# My Odyssey



## Treeshepherd (Oct 21, 2014)

The goal was to travel on foot from my parents' home in Ben Lomond to to my house in Eureka, without cheating (ie. hitchhiking or using public transit). Partly, I suppose, I am inspired by the early 19th Century trailblazers like Jedediah Smith and Mountain Joe Walker. They trekked across and through and over unimaginable obstacles. They covered vast distances, much of that on foot. They made discoveries around every corner. They established routes that others would later use to their own benefit.

Jed Smith had brass balls, but got 29 of his 33 men killed (while two deserted) over the course of 3 years. Jed himself had his scalp ripped off by a bear, and was later killed by Mohave Indians. Mountain Joe Walker was a wilderness mystic, and had intuition, and lived to be an old man who retired in what is now called Walnut Creek, California. Obviously, the goal for my trip was to emulate Mountain Joe. 

We had our fantasy football draft party on August 30 of 2014, with lots of people and festivities. I didn’t stay up too late partying on the deck, but I didn’t sleep that well either. The walk to commence in mere hours weighed on my thoughts.

I got out in the morning sometime after 7, with Mom stuffing a little roll of duct tape in my pack, insisting that I might need it. A couple weeks later, the tape would prove itself most valuable.

I don’t believe I had ever walked from Ben Lomond to Boulder Creek before, despite growing up in the San Lorenzo Valley. This trip would be full of firsts, surprisingly, for a native Californian.

Along hwy 9 I passed many houses where I once had friends and many places that evoked memories from my teen years. I turned up Hwy 236 to Big Basin, with the grade becoming steeper. I passed a monk outside the monastery and imagined him saying that the journey of 400+ miles begins with a few thousand footsteps.

Big Basin was packed with Sunday tourists and I found myself weaving thru traffic on the trail. As the miles passed, the tourists waned, but so did any chance to find water, which is why I really had to push hard to get all the way to Waterman Gap trail camp. I did 23 miles that day on fresh legs, but my legs would pay for it in the morning.

At Waterman Trail Camp I was the only patron. So, I took the best spot, hanging my hammock in a circle of redwoods. The water there was some of the best I've tasted.


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## Moonglow (Oct 21, 2014)

Sounds delightful.....


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## Mr. H. (Oct 21, 2014)

Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.

-_*Oku no Hosomichi*_


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## Luddly Neddite (Oct 22, 2014)

You just made me remember how good the stream water in the Colorado mountains tasted when I was a kid. Cold and sweet.

At a camp, there was a sign that said not to drink the water. To persuade people to heed the sign, a ranger took us into a cave to show us where the water was coming from.

It was literally being filtered through several feet of old bat guano.

Your trip does sound wonderful.


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## Treeshepherd (Oct 22, 2014)

I concentrated on my posture, breathing, length of stride and pace. This was partly an effort to distract myself from a slightly strained knee, blistered toes, and the inevitable shoulder pain that results from wearing a heavy pack on the first days of any backpacking trip. I had five miles left of trail to reach Saratoga Gap. I was leaving the valley, climbing out of it, slowly but surely acquiring Skyline Ridge. Looking back from the headwaters of the San Lorenzo River, I could see clearly to the Monterey Bay.






Along Skyline Ridge there are numerous Open Space Preserves (O.S.P.s) which have recently benefitted from a ballot measure to fund their expansion and development. These include Saratoga Gap OSP, Long Ridge, Russian Ridge, Coal Creek, and Windy Hill Open Space Preserves, all of which offer trail alternatives for hikers and mountain bikers. The one issue for the thru-hiker is that none of these preserves allow camping. It’s all strictly sunrise to sunset. The reality of it was that my trip would have been impossible to accomplish legally. I wasn’t going to sleep in a hotel. I sought a total immersion experience. On most nights, I guerrilla camped.


I’ve gone feral these last two years, though I retain the ability to observe the trained/conditioned customs of civilization. For this trip I certainly saw myself as a sort of hybrid animal, seeking first any available wildlife corridors. I was not observing the wildlife. I was wildlife. I saw a rattlesnake on the trail as I approached Saratoga Gap. I brushed it aside with a heavy wooden staff that a bard had crafted for me. Walk softly, but carry a big stick. The snake reminded me to pay attention, and not drift off into daydreaming.


On that second night I slept by Alpine Lake, behind a druid’s rock outcropping surrounded by slender oaks. The great benefit of not being attached to a vehicle with a license plate number is that a wildman can stealth-camp in any park without being detected (until the rangers are replaced with bio-signature sensing drones, of course). The one possible flaw with that logic is that I went to bed each night very early, and people tell me that I snore like a chainsaw in dire need of a tune-up, which could have alerted a passerby to my location. As it happened, my extra-legal campsites were never detected over the course of more than 3 weeks and I left behind no trace of my ever having been there.

to be continued...


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## Treeshepherd (Oct 23, 2014)

I quit drinking coffee in mid-August, just to acclimate myself to a java-free existence. I brought no stove to boil water in the morning, one less thing to carry and hassle with.

I did bring some chocolate-covered acai berries, and I ate some of those in the morning, along with some jerky, dried mango, a handful of mixed nuts, and two tablets of Peruvian maca (_Lepidium meyenii_). I guzzled water, topping off my tank before refilling the Klean Kanteen at the faucet by the visitor's center.

My pack is a $10 yard sale purchase. My sleeping bag is a down mummy heirloom, nearly 50 years old, purchased during the 1960's at the original REI in Berkeley. It has duct tape patches to keep the feathers from escaping. I brought my beater iPhone 4 with a cracked screen, and a solar charged Powermonkey Explorer battery. I had a camo tarp, and a rain pancho, shorts, pants, a few shirts, and 6 pairs of socks. I used Vaseline to prevent chaffing, and had a better time of it wearing boxers than briefs.





The Platypus gravity water filtration system fits into a little sack and weighs virtually nothing. The Eagles' Nest Outfitters backpacking hammock stuffs into its own sack as well, compacting down into the shape of a super-burrito. I wore my Pliny the Elder hat to identify myself to other cult members who worship at the altar of Russian River Brewery. There, in the corner of the picture, you can see part of my enchanted heavy wooden staff, crafted by a high level bard.

The classic leather Adidas survived the entire journey.

Leaving Alpine lake, I was questioned in the parking lot by an OSP ranger. She was curious as to why I was carrying so much stuff. I just told her that I was headed for Skylonda, and I wouldn't be camping along the way, which was not a lie. Later, along the trail, I was questioned by another type of ranger, not a 'ranger' in the official county employee sense, but a 'ranger' in the fashion of a Dungeon and Dragons character class. I crossed paths with him along the mountain trail, where he was riding his mountain bike for the day. His appearance was much like my own, but more handsome. He looked Nordic, like myself, but was slightly taller, with better hair, and better teeth. I explained to him the nature of my quest, and he asked me if I'd ever done anything of the sort before. Not really. I've been on 10 day backpacks in the Sierra, and in the Trinity Alps, and the Marble Mountains Wilderness. This was different.

I power-walked along HWY 35 for 5 miles, heading to the little store at Skylonda. I listened to the cravings of my body. They told me to buy the fried chicken sandwich and a pint of tortellini from the deli, and six cans of Coors tallboys. The beer had to be in a can, and Coors was the best of my limited options. In the outdoor seating area, I consumed a rich meal of complex  carbohydrates.

That afternoon, I descended through Huddart County Park, down down down eastward into Silicon Valley. I found a park bathroom with hot water, and washed myself with a cloth. I finished my chicken sandwich and found a secluded redwood grove to string my hammock. The beers provided relief for my aching feet. The wind in the treetops rocked me to sleep.


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## boedicca (Oct 23, 2014)

What a great thread!   Thank you for posting your adventures.


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## Treeshepherd (Oct 24, 2014)

People have asked me if I became lonely on my trek, or bored by the monotony of walking all day long, day after day. I refer them to Emerson’s essay on the Oversoul;



_“We live in succession, in division, in parts, in particles. Meantime within man is the soul of the whole; the wise silence; the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related, the eternal ONE. And this deep power in which we exist and whose beatitude is all accessible to us, is not only self-sufficing and perfect in every hour, but the act of seeing and the thing seen, the seer and the spectacle, the subject and the object, are one. We see the world piece by piece, as the sun, the moon, the animal, the tree; but the whole, of which these are shining parts, is the soul.”_


It is an aspect of the Human Condition, especially with us moderns, to feel as exiles, to suffer from alienation, like castaways marooned far from home… survival without purpose. It is the simplest of prayers, to plead, “Take me in, take me back.” It is the first prayer of the druid, and when offered with contrition, and when coupled with practice, is invariably granted. A druid experiences the transmigration of soul, flowing in the four directions, from earth to the heavens, from the fern and tree, snake and mountain lion, rock and river, mountain and sea. To feel lonely, or to be bored, these are impossibilities.


