More King's Range/Lost Coast pics
Jun. 25th, 2007 02:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
summer_jackelThese pictures are more scenery and wildlife and a little less of the dogs.
Besides the bear, there was another extremely memorable wildlife encounter. I was at the furthest point of the hike, curled up with my exhausted dogs on the beach, trying to stay out of the wind by being in the leeward side of a big rock. The tide was high and I was eyeing the surf, wondering if I was going to get woken in the night by very cold seawater on my toes, when a sleek animal came up out of the surf right in front of me. Maybe 6-7 feet away. I thought it was a seal at first, a pup because it was too small. Then it came swiftly all the way out with none of the wriggling, difficult effort pinnipeds have when on land and I realized that I was looking at a sea otter.
She had a big silver fish which she subdued and then ate very quickly. She bounced along the shore a bit, satisfied, and groomed the fur on her shoulders, that amazing fur for which they were almost hunted to extinction and which even a few seconds out of water was going fluffy. I've never seen one out of water, even in captivity: she looked just like a river otter, only a lot bigger, with perhaps a wider tail. It was strange, a little disconcerting, to see something that looked so much like a terrestrial, fresh-water beast so comfortable in the ocean.
She groomed herself and then ran along the strand a bit with that lovely, slinky musteline gait, and then with an achingly beautiful ease returned to the waves. I was utterly stunned. These are very rare animals...there are only a few thousand off the whole California coast...and as I understand it is unusual for them to come ashore, since they even sleep and give birth in the sea. I think this one must have driven the fish into the shallows to catch it and then stopped to eat. There really aren't words for the beauty of this playful, graceful...perfect...creature, in her natural home, living her life well.
I took no pictures of the otter; I didn't even try, didn't move, didn't take my eyes from her. I could never forget the sight of such a thing.
I did, however, get some good ones of creatures equally lovely and perfect, but a little more sessile. ;)
King's Range wilderness from the top of a ridge. There was some climbing on this trail, just not the grueling up-and-down that the ones just a couple miles into the headlands would provide. I've done that, but not this trip.
A landmark along this trail was the abandoned Punta Gorda lighthouse, about 3 miles from the trailhead. It was built in 1910 and abandoned in 1941 (by tomorrow I will have forgotten those dates...) and was one of CA's most remote lighthouses. It is very cool and romantic and you can climb around in it. :)
The beach where I camped and saw the otter:
A waterfall along the trail!
Life! I love, love, love all sea anemones (hey, if it has tentacles I'm probably gonna like it) but there is a special warm fuzzy spot in my heart for Giant Green anemones. Loves them! And look at that color! No, this is not the camera altering anything, they really do look like that.
Where you find such things:
look at the color on this one!
The pools here are largely in sandstone, which wears in fantastic ways. You'll be walking along and there will be this tiny, perfect garden in a hole in dry rock, this exquisite little microcosm with anemones and coralline algae and little darting sculpin fish and whatnot. Only there are hundreds of them.
Purple urchin! Echinoderm-tastic! Stick your fingers between the spines and they move the spines toward you. One probed around under my fingernail with its little tube feet, it was awesome. EDIT: look at the little sculpin just below it. Teeeeny fishy!!!!! These urchins are a popular otter food, btw.
Striped shore crab. So cute! This one chose a lousy hiding place, though:
So I picked him up (you can tell he's a boy because of the triangular shape on the bottom of his carapice; females have a rounder shape) and of course put him back carefully.
I also love chitons, and am always looking for the big, velvety gumboot chiton. I haven't seen one wild for years, so I was very excited when I saw these two...just hanging out right at the edge of the pool area as I walked down the beach!
Here is a little mossy chiton by comparison, these are far more common:
kinda like little slugs with klingon armor. Obviously these pools were worth taking the pack off and nosing around, so I did, and found more gumboots. This one was out of water and I could pick it up without resistance...not a good sign for the animal (and one never wants to pry loose an attached intertidal critter). I put it back in water and it had grabbed onto the rock when I tested it a minute later, which made me happy.
A gumboot in situ, with eelgrass:
Sea lions, hangin' out on a rock! You can't really tell from this pic, but this was a 'happening' rock, with at least 2 harems of females defended by a big male...and I mean BIG, these guys were more than twice the size of the girls, very maned and silvery and impressive. A little farther north was a smaller rock where the other adult males were hanging out (and arguing with one another) and still farther north another rock where what I'm assuming were the juveniles had made their own. It was really fun to watch them.
A rare find. You guys all know from my incessant nattering on the subject that I'm a cephalopod geek, and I always look for an octopus in tidepools. Well...I found one. It was dead, but still! I was absolutely thrilled. I looked at its tentacles a bit and lifted them with a stick (this was too far gone for me to want to touch). So wonderful! And of course if you see a dead one, there are live ones out there. :) Hopefully this one died because she had bred and thus finished her sadly brief cephalopod lifespan, and I had happy thoughts of many many octopus larva out there in the waves.
My long-suffering and pawsore trail doggies:
Beach camp! I had no sleeping pad or tent with me this time. When we are alone in the woods, the dogs know their places, unerringly...Pryde takes my right, Jez my left, Fenris at my feet. It is really nice to be out there, just being with them...after all, who cares if I smell like salty wolfdog when my travelling companions are salty wolfdogs, right?:
No explanation needed here. Waking up to a clear, still night and watching meteors falling across a starry sky with the sea before me and Pryde cuddled against my chest...well...sometimes life is really good.
