts had been burned away completely. Using the map and GPS we navigated the turns best we could. The goal was to get us as close as we could to the assigned polygon and to still be near a safe turnaround point, campsite and approach angle. Inevitably we took a wrong road and found ourselves making the scariest 20 point u-turn of our (my) life. With the whole team spotting me I nervously maneuvered the massive work truck against the edge of the drop off. After all was said and done I took my hat off, uttered “Fuck” and took a long piss off the mountain side. 

Once in the polygon we worked quickly to set up the plot running 50m and 30m tapes to form a large rectangle transected into 9 subplots. We set off on working through the protocols knowing that there wasn’t much room for questions and that we were in charge of the quality of the data now. The pressure of this being the only field season afforded by the grant for the study made it all the more imperative that we got this right. Then the thunder came. Being out here in fire country we needed to treat lightning seriously. Having come from the east coast where thunder and lightning roll in from the skies along with heavy rains I had no concept of “dry lightning”. Here in the dry mountains of the west lightning can come suddenly and numerously and without rain starting fires everywhere it lands. As the skies continued to boom the radio chatter began to increase. Lookout planes were being sent to survey the mountain sides and people were reporting their locations. We decided to call it off until tomorrow and made camp at a pull-off along the road. Parking the truck between the road and our circled tents we set off on taking an inventory of the supplies, reading and cooking dinner. The cold winds whipped at us atop that ridge so that we were in long-sleeves before long. 

As the sun set over the distant ridges we gathered close and sipped our beers and ate our warm lentils discussing books, past jobs and the anticipated trials of the rest of the spike. I have never worked in such beautiful and yet rugged mountains and gazing over at the burning sunset I knew that I was in a good place with good people.

The next day we finished the Stanza plot and quickly headed for the next location on our list and promptly finished that one as well. The mission then was to find the Norcross Campground, send two people and the truck back to Happy Camp to rendezvous with our new teammate Charles and to set up camp and dinner. But first I needed to cross this stream. 

If there is one thing to know about me it is that I like to be prepared. Prepared for a test, prepared for a job, hell, prepared for a vacation. I simply need to be prepared. I am ok with doing most any job no matter how unpleasant as long as I know ahead of time what I will be dealing with and can prepare accordingly. It’s why I am the most daring and clumsy when it comes to bushwacking. Trampling blindly I crush through brush, thorns and snags to take the shortest path but I do it with two pairs of socks, thick Carhartt jeans, knee high gaiters, long-sleeves, strong boots, leather gloves, a kool-tie around my neck, a buff around that and over my nose and mouth, a wool buff over my head and hair and a sun hat atop all of that. But no Chacos. That is why all the rest of the day and it’s responsibilities could wait. I needed to cross this stream. After walking up and down the bank several times the team decided the only way across was to either step carefully and surely on the barely exposed rocks or to walk barefoot across it. As my teammates began taking off their shoes and socks I looked desperately at Alan’s instructions (as I didn’t have a great track record of crossing streams barefoot) and it simply said, “cross the stream to the polygon”. The bastard. I took off my boots and gaiters and socks and rolled my thick Carhartts as high as I could. I secured the radio in my pack and began to cross. I rationalized that the worst case scenario would be that I slipped and broke my ankle and then drowned, so as long as I was able to get away without any of that happening I could really see the whole thing as a success. Stabilizing my first step I could already feel the weight of my swinging boots and heavy pack shifting me around. Holding my breath I lifted my other foot and gingerly stepped onto the next slippery, freezing rock. 

As it would turn out Norcross Campground was an exceptional and beautiful campground, likely due to the fact that the fire we were studying had destroyed it and it had been rebuilt. Mainly meant for horseman, it had a few large corals, wide open camp grounds and access to the nearby creek. Since our sites for the rest of the spike were in fires within driving and hiking distance from the campsite we decided to make it our home base for the next 8 days. 

As the week progressed the temperature began to rise. Quickly I was realizing that I couldn’t keep up my usual field uniform and would need to start making compromises between being clean and not getting heat stroke. The slopes and vegetation also began to worsen pushing many of us to our limits by the end of the 10 hour days. The girls had the right idea to take advantage of the frequent stream crossings and decided to hike the second half of the return trip a la undies. 

One of the perks of working in old fires are the views. We work surrounded by old snags many of which could kill us, but are absolutely beautiful. The sheer size of some of the pre-burn trees are astonishing. 

For the most part we were out of the field and back at camp by 4-5pm each day. A pattern began to form where we would start our days 0600 hours to beat the heat, get our plots done as fast as possible and return to camp to process trees collected for stem analysis whilst imbibing hot beer until dinner time. Because of our proximity to Elk Creek we also had the luxury of bathing each night this spike. Another thing about me is that I absolutely need to be clean. Working in the field and hiking and camping for 8 days on end I have started to develop techniques to beating the stink. Moslty baby wipes and Dr. Bronners to be honest. 

Each night was spent with good conversation, good food and good company. To think that we were being paid to work and live out here blew all of our minds. It seemed we all knew exactly how lucky and privileged we were to be chosen for the team and, even on the hardest days, we all agreed with the age old wildlife saying, “A bad day in the field is still better than a good day in the office”! 

Here’s to an amazing team and an amazing summer to come. I have already grown and learned so much from the land and the people I have come to call my home and friends. My perspectives on life is ever changing and my path is ever growing but like I said before, I know I am in a good place with good people. Until next spike and next time.

Chris