I awoke to the sounds of crazy birds. It was raining madrone leaves and redwood needles. Just after dawn, I passed by two coyotes with healthy coats of the same red-brown color as the forest floor. The coyotes were departing for the hinterlands before the park became open to the public. The air was humid and the sky was heavy with clouds.


The skies had turned blue by the time I reached Pulgas Water Temple, erected in 1934 by the San Francisco Water Department to commemorate the completion of the Hetch Hetchy aqueduct. There at the terminus of the aqueduct, water from the distant peaks of the Sierra enters Crystal Springs Reservoir. 






From a circle of stairs I beckoned the arrival of mountain spirits and listened for their answer in the sound of many waters. I lit a stick of Nag Champa incense, and the last third of a spliff of ganja that a medicine man had given me at our annual fantasy football draft party. My prayers rode out on chariots of herbal smoke.


Just as I was leaving, I made a closer examination of the temple. Inscribed in the concrete, both around the base and upper facing, there is a verse of scripture from the Book of Isaiah. It is a statement and a promise and the reassurance of the Lord of Hosts claiming us for his own; “_I make waters in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert, as drink for my people_”.


As I hiked on I repeated those words aloud, over and over. The words sank in, along with the strength of the herbal medicine. I was so moved by that verse that I became a little paranoid that I might alarm the passing cyclists and joggers. I took the verse to heart and carried it with me throughout the entire trip.


Despite the drought, from that day onward, I found water just as soon as it was needed. Additionally, my thoughts never lacked for refreshment. And a current of soul never ceased to accompany me northward.


To be expertly grafted to a place, some small corner of the earth, and to so deeply belong there as to become native… to become indigenous, as it were… to possess a Homeland and to be possessed by it…
nothing is more sacred to the druid.


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## Treeshepherd (Oct 24, 2014)

I’d picked up a lot of encouragement at the water temple, and I leaned heavily upon that, because I can remember shortly thereafter being closed out in terms of wildman corridors. I remember at one point running as fast as I could for 1.5 miles underneath my backpack, along the left margin of a California freeway (280) and over a high freeway overpass, hoping that a CHP wouldn’t see me and write me a ticket (or worse, send me back south), and then sprinting up an embankment and scaling a barbed wire fence, accidentally slicing a gash in my Thermarest.

I rested under conifers, in a cushioned bed of pine needles, peeling a tangerine. The freeway no longer threatened me. I ate the usual other trail food, besides the orange. I was out of weed, but along the freeway I had found a crumpled pack of American Spirits with 7 untainted cigarettes left in the pack. If there was ever a time for a smoke, it was then.

After climbing over another barbed wire fence, I skidded down to the multi-use trail that parallels the reservoir. I dusted myself off and joined joggers and cyclists on the paved path. I was walking on the spine of the rift zone created by the San Andreas Fault.

I kept stumbling north along the fault, toward my birthplace in San Francisco.


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## XPostFacto (Oct 26, 2014)

Great story. Never stop hiking. It is good for the soul. Your greatest sacrifice was giving up coffee. Now, I only drink one cup a day since I am retired, but I couldn't think of starting any day without at least one cup of Joe.


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## Treeshepherd (Oct 27, 2014)

By some demon or angel, I was  coerced into North Pacifica where I asked for water at a Subway sandwich joint. The amiable associate told me to press the Minute Maid pink lemonade tab, and water would come out. I held my canteen underneath, and filled it with pink liquid. They must have not told the cashier that lemonade was back online. I thanked the guy and headed for the beach. 

From Longview Beach to Fort Funston I walked along the shore, past ethnic fisherman angling for perch. The wooden staff proved its worth, effectively distributing my weight between 3 points of contact on the sand. I climbed a brutal series of stairs and caught an inspirational view all the way across town to the Golden Gate Bridge towers. I pounded the rest of my lemonade and walked along trails to the Great Highway. 

San Francisco is one of the most congested cities in the US, but also has an  extraordinary number of parks. Therefore, it is a city of cyclists and walkers and runners. It is also a city of homeless men who mumble to themselves, so I very much looked the part. 

I pounded my staff along the sidewalk, summoning the ghosts of my ancestors who had lived and died in that city since the late 19th century. I stopped at Java Beach Cafe and ordered a roast beef sandwich with a salad, and a pint of Lagunitas IPA. I drank a couple more pints before the sandwich was eaten. 

I plugged in my phone, and called family to let them know where I was at. Then, I called a sage who I had seen at the fantasy football draft that weekend prior. 

I walked through Golden Gate park and buzzed the doorbell of the sage. The gate opened. He was home alone, with his wife visiting family in Marin. We retired to his library, where he reads books about the Crusades, and the Revolution, and the Civil War, and the World Wars of the 20th century. The sage is old now, past 70, and spends his days reading in pajamas. 

The sage had a water pipe, and some weed, and I had picked up a sixer of Ranier Ale, and we talked history and watched the first NFL game of 2014 between the Seahawks and Packers, eating BBQ flavored potato chips. 

I took a shower and used the washer and drier. I passed out in the guest room. I slept without dreaming in the city where I was born.


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## Treeshepherd (Oct 28, 2014)

Miwok Trail in foreground and distance;
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	





Priorities must be set when packing a backpack. Choices must be made in terms of taking certain items along, and leaving others behind. These choices are integral to framing the character of the journey. I carried no book for this trip, and no music, and no tent, and no bug repellent. I left my Peninsula trail map with the sage for him to give to his grandson who loves to hike.

The backpack can serve as an analogy.  The symbolism is helpful. In both a mental and spiritual sense, what are we choosing to pack along the way? Mentally, what are we packing with us to work, school or personal engagement? We take mental provisions, protections, and creative tools. Equally important, what do we choose to leave behind? As Lao Tzu remarked, “If you want knowledge, add something every day. If you want wisdom, remove something every day."

I’ve lost 23 pounds since mid-summer. My face looks thinner. I’m fitting into pairs of pants that I haven’t been able to wear in 2 years. But I ask myself, what mental and spiritual baggage did I toss over the side of Golden Gate Bridge on my way into Marin County? Wouldn’t that be the more significant and lasting addition-by-subtraction?

Crossing the bridge, I looked back toward the City by the Bay. I looked down over the side, and held onto my hat. I pressed forward on that foggy day, past a light sprinkling of tourists and a dedicated population of bicycle commuters, walking the pedestrian/cycle path along the span. The fog I welcomed, as I have pale skin and don't wear sunscreen. Massive cargo ships passed beneath. It’s a surprisingly long walk the other side (1.7 miles).

What exactly was it that began to melt away as I climbed into the Marin Headlands? Initially, I missed the trail I had planned to take, but simply took another. I missed the distant views of the bridge towers, but instead enjoyed a walk through a green valley. I picked up the Miwok Trail near its origin, rather than up on the ridge as I had planned. Spontaneously, I turned onto the Old Springs Trail and rejoined the Miwok in Tennessee Valley.

How different everything appeared from what my mind had conceived from maps. How varied my experiences as I moved through golden hills to redwood valleys to eucalyptus forest filled with butterflies. All along the way, there was ever Mt Tamalpais to the north.

I saw two coyotes, just as I had seen a pair in Huddart County Park. That time they had been on the move at dawn, near a picnic area.  This time they rested in the afternoon sun on a canyon side, beyond the reach of even a wildman.

Always in the sky above me, every single day, the turkey vultures circled. They are scavengers of carcasses. But, my knee issue had cleared up, and my feet were becoming calloused, and my legs were growing stronger. I was back off the road, and back on the trail where I could not fall prey to being hit by a delivery truck as the vultures would have preferred.


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## Roadrunner (Oct 28, 2014)

Any


Treeshepherd said:


> I concentrated on my posture, breathing, length of stride and pace. This was partly an effort to distract myself from a slightly strained knee, blistered toes, and the inevitable shoulder pain that results from wearing a heavy pack on the first days of any backpacking trip. I had five miles left of trail to reach Saratoga Gap. I was leaving the valley, climbing out of it, slowly but surely acquiring Skyline Ridge. Looking back from the headwaters of the San Lorenzo River, I could see clearly to the Monterey Bay.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Anyone who drinks living waters today is batshit crazy.


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## Treeshepherd (Oct 30, 2014)

I came up Redwood Creek to Muir Woods National Monument, looking and smelling like an animal. The weekend crowd was thick, with tourists visiting from all corners of the world, many of them couples, chatting and having a wonderful outing, pushing strollers, wearing Italian designer jeans or summer dresses from Main Street boutiques.
I walked up the Bootjack Trail, beyond the range of day hikers, until I came to a meadow above the canyon. Among great firs, and redwoods, and stone temples, I stretched my hammock between a madrone and an oak. It was a place all too familiar to a person from Northern California.





I ate, and then elevated my feet in the hammock, waiting for the sun to set and the waxing moon to rise. A river of fog poured over a western pass, but never reached me. My tarp and rain gear would remain buried in my pack for many days to come.
My aching feet kept me awake, long enough to hear an owl hooting for over an hour before his answer came. The owl had found his mate, and there were two sets of hootings, and then there was silence. My food bag hung from a half-halfheartedly strung ‘bear’ hang, effective enough to discourage a raccoon.