And the next day I DID have my Eel river swimming. Purrrrrrrrrrrr. No less than 5 swim spots on the Mattole and Eel! But I was too busy swimming them to photo them, so. ;)
Besides the bear, there was another extremely memorable wildlife encounter. I was at the furthest point of the hike, curled up with my exhausted dogs on the beach, trying to stay out of the wind by being in the leeward side of a big rock. The tide was high and I was eyeing the surf, wondering if I was going to get woken in the night by very cold seawater on my toes, when a sleek animal came up out of the surf right in front of me. Maybe 6-7 feet away. I thought it was a seal at first, a pup because it was too small. Then it came swiftly all the way out with none of the wriggling, difficult effort pinnipeds have when on land and I realized that I was looking at a sea otter.
She had a big silver fish which she subdued and then ate very quickly. She bounced along the shore a bit, satisfied, and groomed the fur on her shoulders, that amazing fur for which they were almost hunted to extinction and which even a few seconds out of water was going fluffy. I've never seen one out of water, even in captivity: she looked just like a river otter, only a lot bigger, with perhaps a wider tail. It was strange, a little disconcerting, to see something that looked so much like a terrestrial, fresh-water beast so comfortable in the ocean.
She groomed herself and then ran along the strand a bit with that lovely, slinky musteline gait, and then with an achingly beautiful ease returned to the waves. I was utterly stunned. These are very rare animals...there are only a few thousand off the whole California coast...and as I understand it is unusual for them to come ashore, since they even sleep and give birth in the sea. I think this one must have driven the fish into the shallows to catch it and then stopped to eat. There really aren't words for the beauty of this playful, graceful...perfect...creature, in her natural home, living her life well.
I took no pictures of the otter; I didn't even try, didn't move, didn't take my eyes from her. I could never forget the sight of such a thing.
I did, however, get some good ones of creatures equally lovely and perfect, but a little more sessile. ;)
King's Range wilderness from the top of a ridge. There was some climbing on this trail, just not the grueling up-and-down that the ones just a couple miles into the headlands would provide. I've done that, but not this trip.
A landmark along this trail was the abandoned Punta Gorda lighthouse, about 3 miles from the trailhead. It was built in 1910 and abandoned in 1941 (by tomorrow I will have forgotten those dates...) and was one of CA's most remote lighthouses. It is very cool and romantic and you can climb around in it. :)
The beach where I camped and saw the otter:
A waterfall along the trail!
Life! I love, love, love all sea anemones (hey, if it has tentacles I'm probably gonna like it) but there is a special warm fuzzy spot in my heart for Giant Green anemones. Loves them! And look at that color! No, this is not the camera altering anything, they really do look like that.
Where you find such things:
look at the color on this one!
The pools here are largely in sandstone, which wears in fantastic ways. You'll be walking along and there will be this tiny, perfect garden in a hole in dry rock, this exquisite little microcosm with anemones and coralline algae and little darting sculpin fish and whatnot. Only there are hundreds of them.
Purple urchin! Echinoderm-tastic! Stick your fingers between the spines and they move the spines toward you. One probed around under my fingernail with its little tube feet, it was awesome. EDIT: look at the little sculpin just below it. Teeeeny fishy!!!!! These urchins are a popular otter food, btw.
Striped shore crab. So cute! This one chose a lousy hiding place, though:
So I picked him up (you can tell he's a boy because of the triangular shape on the bottom of his carapice; females have a rounder shape) and of course put him back carefully.
I also love chitons, and am always looking for the big, velvety gumboot chiton. I haven't seen one wild for years, so I was very excited when I saw these two...just hanging out right at the edge of the pool area as I walked down the beach!
Here is a little mossy chiton by comparison, these are far more common:
kinda like little slugs with klingon armor. Obviously these pools were worth taking the pack off and nosing around, so I did, and found more gumboots. This one was out of water and I could pick it up without resistance...not a good sign for the animal (and one never wants to pry loose an attached intertidal critter). I put it back in water and it had grabbed onto the rock when I tested it a minute later, which made me happy.
A gumboot in situ, with eelgrass:
Sea lions, hangin' out on a rock! You can't really tell from this pic, but this was a 'happening' rock, with at least 2 harems of females defended by a big male...and I mean BIG, these guys were more than twice the size of the girls, very maned and silvery and impressive. A little farther north was a smaller rock where the other adult males were hanging out (and arguing with one another) and still farther north another rock where what I'm assuming were the juveniles had made their own. It was really fun to watch them.
A rare find. You guys all know from my incessant nattering on the subject that I'm a cephalopod geek, and I always look for an octopus in tidepools. Well...I found one. It was dead, but still! I was absolutely thrilled. I looked at its tentacles a bit and lifted them with a stick (this was too far gone for me to want to touch). So wonderful! And of course if you see a dead one, there are live ones out there. :) Hopefully this one died because she had bred and thus finished her sadly brief cephalopod lifespan, and I had happy thoughts of many many octopus larva out there in the waves.
My long-suffering and pawsore trail doggies:
Beach camp! I had no sleeping pad or tent with me this time. When we are alone in the woods, the dogs know their places, unerringly...Pryde takes my right, Jez my left, Fenris at my feet. It is really nice to be out there, just being with them...after all, who cares if I smell like salty wolfdog when my travelling companions are salty wolfdogs, right?:
No explanation needed here. Waking up to a clear, still night and watching meteors falling across a starry sky with the sea before me and Pryde cuddled against my chest...well...sometimes life is really good.
And the next day I DID have my Eel river swimming. Purrrrrrrrrrrr. No less than 5 swim spots on the Mattole and Eel! But I was too busy swimming them to photo them, so. ;)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-06-26 01:36 am (UTC)I'm glad you had a good time with your salty wolfdogs.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-26 04:51 am (UTC)That was gorgeous.
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Date: 2007-06-26 06:37 am (UTC)