Dec 24, 2016.
I've got to mention this - the BestWestern Bayshore Inn at Eureka, CA has got to be one of the better BestWesterns in the country. The overall look and feel and the comfort level in the room were certainly aboveboard.
We Supercharged first thing in the morning ahead of our drive north to Redwood National Park. Picked up sandwiches at a family-owned cafe called Hole in the Wall, turned out to be pretty amazing and filling sandwiches.
The drive to the Redwood National Park visitor center was quite scenic.
A park ranger at the visitor center told us we could either do the Fern Canyon or the redwood hikes (but not both) given the limited amount of winter sunlight. We'd seen redwoods yesterday, so we picked Fern Canyon. Forget driving all the way to Fern Canyon, he said - looks like a landslide had forced a shutdown of the road to the canyon, and we had to hike 6 miles round trip instead. Game on.
Wasn't too long a drive - was only about 40 miles on 101N from our hotel, and 3 miles on a curvy one-lane road riddled with dents that forced us to go easy on the gas (does the term apply to electric vehicles?). But the scenes leading up to the parking lot were ones to behold.
We started the hike to Fern Canyon around 1.30pm. A part of the trail to the canyon had been closed off due to a recent landslide, so we ended up taking a parallel route by the beach.
When in doubt - follow the footsteps.
At long last, we saw this sign.
Absence of a sign post beyond this landmark meant we meandered on to a different trail and lost our way for a half hour, before doubling back. We finally followed a stream we had initially ignored to Fern Canyon.
I couldn't make it all the way to the end of the canyon however, I got cold feet. No no, literally cold feet. You see, while Hema was clad appropriately in boots for the hike that involved wading through streams at slightly above ankle-level, I was not. My hiking shoes were nowhere sufficient to keep the water out. My toes turned numb with the cold water (was 6ºC). Ended up removing my socks on our way back. While the sun made its way down, we hiked the 3 miles back to the car. We spotted a big elk bull on our drive back!
There was no way we could make the redwood drive today. That's therefore on the roster for tomorrow. We reached Crescent City a little after 6 pm. The Good Harvest Cafe looked like the only place that was open on account of places shutting down early on Christmas eve, so we dined there and checked into pitstop for the night.
More tomorrow.
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