If there are any bears in Marin County, they are a rare anomaly. Food-jacking bears would become a modest concern in Mendocino County, and a prime concern in Southern Humboldt, lands that remained far to the north, seemingly as distant at the crisp constellations shining in the sky. The sky overhead was so clear that the Milky Way appeared as white grains behind the nearer stars.

I slept, waking a few times to note the migration of the stars, and to feel the spinning of the planet. At an elemental level, at a cellular level, at a molecular level, I could sense the spinning dance of covalent relationships.


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## Mr. H. (Oct 30, 2014)

I'm enjoying these.


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## Treeshepherd (Oct 31, 2014)

It was a tale told by the Miwok people that an evil witch dwelled upon the summit of Mt Tamalpais. Perhaps this was true. It is possible that an extremely dangerous, powerful and magical hag lived up there in a primitive hut, concocting potions and evil brews and ever looking down upon the low landers, casting curses and irrevocable blights upon any who might dare to approach the summit. It might also have been the case that the Miwok simply wanted to discourage outsiders from settling near there, sort of like an Old Man Jenkins trick from the Scooby Doo cartoons. The Miwok viewed themselves as ancestors of Coyote, and they were indeed master tricksters. 

As it were, the colonizers built a railroad track all the way up to the summit of Mt Tam. By the year 1910, only 670 Miwok remained in what is now known as Marin County, surviving upon alms and paltry rations. 
miwok.jpg image 

I dared not to attempt to reach the summit. I had a schedule to maintain, and daily mileage goals, and also I preferred to avoid the witch. But I climbed pretty darned far up that damned mountain, pausing regularly to catch my breath.

It was the coldest night of my entire journey. For the first time, I zipped myself inside my bag rather than merely draping it over. In the morning, the air was chilly, and I felt lazy. Eventually though, I had to pee. I unzipped my bag and leaned just a little too far to the side in my hammock. Perhaps it my mistake, or perhaps it was the curse of the Tamalpais Witch, but I fell out of the hammock into my own puddle of urine. The squirrels and Stellar's jays heckled me. Embarrassed, I abruptly went down to the creek to rinse off, and then packed up and headed toward Cataract Creek.


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## Treeshepherd (Nov 4, 2014)

A boisterous women’s hiking group (about 30 strong) gathered at the head of the Cataract Creek Trail. They were an even mixture of Baby Boomers and Gen X’s. I shifted into a higher gear and got out ahead of the mob. Just about a mile or two down the creek I stopped to filter some water. I double checked my trail map as the water trickled through the filter into my canteen.



I love to study maps, and I love it when I discover that the real country is never as I imagined it from studying the map. From the map, it appeared that I would be high and dry after leaving this spot, perhaps not to reach water again until late afternoon. Due to the drought and the season, Cataract Creek certainly didn’t have any cataracts, but was little more than a series of puddles.



I drank as much as I could and secured my full canteen to my pack just as the voices of the women approached. They would be continuing down the trail. I turned and crossed the Ray Murphy Bridge, and walked back up out of that watershed. I climbed from a cool forest strewn with acorns to an open ridge of dry grass and connected with the waning tail of the Coastal Trail. Dry and slick on the grass and gravel, and little more than an animal track, it ran along a contour just below the top of the ridge. I looked down to Stinson Beach (with 'trail' shown on the shoulder);







Almost suddenly, I entered a lush forest dominated by Old Growth firs. Water oozed from the ground, as if squeezed out by pressure inside the mountain, and many delicate plants lived there on the surface. I stepped over mud pockets to keep my Adidas dry.

I bounded along the remainder of the Coastal Trail through more lush forest, until I reached the Bolinas Ridge Trail, which runs 11 miles on almost a perfect South to North axis. This is a trail that has been used since humans first came to California. This was the ancient route from Marin to Sonoma. The Bolinas Ridge Trail began with some steep hot chaparral, but I soon re-entered the shade. I chewed on some turkey tail mushrooms that I found on rotting logs as I walked through ferns in a redwood forest. I walked on and on for many miles, taking a right turn down from the mountain until I reached Lagunitas Creek, and a salmon viewing area. Loud urbanites threw rocks into the water, and there wouldn’t be any fish viewing at that spot. I crossed the road and entered Samuel Taylor State Park, where I found a hiking and biking campground for $7 a night.

I met a bike traveler at the camp holding a book with a bearded philosopher on the cover. Upon my inquiry, he revealed that he was reading the complete works of Henry David Thoreau. We talked for a while, and shared a common passion for the American Transcendentalists. I used my staff to help me arise from a seat on the ground beside a redwood tree, and I bid my fellow a good day, but not before quothing him my favorite quote from Thoreau… “In wildness is the preservation of the world”.

Looking around, the camp seemed overcrowded. Car campers were cheating and hauling in stuff from the parking lot. As I was leaving the bike traveler asked, “So, this is your Walden?” I agreed, and walked away. I changed my mind a bit further down the trail. I have had many Waldens during former chapters of my life. I have had an Iliad or two. This was to be my Odyssey. I found a private spot by the creek on the edge of park property. At twilight I watched the fish jumping in Lagunitas Creek.


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## Treeshepherd (Nov 6, 2014)

I left Samuel Taylor State Park heading west alongside Sir Francis Drake Boulevard. I found the first ripe blackberries of the summer growing along the fences. I’ll eat one if it’s still a bit firm and touched with red. The extra shot of Vitamin-C was welcomed, and the fresh fruit included a tiny amount of insect protein as a bonus. I walked over rolling hills with the sun rising behind me and many cows greeted me warmly, perhaps of the opinion that I had come walking down the road to feed them. My road fed me into the valley and Highway 1, separated from Drake’s Cove by the hills of Point Reyes peninsula.

As the summer solstice approached in the year 1579, Francis Drake parked the _Golden Hind_ on a beach in Drake’s Cove. His scouting parties found the inland territory to be fair and bounteous and generous of provision. But the weather right along the coast during their layover never ceased to be oppressively foggy. Foul weather during winter is to be expected, but the summer fog along the North Coast of California can take a severe toll on the human psyche.

Drake’s expedition had abandoned two of its supply ships in South America. Storms parted the _Pelican _and the _Elizabeth_ near the Strait of Magellan, and the _Marigold_ went down to the deeps with its captain and all hands. _The Elizabeth_, having become separated and terrorized by the Cape Horn sailed back to England. Drake changed the name of his mother ship to _The Golden Hind_ following its watery baptism in the Strait. With 70 men under the firm command of Francis Drake, they pillaged gold, silver, goods and supplies from Spanish ships and towns all the way up the Pacific Coast. And then they rolled the _Golden Hind_ up onto its side on the beach at Drake’s Cove and worked to patch its battle wounds.

The men hunted and traded with the Coast Miwok. The natives had come down dancing and singing and presented Francis, the Pirate King, with a crown of bone and feathers. Drake left the native people with many boxes of porcelain plates that he had pilfered from the Spaniards. The Miwok provided the English with food and a basket of a particularly stoney type of tobacco. Incidentally, Drake was the first Englishman to set up an English tobacco trade with the Americas, and he personally got Sir Walter Raleigh addicted to the herb.

The Drake party reported that a constant breeze blows down the coast from north to south. This is normally true, but heading north for 23 days I never faced a headwind. The wind remained at my back the entire way. I should have set up a kayak taxi to ferry me from Tomales Bay to Lawson’s Landing, which would have made it practical to walk the entire length of Point Reyes National Seashore. Instead, I kicked off what would end up as a week long march up Highway 1. But that first day along the road the traffic was very light, with maybe two cars passing per minute. It was Sunday, which is a popular day for cyclists. The roadies whooshed past me in herds, and I caught five second snippets of their conversations.

Along Tomales Bay;





In Tomales I found a general store, but no tamales and no place to camp. I ate a burrito with four packets of hot sauce and drank a few beers and then walked another two or three miles. I scaled over a flimsy (those are the most technical) barbed wire fence and hung my hammock in a patch of willows which grew out from a spring like the tentacles of an octopus. I was nine days into my expedition with 14 days to go, but not nearly so far as to go as Drake had when he left California. With that one last ship filled with provisions and a basket of Miwok tobacco, Drake would set sail through the South Pacific and ultimately succeed in his quest to circumnavigate the globe.


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## Treeshepherd (Nov 7, 2014)

Sidebar: I can't edit my posts anymore. Must be a bug in the system. There are some misspellings and clunky sentences that I would change if I could. And I miscounted the days on my last post. That would have been the 8th day, with 15 days to go.


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## Treeshepherd (Nov 7, 2014)

I was downing a quart of Red Stripe at the oyster bar in Marshall, talking briefly to a fisherman. Most of my conversations were brief along the way as I happen to be a slow walker and couldn’t afford to remain idle for long. I set a minimum goal of 20 miles per day along the roadways, an all day affair at my pace. I took no days off to rest. Slow and steady wins the race, as the tortoise says.

