Tuesday, June 28, 2011

June 27 - Hiking Prairie Creek State Park

It was a great day for hiking, bright sunshine, no wind and temps in the high teens.

We looked online for recommended hikes. The best was about 19 kilometers. Not ready for that length yet, we did a shorter one at almost 10 kilometers but the longest for us on this trip. It was a loop trail that started low, climbed 600 feet up a ridge, followed the ridge, climbed down and then follow a creek back, all the way surrounded by the giant redwoods. We are not fast and we stop and stare a lot so it took us about 4 1/2 hours.

Hiking in these trees is tough in that you want to spend the entire time staring upwards while walking on narrow root strewn path on the edge of a steep ridge.

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We see faces, animal shapes and crazy things staring back at us as we wander through the trail.  Words and pictures do not do justice to the sensation of how small we are compared to the size and stature of these trees.  We were just in awe the entire time.

Amazingly, once again we are alone on the trail until the last couple of kilometers when we encountered about 20 others doing other loops, most of which were on a guided tour led by a park ranger.

The pictures today are not great. The camera had a hard time with the bright sunshine up above and the dark shadows in the tree.

It was weird to see some tree that seemed like burned out hulks that you could walk inside and then look up and see a healthy tree.

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Our lunch spot.

Some interesting fungus.

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We came to one spot where a tree had recently fallen down and it looked like it literally exploded.

Gotta have one of these pictures.

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It was a long hike for us.  We were exhausted when we got back so we collapsed and had a nap before dinner.

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