I must have looked a little bit haggard, slumped over my chowder and over-priced beer at the oyster bar. The fisherman explained to me that the word ‘happiness’ is derived from the root ‘hap’, which is from an ancient Viking language, and that is where we get the word ‘happenstance’. In other words, happiness depends upon circumstance.

Joy is a moveable feast. Joy moves unblemished through all circumstances. That was the message that was delivered to me on the eighth day.

The ninth day began peacefully. I was happy. Often along the trip I couldn’t help but smile. I couldn’t help but feel privileged. I wore a semi-permanent grin. On this particular morning I was walking along a country side road as an alternative to Hwy 1. It was foggy, but not cold or windy. The blackberries were ripe and plentiful. The fragrance in the air alternated between eucalyptus and barnyard. A few ranchers drove past in trucks and ATVs to tend their cattle and sheep in the morning.

But returning to Highway 1 and walking from Valley Ford to Bodega Bay, I was not happy. I was unhappy. I had a decent bicycle lane to walk in, but the trucks and the cars made a constant noise. Motor homes and trucks and cars fed me a steady diet of exhaust fumes. That section is a main thoroughfare from both Petaluma and Santa Rosa to the coast. At one low point, I came to the conclusion that all drivers of internal combustion machines are terrorists. Perhaps worst among the terrorists were the Baby Boomer motorcyclists blaring the most cliché and obvious tunes from dashboard speakers, like Bruce Springsteen and ZZ Top, as if they had selected a rebel personality out of a catalogue.

I was out on the road, with my staff secured to the side of my pack. I found some red stretchy tape and tied it like a flag to the top of the staff. I found a long slap-strap, and it was an upgrade from my other hammock straps, and it was green and more camouflaged than the other straps I had been using. I had a good lunch in Bodega Bay which lifted my mood out of the gutter.

Late in the day, I found water at Wright’s Beach campground. Filling my canteen, a couple of campers asked where I was headed and offered some good words of encouragement. I happened upon the head of the Kortum Trail, and looked at the signboard map, and was pleased to discover that I could walk trails almost all the way to the banks of the Russian River. Through beach grass and stunted shrubs and over wooden footbridges, the trail winded north along the quiet bluffs. A badger crossed the path just ahead of me with beautiful face and tail markings. I hadn’t even been aware that badgers live in California- you learn something new every day.

There were no trees, but I fashioned hammock anchors in the crevices of a garden of stone so that I wouldn’t have to sleep on the ground. My Thermarest had been slashed on a fence and could no longer be used as an air cushion, and I preferred not to wake up to the sensation of the badger biting my face. So I spent the energy to rig the hammock and then wandered over to Sunset Boulders. Two decades prior I had visited that place as one of the stops on a rock climbing and surfing trip. Young climbers were sussing out the same technical problems that I had worked on so many years ago. The climbers departed with the setting of the sun, and I vanished into darkness amidst the boulders. 

web photo of Sunset Boulders;


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## Treeshepherd (Nov 11, 2014)

Little towns are distributed along California Hwy 1 North, separated from one another by 10 or 20 miles. They typically have a population of 200-500 people. Exceptions would be the town of Mendocino which boasts 900, and the bustling community of Gualala (1,700). The big city that I would reach toward the end of my road march is Fort Bragg with 7,000 people.

In the morning I crossed the Russian River. I was leaving the old colonial Spanish California and entering territory once colonized by the Russians. They say that the Russians brought communism to California. That’s always funny.

web photo Russian River crossing;










Jenner is one of my favorite little beach towns, situated overlooking the mouth of the river. I walked into a little hippy café. The bathrooms were at an unattended visitor center next door. I cleaned up a little and returned to the café. I sat down on a long bench and released my waist belt and chest clip. Inside, I went for the local eggs and bacon on pesto Focaccia bread with a sprout salad. They asked if I wanted coffee, and it smelled so good, but I had to stick with water. I plugged in my phone and went out to the wooden patio. I asked if they had wi-fi. They said no, Jenner only has lo-fi.

In every little town up and down the coast, there’s a local character. He’s kind of an eccentric, but he knows a lot of stories. The Jenner version of that guy arrived on foot, and at the same time an older Subaru pulled over onto the gravel with a paddleboard on the roof racks. The Jennerite pedestrian was an older guy wearing a felt hat. White whiskers grew from of his nostrils. His face was creased with laughing lines. He told me that the Russians used the river quite a bit. The harbor there was a little better than at Fort Ross. They built an overland trail that they used to haul cargo north to their headquarters. It’s a trail that has since disappeared in the hills above the Sonoma Coast. I would have to continue along the highway.

The Russians didn’t bring any women with them to their colonies in Alaska or California. They hired Aleuts to work for them as hunters. They employed native Californians to work as laborers around Fort Ross. Relative to the Spaniards, the Russians maintained peaceable business and social relationships with local peoples, many of whom converted to Russian Orthodoxy. With the consent of family in the motherland, and tribal leaders, many interracial marriages were consummated at Fort Ross. The offspring of these unions were called ‘Creoles’, and they soon made up a majority of children at the colony. 

The Subaru in the gravel parking spot belonged to a young woman with wet hair. She had ordered coffee through the window as was sitting on the bench next to my backpack, perhaps half-listening to the Jennerite pedestrian.

The California project was supposed to be a support base for Russian interests in Alaska, where the men were weary of dining on seals and rotisserie eagle. They needed some beets and cabbages to make borscht, and maybe some cows to make the sour cream to scoop on top of that borscht. They needed some potatoes to make vodka. They needed wheat to make rye bread. Typical Russian stuff. So, they established the colony at Fort Ross. But, they ended up buying a lot more vodka than they produced and the colony never turned a profit. The sea otters were quickly harvested, along with other fur-bearing creatures. Troubles in the motherland drew attention away from the Pacific. In 1842, John Sutter bought Fort Ross and the surrounding Russian properties, right before the California gold strike. The Czar sold Alaska in 1867, before the Klondike gold strike. This was all very perplexing to the Aleuts of Alaska and the local peoples of California who wondered by what legal authority that the Russians could sell the land.

Leaving the café I bid, “Farewell, Jennerites”.
The old storyteller corrected me, “That would be ‘De-Jennerites’.”
I hoisted my pack and nodded to the paddle boarder from the Subaru.
“Don’t pick me up.” I said. “I have to walk.”
“How many times do you need to tell everyone?” She quipped. And she passed me up about an hour later, without honking, and I saw her disappear around the bend. After that, climbing up and over the hills of the Sonoma Coast, I contemplated the beauty the Subaru woman’s Russian eyes.

I visited the graveyard at Fort Ross. I walked onward to Salt Point State Park. The Pacific maintained an even calm from the cliffs to the horizon. I slept near a head-high stone with a hole through the top of it. Through the hole in the stone a beam of light from the setting sun shone upon a tree by my camp.


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## Treeshepherd (Nov 17, 2014)

Maybe a dozen times I’ve driven the length of Highway 1 from San Francisco to Humboldt County. I’ve hitchhiked it about a half-dozen times. Walking it and watching the landscape pass by at 3mph, I found my home state to be unrecognizable. Salt Point State Park is a huge chunk of land, and I couldn’t remember ever noticing it before.

When you’re walking the Sonoma Coast, you pass a lot of cows. The cows don’t pay any attention to automobiles. To the cow, a car is just a blur that speeds by and makes background noise. They really don’t pay attention to bicycles either. When you’re walking by, the cows turn their heads and follow your progress as they chew on mouthfuls of grass.

Walking silently, you see a lot of wild animals. You surprise a lot of rabbits and deer. You hear every bird. You hear all the sea lions barking. Walking, you also see and smell the dead animals along the side of the road that you would never notice while driving. You see all the littered garbage. And different locations have different assortments of litter. Walking along Skyline Boulevard, for example, I saw fancy wine bottles. In the hood of South San Francisco, you find more fast food garbage. Up north, there are more bargain priced beer cans. Everywhere, you find cigarette butts. You get a real sense of the habits of drivers by the garbage they throw out the windows.

I had taken notice of the mileage markers along the road.  Sometimes there wasn’t even a sign, but just a number painted on the asphalt.  The markers told me how far I had walked on a given day, and how far I had left to go. Sometimes I intentionally ignored them and tried not to obsess over numbers. I had 23 days to either make my final destination, or just walk as far as I could manage within that time frame.

A short transit bus passed to and fro each day. The thought was tempting, to eliminate almost a week of time from my trip by riding the bus from the Marin Coast to Fort Bragg. “Why am I being a purist?” I asked myself.  Why did I make a seemingly arbitrary rule that I had to walk every step? Out on the road, you find a lot of time to doubt yourself.

I was drying out my sleeping bag and other wet stuff at Black Point. A surfer there offered me a Fuji apple and a big chunk of coffee cake. Little things like that really lighten your step and mood.

Fortunately, there were many miles of nature trails leading into Gualala and I was able to get off the road and contemplate the beautiful things. Past Gualala, I slept on the ground for the first time. I tunneled under the trees and made a fluffy bed of pine needles.

The next day was more walking along the road, being stared at by cows. The mileage markers had reset to zero as I passed from Sonoma County to Mendocino County. I found a real oasis at the market in Point Arena, and hung out briefly with some fellow travelers. But, most of the day was just spent alone with my thoughts and my doubts and mileage numbers swirling around inside my head.

A bicycle packer hailed me as he approached in the opposite direction. He said he had been meditating on the notion that he should give away some of his weed to a needy traveler. Sounded good to me. I had been out of weed for many days. After talking for a minute, a beautiful bike packer woman from France pulled over and asked for information. The campground at Manchester was full, she said, and she didn’t know where else to go. I told her where I had left my excellently detailed Sonoma map on the table at the market in Point Arena. The dude who gave me weed agreed to ride with her all the way to Gualala. It seemed karmic, that immediately following his generosity toward myself he hooked up with a gorgeous riding partner with silky chestnut hair, the body of an athlete and an alluring French accent.

I smoked a joint as I walked further north. All of a sudden I felt it coming on, the reason why I was doing this. With my footsteps I was stitching an unbroken thread upon the ground. I was re-experiencing my homeland in a continuous fashion, without abstraction or insulation. I was unifying it within my experience. That really meant something to me in that exact moment, and I ceased to doubt the purpose of my journey.


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## Treeshepherd (Nov 22, 2014)

Back in the 16th Century Sir Francis Drake called it the ‘New Albion’. That’s how he described the coast of Northern California, as if it were host to the Holy Grail… as if it were the mystical nucleus of the planet.

I can visualize the sails of Drake’s _Golden Hind_ pregnant with wind, and the crew of his last surviving ship soaking in the exquisite beauty of the onshore view. They would have experienced a bitter-sweet moment, with rending memories of friends who had died along the journey from England. They would have been the last survivors, the first Englishman to have witnessed Northern California in its virgin state.

I envy those people. I envy Jedediah Smith and Mountain Joe Walker. I envy people like Lewis and Clark. I can completely understand why Meriweather Lewis went insane upon returning to society. I understand. I admire Alexander MacKensie. Jim Bridger.
Edmond Hillary was the leader of the first expedition to summit Mt Everest, and he said, “I am a lucky man. I had a dream and it has come true.”

Me?  I was just walking along the paved road at this point. This is a selfie entitled, “At high noon a stranger walks into the town of Elk.”;






I bought three quarts of Pabst Blue Ribbon at the general store in the small town of Elk. I drank one of those bad riders across the street at the State Beach and then I hoisted my pack and got back to walking. I just kept walking north. I was walking alongside the road with a relatively gigantic pack, especially with the addition of the weight of 2 quarts of brew.

Some guy on the side of the road asked me if I wanted to smoke some kind buds. He had a Yuba bicycle with an extensive bike trailer.  He looked about my age, wearing a Greenpeace shirt, so I figured he was okay. He figured I was okay because I was walking the road and that’s just a weird thing to do.

Upon further inspection he had really bad teeth, like maybe he had a history with meth. And he was extremely drunk. But, we exchanged buds and smoked it up and I drank my second quart of Pabst. He was okay, until he told me that television is totally fake and that he’ll stab everyone in the neck that watches TV. I agreed with him, except for the neck stabbing part. I said yeah, everything on TV is fake, but just don’t stab anyone over it. He got into my face a little bit, just to test me, but I’d been hardened by the road and he was totally drunk and I just failed to exhibit any fear.

The weird drunk meth guy had an entire bike trailer full of booze, as if he’d just pulled off a heist from some guy’s bar. He handed me a dented plastic orange juice jug that he said was filled with a combination of Bombay Safire and Tangueray. Gin is my favorite substance, so I took him up on it. I took a shot and then a few more. Ultimately, we both had schedules to adhere to. We packed up and bailed. I watched him swerve on his bike and booze-filled trailer ahead of me, barely missing the path of a Honda Accord. But, he disappeared into the mists of Albion never to be seen again.

I walked another 10 miles and came upon the town of Albion in early evening. Up on the hill above the general store there was a gathering of hippies. I bought a tallboy of Mickeys Malt Liquor and joined the circle. They had an old boom box playing this sort of techno-rave music with the vocals asking repeatledy, “Do you remember when we were young?” That refrain perpetuated.

There was a hippy girl standing on tip toes, with one hand in the air and with raw scraps of linen over her breasts and groin singing repeatedly the soulful phrase, “I feel it coming on.” “I feel it coming on.”

I felt it coming on.

There was a Rastaman drumming on the congos, and a crazy toothless hippy syncopating on second drum along with the Rastaman.To this day, the sound has not left my memory.

I drank my beer and disappeared into the mists of Albion. I walked 23.5 miles that day.


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## Mr. H. (Nov 22, 2014)

_With my footsteps I was stitching an unbroken thread upon the ground. _

That's a good line.


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## Treeshepherd (Nov 24, 2014)

I woke up at dawn’s light in a temperate rainforest north of the town of Albion. I had draped my rain poncho over my down bag to keep the dew from soaking in. The usual routine ensued; eat some trail food; drink water; put Vaseline on my hip sores; address my foot issues with Neosporin, Band-Aid friction preventer, athletic tape or bandages as needed; find the least disgusting pair of socks; dig a hole with my wooden staff to poo in; etc.. The whole routine lasted 30 minutes once I got it dialed.



Down a hillside I waded through shoulder high ferns. I found an extremely sharp folding knife right there in the bike lane, marking the exact spot where I had plunged into the forest the night before. Weird, but definitely a blade upgrade from my Swiss Army knife.



I lit out on that 14th morning of my project, leaning forward toward the artsy town of Mendocino. Typical of most mornings, the pain in my legs and feet presented itself immediately. The pain subsided as I got my heart pumping, warming everything up with fresh blood. Conversely, my shoulders would start out refreshed and only become sore in the afternoons. By twilight, pretty much everything hurt. I’m not an athlete anymore. I’m just a middle aged druid.



I ate a can of sardines on a bench in the fancy town of Mendocino. I picked up some cell reception there and fired off a few texts and emails. The beach there is gorgeous, and so are the trails along the Mendocino Headlands. I walked north along side roads and trails and had a couple of brief interactions with hikers until I reached the bridge crossing at Russian Gulch. 







The Albion River, Navarro River, Little River, Big River, Noyo River, Elk Creek and dozens of other creeks are young watersheds pouring from young mountains. They cut deep channels to the sea. By California engineering standards, the coastal bridges of Mendocino County are ancient. They tend to be narrow, and most of them have a raised curb along one side to walk on. Invariably, the curb is very narrow and the concrete railing barely exceeds knee level. Over the edge, the view to the bottom can be over 200 feet. If I had to identify the most frightening facet of my walk, it would be the bridge crossings of Mendocino County.

The backpack gave me a high center of gravity. I’d step up on that bridge curb and remind myself to keep breathing, walking on tidbits of broken glass and stepping over spark plug wires or a hub cap or some other random piece of debris. I’d look down so I wouldn’t trip, and there was no escape from the view of the plunge. If a fixed RV or truck mirror were to glance off my pack, I was going overboard. I was going airborne. My life completely depended on someone other than myself. At those moments there isn’t anything you can do but try to have confidence in your fellow man.

I found flat grassy strips along Highway 1 where there should have been a trail. I even found designated trails where the grass had been mowed, but the ‘trail’ was still lumpy and awkward-going as no people had worn a track into the earth. There were quite a few places where there could have been a user-friendly wildman corridor, but for lack of use was not. I stomped through many of these green strips. They tended to yield droops of ripe blackberries. Whether it was to catch a break from road traffic, or to feast on berries, I was inadvertently getting the trail started.



Travelling at 3mp gives a person time to think. Sometimes I’d invent rap lyrics. Sometimes I’d try to build a poem. 


Every day there’s turkey vultures
in the sky swirling.
I hope that they’re still just
a little bit early.
I’m tromping out a trail on the
side of the road.
I slept by a creek
in an alder grove.
I slept by the sea on a
bed of pine needles.
I slept by a rock with
an equinox keyhole.
Every day there’s turkey vultures
up in the sky.
But I think that they’re here
a little bit early.
Tromping out a trail on the
side of the road.
Just a couple more days until
I reach the Lost Coast. 





mendo coast


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## koshergrl (Nov 24, 2014)

So if you hike 24/7...where does your food come from?

Do you have a family that is being supported, or are they on the dole?


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## Treeshepherd (Nov 25, 2014)

koshergrl said:


> So if you hike 24/7...where does your food come from?
> 
> Do you have a family that is being supported, or are they on the dole?



If there's any further interest, I'll address comments and questions after I've finished. I've got about 8 days left of my trip to journal.


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## koshergrl (Nov 25, 2014)

Those are valid questions. You are going on about walking in the steps of early 19th Century trailblazers like Jedediah Smith and Mountain Joe Walker...so this begs the question...

who foots the bill for your food? Somebody has to. Maybe you're independently wealthy, or have a benefactor?


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## Treeshepherd (Nov 25, 2014)

I work in the outdoor sports industry. I took the month of September off. The whole trip cost me $400.00, mostly for food and beer. I'm not wealthy, but I'm not on any form of welfare either. 

Hope that answers your questions. I just don't want to clutter things up with sidebars until I'm done journaling.


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## Treeshepherd (Nov 26, 2014)

I came through Fort Bragg in the late afternoon. Among other things I bought two rolls of summer sausage, more cheese, more nuts, and more dried fruit. My pack had become delightfully light, and now it was back to being fully weighted. Safeway had a 3 lb. tub of potato salad on sale for $5. I ate 2.5 lbs. of that until I just couldn’t continue. I went to The Outdoor Store and bought a Lost Coast map. Maybe it was because my brain was all doped up on potato salad, but I forgot to buy a bear canister.

There’s a wonderful foot path heading north from Fort Bragg through MacKerricher State Park. I slept in a forest of stunted pines along the bluffs. In the morning, I followed the trail until it ended at a long beach. I figured I’d just head slightly Northeast to return to Highway 1. I crossed a fen and wandered in the dunes for two hours. The way was shut. Only the Great Druid himself could have parted the brambles and willows of Inglenook Creek. 








I’d taken a wrong turn somewhere and spent a considerable amount of energy getting back on track. Once I did, it was a ten mile walk to Westport. Motivated by the prospect of beer, I power marched along the highway cliffs. The Westport general store would be my last refuge before entering the roadless wilderness. I bought a pack of Anderson Valley Hop Ottin’ IPA and drank a couple out on the deck. They had wi-fi, and an outdoor outlet to plug in my phone. I let my people know that I would be out of cell range for five days or more. 








Just up the road a woman wearing multiple hippy scarves and beads waved to me. Her name was Shakinah. She said she had waved to me earlier, but I had been in a walking trance and hadn’t noticed. She was picking blackberries. I shared a beer with her and we picked some berries together, and some old timers of Westport gazed at us with suspicion.

I slept at a State Beach campground that had been abandoned due to the road falling into the sea. There was some water in the pipes and I filled my canteen by bleeding a few ounces from each faucet. There were no trees. I strung my hammock between the beam of a locked bathroom and an empty trash dumpster that I had rolled into position. Through the night I could see the headlights of infrequent cars pass by along the highway, perhaps only one vehicle per hour. The fog rolled in. The nightscape was ghostly. I woke before dawn to listen for Marbled Murrelets returning from the sea, headed home to their mossy nests high up in ancient trees.


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## Treeshepherd (Nov 28, 2014)

I tend toward selfishness. I have a selfish nature. This whole trip was an act of selfishness. I could have spent the 23 days with my daughter (though the price tag would have been 1000% higher). I could have spent the 23 days working to fund her future college tuition. You can doubt yourself on the road, because there’s always a good reason to, especially if you’re me. But with every step I was closer to visiting my daughter, and I would arrive bearing stories. We texted back and forth while I was in cell range. I sent pictures of places. She would text me back, “I’ve never heard of that place.” I would text her back, “The map store called. They’ve never heard of you.” Westport was the last pocket of cellular service. I lost all bars on my iPhone north of there.

The Highway departed the coast heading toward an eastern pass. Even having driven this section of Hwy 1 more times than I can remember, I still underestimated the uphill battle. Driving it, you don’t feel the pain of climbing. It passes quickly and painlessly. Word to the wise hiker; don’t underestimate seven miles of hill climbing, especially when heavy equipment and massive trucks are being used to trim the trees along the side of the road. The road crews didn’t know what to do with me, and I didn’t really ask. I skirted by like a ground squirrel.

Pumping my arms, powering uphill, a little old brown Ford Ranger slowed down beside me. I could hear the vehicle pulling near. Either they were offering me a ride, or they wanted something. That was my initial thought. But, a millennial that resembled a young Keanu Reeves (albeit wearing glasses) handed me a bag of weed out the window. He said, “This will make the walk more interesting.” I thanked him, dorkily. I said something like, “Thanks and praises! Jah Guide and protect.”
A few miles later, I reached the waypost I had been efforting toward for the better part of a week. I reached Mendocino County Road 431.





It’s a dirt road, single lane, with so few turnouts that it remains a mystery to me how trucks and Jeeps can come and go. I walked six miles on 431 to Usal Beach, with brutal hill climbs, and the downhills were nearly as challenging as the uphills, but I was ecstatic to finally be off the Highway. Was it six miles? I don’t even remember.




[along road 431]


At Usal Beach I deployed my wooden staff as a tent post. I used my tarp for a tent. I ate dinner far from my camp. I wrapped my food bag in my rain poncho and buried it 3 feet under the sand. I saw two figures approaching me from the distance. They had recognized me from the road. They were the kids who gave me weed about 4 hours earlier. I say 'kids', because I'm almost 46 years old. The older (maybe 32 yrs old) guy with a red beard and a Viking braid asked me if I knew where I was, and if I knew that I was on the road to nowhere. I said, “I’m at Usal Beach. Fucking A!”

I high-fived them both. Redbeard said he would have picked me up if he knew I was headed to Usal. I explained that I was on a weird trip where I have to walk and can’t accept any rides. The Keanu Reeves kid replied, “That’s what I said.”

Redbeard handed me a ham and cheese sandwich, and a family-sized plastic pack of brownies. I explained that I had already buried my food. He said I should just eat it tonight. It wasn’t easy, but I choked all that food down, on top of my previous dinner. I ate it far away from my camp. I didn't want any crumbs around where I was sleeping. I’m glad I choked that food down. I needed every single one of those calories on the following day.

We smoked a Hindenburg together. I didn't organize the trip so I would meet family or friends along the way. Nonetheless, I had a welcoming party at Usal Beach.

Redbeard and Keanu departed, without a selfish bone in their bodies.They drove away on road 431.  I slept on the sand, half-listening for bears.


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## Treeshepherd (Dec 4, 2014)

I spent a month in Costa Rica, back in 1990 (before most of the tourist development) exploring the rainforest and cloud forest. I’ve extensively backpacked the Trinity, Marble Mountains and Siskiyou Wilderness Areas. I’ve spent a fair amount of time in the Sierra and Cascade Mountain Ranges. By any measure of comparison, Sinkyone Wilderness State Park is remote and untamed. It is difficult to access. The average rainfall is 80 inches per year, but that’s just the mean between extremes that can range from 40 inches to 120 or more. The winds in the Sinkyone can knock a grown man off his feet. It is a place that callously chooses winners and losers from among those who enter.

Leaving Usal Beach, the trailhead is difficult to find. The signage is minimal, except for the tsunami signs. “_Leaving Tsunami Hazard Zone_” – yeah, thanks, I’m climbing a steep hill. “_Entering Tsunami Hazard Zone_” – Yeah, I’m approaching the beach. Coulda figured that one out on my own. There must have been some sort of program to have people hike in tsunami signs to every coastal zone in California. But as far as actual trail markers go, you won’t find many in the Sinkyone, and that’s part of its appeal.

Climbing steeply into the wilderness, I began my first day of the Lost Coast Trail. The movement of the Pacific modestly adorned the silence of an ancient grove. I found a lost kingdom embodied with emerald ferns, golden maple and ruby mushrooms growing from the amber floor at the base of silvery grandmother trees.  Before the climbing had nearly slain my lungs, the forest canopy gave way to a sapphire sky and a broad overlook 1,000 feet above a turquoise ocean. The rest of the colors were accounted for in wildflowers and the butterflies perched upon them. The spout of a migrating grey whale puffed mist along the horizon. I lost myself somewhere in all of it.

The wilderness frequently intrudes upon the Lost Coast Trail, including incursions of poison oak branches. Fortunately I am immune to poison oak, as all druids are. Druid or not, it became essential to check for bloodsucking ticks which drop from branches onto unsuspecting mammals. In a variety of ways, the trail never relented, challenging me, tormenting me, and blowing my tiny little mind with successions of exquisite pain and ecstasy. My hike to Wheeler Beach on that first day was 11 miles, with almost two miles of elevation gain and loss. It was part battle, and part surrender.

I allowed some nettles to sting my arm, just to get a 100% positive plant ID, and I picked a bag of them for my dinner. I found a sea palm freshly detached from the rocks and washed up on the shore. I made my first fire of the entire trip in a stone ring at Wheeler Beach. Silly me… I had carried a little cooking pot and a bag of rice all this way from Santa Cruz County. I cooked the rice with my nettles and kelp on the fire rocks, adding chunks of summer sausage and a small package of seasoned Parmesan cheese powder. I ate dinner down by the edge of the sea, far from my makeshift tent. I buried my food bag just below the high tide line. The tracks of many wild mammals and birds made impressions in the sand. I followed my own tracks across the creek, back toward camp. I watched the sunset. I was as far from lost as I have ever been.

[wheeler beach taken with crappy iPhone]


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## Treeshepherd (Dec 5, 2014)

The Lost Coast is fickle. 

I had been spending much of the prior 18 months in drought-stricken Central and Southern California, and I had acquired a sense of complacency about the weather. But as I left Wheeler Beach, I sensed a change in the atmosphere. I noted the thickening of the clouds. 






I briefly cursed my fate, and then resigned myself to the inevitable exposure to a rainstorm. I could smell the negative ions in the air. A druid can smell the rain before it falls. When the sun is out, a druid gets burned. When it rains, a druid gets drenched. That's just how it has got to be. 

I met a group of five backpackers from England along the trail. They passed me in the opposite direction. They warned me to watch out for the elk. One of the Brits seemed to be stricken by PTSD from being terrorized by the creatures. "They don't like to be disturbed," he explained. The Great Harts were in rutting season, all hopped up on testosterone, and they would brook no disturbance of their harems. 

Sure enough, a few miles up the trail, a herd of elk rested in the rain. Rain tends to subdue warm blooded creatures. It simmers them down. The bull in charge of the situation allowed me to pass, but a bachelor faced off against me further up the trail. We shared a moment. He had great antlers which he pointed toward me. I had a great wooden staff which I waved in the air and smacked against the trees. A minute passed. The bachelor elk moved off the trail, and I humbly walked by.  





I walked a great distance, all the way to the Needle Rock Visitors Center. Just as I climbed the steps and reached the covered porch, sheets of rain pounded the earth.

The visitors center is primitive, with no electricity, and unfiltered water flowing from the outdoor (and indoor) faucet. The docent was absent. I waited under the covered porch for the rain to subside. It slowed to intermittent showers, and I hiked a few miles to the primitive campground at Jones Beach. I had no dry papers left to start a fire, but remembered something from a survival show I had seen on TV. Duct tape makes a great fire starter. I cut some duct tape into strips. I put a lighter to it and the duct tape strips blazed hot and started some skinny wet twigs on fire. Slowly, in the rain, I built that up into a roaring campfire. Upon the grill, I made dinner in my little cooking pot, and then I made a tea from freshly harvested nettles. I had no more rolling papers, so I made a pipe from the butt of a carrot and smoked a bowl of ganja. 

I strung my hammock in the trees and strung my tarp above that on a clothes line. I slept well that night in my cocoon. The constant patter of rain continued above and all around me. I remained dry and comfortable, and even overslept until late morning. Eventually, I awoke to witness the bachelor elk walking past my camp.  

I packed up in the rain, and what was kept dry overnight became wet that morning. I continued north, following the muddy tracks  and grape-sized droppings of the bachelor elk.


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## Treeshepherd (Dec 8, 2014)

[(web photo) Aerial view of Shelter Cove. Left: Black Sands Beach commences the sequel to the Lost Coast Trail ]





An 1849 party of eight miners are considered to be the first white men to travel by land along The Lost Coast. Among them was LK Wood of Missouri. He described the journey, "_Here commenced an expedition the marked and prominent features of which were constant and unmitigated toil, hardship, privation, and suffering. Before us, stretching as far as the eye could reach, lay mountains, high and rugged, deep valleys and difficult canyons, now filled with water by the recent heavy rains_." Soon after writing that, LK Wood had his shoulder eaten open and his hip dislocated by a grizzly bear. He miraculously survived.

The California Grizzly was a particularly enormous subspecies, especially along the coast due to a lack of need to hibernate during winter. Even relative to the subspecies (_Ursus arctos californicus)_ the Humboldt Grizz were especially burly. The first gold miners describe their monstrous roars bellowing down the canyons. The last grizzly in Humboldt was shot in 1868.

The Northwest of California is like the Australia of black bears. There used to be a program to relocate problem bears from Tahoe and Yosemite to Humboldt and Trinity County. The decedents of these exiled bears tend to be wily. Bears are not unlike people in the sense that some are crafty, some are smart, some are aggressive, some are just plain crazy, but most just keep to themselves and don’t cause any trouble. 

I think of black bears as being like gigantic raccoons, mostly just a threat to steal your food. They’re like pirates, and you can parlay if you give them your stuff. Back in the day, a grizzly bear would just walk up and eat you if you weren’t armed or if your powder was wet from the rains. When soaked, those 19th century rifles were as little use as my wooden staff. 

Anyway, I had forgotten to buy a bear canister in Fort Bragg. There would be no trees on the beach to hang a food sack, and climbing the sheer cliffs of the Kings Range would be beyond inconvenient. I had been perfecting my food-burying technique each night, eventually burying it just below the high tide so that the waters would wash away all trace of my diggings. The technique seemed solid. 

The rain caused boughs of conifer and shrubbery to bend over the trail. Brushing against the branches drenched me more than the rainfall itself. I wore my poncho over everything, to limited effect, causing me to sweat in the 100% humidity.
I used slimy boulders as stepping stones across the energized creek at Whale Gulch, and the trail rose abruptly through rain-laden ferns. The trail became like a brontosaurus spine climbing from tail toward head.

A chameleon lizard could have taken in a simultaneous view of the Pacific down below, and toward the distant and scattered greenhouses of homesteaders toward the east. I labored up the spine-like trail. Fortunately, the air was rich in fresh oxygen. Parts of the trail were extremely steep. Parts were both steep and muddy. I double-fisted my staff and used it like an oar, rowing myself uphill at 1 mile per hour. At some point I crossed an invisible line and passed into Humboldt County. At some point I reached the road, climbed more, and began my descent into Shelter Cove. Tumbling down the road, I lost every foot of elevation I had gained. A sign for the general store said, “Cool your brakes and wet your whistle”. I wet my whistle and headed to Black Sands Beach. Like spotlights, beams of summer sun broke through the clouds. I spread my things over bleached trunks of driftwood. My still-warm body generated fog like a dry ice machine. Waiting for my stuff to dry, I used the knife I had found near Albion to carve another Viking rune in my staff. 

Black Sands Beach;


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## Treeshepherd (Dec 9, 2014)

I heard two guys laughing as they walked down the beach. I hadn’t noticed them approaching. They must have viewed me as a madman. I had taken a morning plunge into the freezing-ass ocean to rinse out my pits. I had a 19 day beard growing and my hair had entered the preliminary phase of dreadlocks. I was shirtless and shivering, crouched down inside a sand pit digging frantically with my little cooking pot in search of my food. It took me an hour to find it. I would have to do a better job of marking and pacing off my future caches.

I had spent quite a bit of energy digging, but was relieved that I wouldn’t have to climb any hills that day. I was now in the Kings Range National Conservation Area, embarking upon the second part of the Lost Coast Trail. Much of this 25 mile hike would not follow a trail, exactly. Half of it is consists of a walk on the sand and rocks of a narrow ribbon of land below near-vertical cliffs.

From the wide and accommodating Black Sands Beach, the way narrowed and became increasing rocky. The tides had washed enormous amounts of kelp onshore. Across thick layers of slimy, squishy kelp I went, using my staff for balance, disturbing clouds of sand flies with every step. The rocky parts were difficult in my low-top basketball shoes. And my shoes were not effective at keeping out sand. My socks transformed into wet sandpaper. My feet blistered again, just after they had finally healing up. 

The multiple stream crossings were about as easy as it gets with the drought and the time of year. At other times, the stream crossings can be difficult. Every few miles a crystal clear stream flowed from a canyon. The water tasted delicious.

Big Creek;






The challenge would be the tides. High tide was at just under +6 feet, and the low tide was nearly a whopping +3 feet. It was an extremely high low tide, if that makes sense. My map showed two sections of the ‘trail’, each four miles long, which were “impassable at high tide”. I interpreted the meaning thusly: for a non-druid, those four mile sections are impassible at +4 feet or greater.

 I hit the first sketchy section two hours before low tide knowing that I would be alone in there. Everyone hikes this part of the Lost Coast from north to south, due to the prevailing winds. They wouldn't be entering the other side yet. I kept one eye on my footsteps taking care not to twist an ankle on the slippery rocks. My other eye watched for rogue waves which would send me clinging to the side of the cliff. The bottom of my wooden staff is shaped like a hoof, with a dog claw hanging off the back. The rocks quickly blunted the claw and skinned the lower five inches of my staff, removing all varnish.

I survived the first gauntlet and emerged at Big Flat. I checked out some campsites which featured creative and elaborate driftwood shelters. One had a driftwood card table and a flagpole. Another had a pointy wizard’s throne. I walked on to Big Creek and found a driftwood shelter that was like a woven basket on three sides, and barely enough room to hang my hammock under the roof. It even had a large driftwood plug for a short front door to prevent bears from accidentally wandering in. I draped my tarp over the roof and wandered up the creek, looking unsuccessfully for bear tracks. 
I found no sign of bears, but discovered other beautiful things;






In the evening, I smoked weed from my carrot pipe and studied my map. The carrot had begun to shrivel, and it increasingly resembled an old toe. The sunset shone through cracks in my driftwood house. In the evening, the wind picked up and snapped my tarp against the roof. It began to rain again. In the night, I could hear the waves reaching their high point on the beach, covering all traces of where I'd buried my food. But I had devised a new system so I wouldn't need to dig like a madman in the morning. 

Beach Shelter;


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## Treeshepherd (Dec 10, 2014)

I decided to go sockless. From my driftwood house at Big Creek I enjoyed a brief stretch of sandy beach to walk on. The rain had ceased, but the sea was dark and a thick layer of grey clouds hung low in the morning sky. The light was dim and ghostly bodies of fog passed before me. Beyond all thought, my mind had settled into an elemental state of consciousness. The cry of shorebirds, the whistle of the salty wind, the barking of sea lions, the sound of the sand and stones crunching under my soles, the waves breaking against the rocks… my entire reality.

Through squinting eyes I saw tracks in the sand near the water’s edge. The big hand and claw prints of a momma bear pointed northward, and close alongside them ran the most adorable prints of a baby bear, perhaps 4-6 months old. Leaning forward, I broke into a trot. My trot became a three legged gallop as I chased the fresh tracks to the end of the sand. I scurried and pole vaulted across a boulder field, but lost the tracks. I turned toward the cliffs and yelled, “Hey!” There was no answer but the echo of my own voice. I doubled over until I could recover my breath. Standing back up I muttered, “Hey, it’s alright, I’m on your team… carry on.”

At Randall Creek I faced the beginning of the next four mile zone marked as impassible at high tide. The first maneuver was the crux of the problem. I tackled it by siege. I left my pack high and dry to do some nimble reconnaissance; chasing the receding waves back toward the sea to catch glimpses around the rock point, and then outrunning the next sweeping wave up toward the beach. I sussed out the problem. It was a double bumper. I hoisted my pack and waited about 10 minutes for a slight lull in the swell. On the heels of a receding wave, I ran around the first set of jutting rocks and drove my feet into the sand, accelerating into an alcove just ahead of the next wave. I leapt up onto a solitary boulder as the waters surrounded me. I could not afford to tarry there, as the next wave would only be larger and would completely submerge my stone. I splashed through the receding waters around the next set of jutting rocks. I sprinted to safety ahead of a 40 mph sweeper wave. The sea had been my companion for many days, and I had become attuned to its rhythms.

“_The Pacific is my home ocean; I knew it first, grew up on its shore… I know its moods, its color, its nature. When one has been long at sea, the smell of land reaches far out to greet one. And the same is true when one has been long inland_.” – John Steinbeck

In absolute solitude, I forged a passage along that dark narrow ribbon between worlds. I sneaked through the sections where the two worlds collided. Eventually, I came to the final problem. Waves battered against a split rock point. There was passage between the inner cliff and the outer rock which had split off. But, the larger waves were violently inundating the space between. My first step would be onto a slippery stone which, at best, was submerged a foot beneath the water. I committed, stepped into the space and chimneyed with my feet against the sides of the passage. I had about ten seconds to make it through, moving steadily and deliberately. Exiting the passage, I leaped off a three foot wall using my staff to vault me an extra couple of feet forward. As I landed in a crouched position, a radial explosion of sea droplets blew out behind me. I looked up and was shocked to find a dozen people staring at me with expressions ranging from astonishment to wry smiles. It was a mixed group of backlogged weekenders waiting for low tide. They were all well-equipped with impenetrable hiking boots, Gore-Tex outer-wear, ski poles for balance, etc.. 


“Sup?” I said. 

A young woman, maybe 30, instantly made herself the spokesperson of the group.

“You made it through?”

“Am I through? Rad.”

“But, you got wet.” My olive-green pants were soaked. 

I thought, “Yeah it’s the Lost Coast. You’re going to get wet.” But I didn’t say that out loud. I just answered all their questions about the way south, and then coached them up a bit about a couple of the most technical problems. The tide was waning. It would become easier over the next few hours, but I urged them not to wait too long. I told them that they would have to pay their dues passing through the gauntlet of pain, and the payoff would include level trails through the broad meadows of Spanish Flat and Big Flat. 


It wasn’t long before I was back on a real trail, walking on solid ground. Totally running counter to the usual, a forceful wind pushed at my back from the south. The weekenders would be fighting against it, blinded by airborne sand. A day before, I had seen a calm and sunny Big Flat. The weekenders would be treated to a different experience. Perhaps that would not be so bad for the young couples taking refuge from the wind in small tents.


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## Treeshepherd (Dec 11, 2014)

It would be too windy for comfort sleeping on the beach at the mouth of the Mattole River. My plans changed. I slept in a swampy thicket of alder trees in the riparian zone.

The sun returned in the morning and I had a peaceful walk along the river. I passed laden fruit trees and fenced house gardens peaking and pumping out the late-summer produce. The heavy odor of lamb’s bread filled the morning air. Roosters crowed and chickens free ranged in the road. Goats watched me passing.

My policy all along had been to walk on the left side of the road, all things being equal. That allowed me to see what was coming and step aside if need be. It also communicated to drivers that I wasn’t looking for a ride. Along the Mattole River, an old car or truck passed by at ten minute intervals, and virtually everyone slowed to offer me a ride. I was reminded why I had moved to Humboldt County as an unrefined 22 year old idealist.

There was a Sunday breakfast at the community hall in Petrolia. I stopped in and ate local eggs and hash browns with home baked bread. The gathering doubled as a farmer’s market, and I bought some local candied walnuts and dried fruit. I was heartened to see the community come together, pot growers and ranchers and small-time loggers; a cohesive mixture of people with names like Cedar and Marina and Merl and Betsy. They all made make their livelihood from the same land, and that’s what binds them together. That’s what binds any community together- a common way of life defined by the land itself.

It had been 15 years since I’d spent time in the Mattole Valley, and I didn’t recognize anyone. Geographically, Humboldt County is the size of the Netherlands, but has a total population of a mere 300,000 people. Rural Humboldt can be characterized by its isolated communities. To drive inter-county from Petrolia to Island Mountain might take 5 hours or more.

Leaving Petrolia, I approached a bar called The Yellow Rose. A guy who had offered me a ride many miles back was smoking outside.
“You know where you’re going? What the hell are you doing?”
“I’m walking to Ferndale. It’s 30 miles.”
“What? Why? What is that? You just walk around with that stick? Fuck you, dude. Get in here and I’ll buy you a beer. Walking to Ferndale, pffft. You crazy or something?”
“That would explain a lot.”

It was still morning, but I joined the guy for a pint of Steelhead Extra Pale Ale. That's a good morning beer. I had another pint after that. The guy was a trimmer, taking Sunday off to watch football. They had no television or internet at the scene where he was working. The Yellow Rose was playing the 10am game. The guy knew a lot about the game, and I got caught up on all the news about the League. It was comforting to have a normal conversation. I could only stay for an hour. I had 50 miles remaining to reach my home. The Lost Coast had worn me down a bit.

I set out on Wildcat Road. I remembered the old Viking adage, “Don’t be tired.” I have no evidence of that ever being a Viking adage. It’s just a hunch. The important thing was, I believed it to be so. 

Leaving the Mattole Valley;


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## Treeshepherd (Dec 15, 2014)

Wildcat Road is lightly traveled. It rises gradually from Petrolia, returns to the sea, climbs inland and leads north over several perpendicular ridges. 

I straddled the yellow line in the middle of the road and took a 75 second beer piss. I was on a straightaway paralleling the sea. For at least a mile and a half, I could have heard any car rattling up from the south. I could see a far distance, but there was no sign of any car splashing through the road mirage ahead.

Once in a while a vehicle would come along, and I would zigzag to the opposite side of the road. I left the sea again, climbing slowly up the switchbacks and hobbling down the other sides. The way became increasingly forested. I did my best to find water sources not polluted by cow and sheep effluent. There must have been four serious sets of peaks and valleys to cross. Along the way, exhausted, I set up my hammock and slept in a tree.

Cresting the final ridge before the long descent into Ferndale, I took in the view of Humboldt Bay. I’ve never been so pleased to see the towers of the defunct nuclear plant. I was even glad to see the shuttered pulp mill in Fairhaven. I could see the Coast Guard Station on the north jetty. Hills obstructed the view, but I could actually reach out with my sight and locate the airspace above my house. I was getting close, and I was nearly finished with the relentless hilltopping.

In the Victorian Village of Ferndale, I stopped at The Palace for a couple of beers. 





On the way out of town I passed through some road construction and picked up a layer of fresh asphalt on the soles of my feet. That was probably a good thing as there wasn’t much rubber left on my tread. I crossed the narrow span at Fernbridge and spotted the fallow railroad tracks. No train had ridden those tracks in 20 years. Pampas grass, willows and briars have grown there ever since. I hoped the tracks would serve as an adequate wildman corridor. I would need to find a guerilla camp and sleep out one more night. I was within staging distance of my goal.


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