Wild horses come in all colors. Photo by Jeremy Martin, U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

Horses originated here in North America. Ancestors of today’s horses migrated to Europe, Asia, and Africa but were frozen out here by the last ice age.

Then horses came back. The thundering herds of Western yore started up from the escaped steeds of Spanish explorers and soldiers. Permafrost preserved remains of the ancient Yukon horse – the last horse of prehistory to live in North America – and, much to the surprise of researchers, DNA samples established that it was essentially identical, genetically, to both feral and domesticated modern horses. 

The wild horses live in natural groups, roaming freely on 5,000 acres. (photo by Katey Barrett)

So here’s a question to ponder the next time you’re on a trail ride, say, out spying on mustangs:

Horses were reintroduced to this continent within historical memory, yet the species first evolved here, and co-evolved with North American habitats. So doesn’t that make it a native species?

Hmm . . .

About that wild-horse trail ride: It so happens that the best place for that is also here—just northeast of Red Bluff, in fact, at the Wild Horse Sanctuary near Manton.

Co-founder Dianne Nelson started adopting “unadoptable” mustangs in the 1970s. Some 300 wild horses and burros now roam freely on the sanctuary’s 5,000 acres of lava cap, oak woodlands, and juniper scrub, terrain not all that different from the rough Modoc landscapes much of the herd originally roamed.

Come for the open house in August, or the foal adoption in October. (photo by Stan Rapada)

The nonprofit Wild Horse Sanctuary is open to the public on Wednesdays and Saturdays, when visitors are welcome to hike the horse trails.

More exciting, though, are guided horseback trips and two- or three-day overnight rides, complete with hearty cowboy barbecue and a sleeping-bag stay at Wild Horse Camp, in rustic cabins complete with kerosene lamps. Trail rides are offered from late spring into October. If you’ve always dreamed of rounding-up “li’l dogeys,” the longer October cattle drive at the Carey Ranch is for you.

Or bring the whole family in mid-August to the annual Open House, to get up close with mustangs and burros on docent-led walks. You’ll also enjoy free horse rides for the kiddos, face painting, and crafts. Not to mention barbecue, live music, working stock dogs, and demonstrations of horseshoeing, grooming, and basic veterinary care.

The horses are always the main attraction. (photo © Katey Barrett)

In October, come for the annual foal adoption. Due to the recession, foals from previous years are now young horses, still patiently waiting for the right folks to take them home.

If you can’t visit the sanctuary right now you can always “adopt” a wild horse, through regular tax-deductible financial contributions. Keep in mind that because of California’s drought, grazing is poor and the sanctuary’s need for help to defray hay and other costs is greater than ever.

For more information, go to the sanctuary’s website.

Kim Weir is editor of Up the Road, a nonprofit public-interest journalism project that looks “up the road” to explore questions concerning the economy, the environment, and social equity in Northern California. Up the Road enjoys the journey, too, pointing out worthwhile places to go and things to do along the way.

A long-time member of the Society of American Travel Writers, Weir is also a former reporter for North State Public Radio.

Many of California’s hostels are situated along the state’s long, long coastline, which seems only natural. Not every state has a coast, let alone so much of it, so of course people want to go coastal here. But the Golden State barely even begins at the Pacific Ocean. There are worthy hostels inland as well.

Before we consider them, let’s recap the benefits of hostel-based travel, always the first choice of those who prefer to spend small but live big.

At many hostels these days fresh linens and towels are the rule rather than the exception (no need to BYO bedding), not to mention the option of couples’ and family rooms. Hostels typically offer lots of shared living space along with TV, computers, free wifi, and endless other communications and entertainment options. Most include laundry facilities and a full kitchen, preparing your own meals being a major cost savings.

The main point: Hostels aren’t “youth hostels” anymore. They offer the opportunity to meet a great variety of fellow travelers, people of all ages and backgrounds from around the world—because hostels are typically located in, or within easy reach of, the places people most want to go.

A CAPITAL HOSTEL

It’s one of Sacramento’s best secrets. Aside from being an inexpensive and safe choice to hang one’s hat, the Hostelling International Sacramento Hostel is an unusually elegant place to just hang out. There’s no hostel quite like it anywhere in the United States.

Open since 1995, the Sacramento Hostel is housed in the historic Llewellyn Williams mansion—also known locally as Mory’s Place, after previous owner Mory Holmes—downtown near city hall at 925 H Street (at 10th). This 1885 Italianate Victorian was restored to its original grandeur at a cost of $2.1 million, thanks to financial support from American Youth Hostels, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and the Sacramento City Council. Sure to draw anyone’s eye are stunning features such as the original chandeliers, embossed wallpapers, and painted-glass skylight; hand-carved oak staircases, wall panels, and other decorative details; parquet floors; period-style carpeting; and handcrafted marble fireplaces.

But there are many modern comforts, starting with fresh, airy guest rooms. Dorm beds are about $30 per night; the eight private rooms sleep from one to four people and range from $60 to $100. Facilities also include modern shared baths and a roomy, sleek, fully stocked, and accessible kitchen. Common areas include two parlors downstairs—available even during the day—and dining room (complimentary continental breakfast is served each morning). When it’s not blistering hot—and even in summer it may not be, thanks to Sacramento’s heavenly Delta breezes—you can enjoy the wraparound front veranda or the patio furnished with umbrella tables and barbecue. Head to the basement rec room for TV and movies, games, and books to borrow. Conveniences include free wifi, onsite laundry, secure lockers, and storage for bikes and baggage.

Parking can be a challenge, given the downtown location. Best bet if you’re driving is to arrange onsite gated (uncovered) parking for $5 per night. There’s a nearby public lot that charges $7.50 per day. Another neighborhood option is street parking (free overnight) then feeding the meters between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m., a viable plan if you’ll be out and about most of the day anyway.

Sorry, Fifi and Fido. No pets.

HOSTEL TAHOE

Borrowing or renting a cabin is the classic Tahoe stay, but if you don’t want to “go big,” consider Hostel Tahoe in Kings Beach near the lake’s northern shore, a real treat for cost-conscious travelers.

Homey and welcoming as all get out, Hostel Tahoe is a reborn motel that offers appealing private rooms as well as dorm-style bunkrooms. The shared living area features a fireplace—that Tahoe essential—plus free wifi, movies, books, board games, even a guitar to play. There’s a well-stocked kitchen too, plus free weekend breakfast featuring homemade granola and baked goods.

Special freebies include free bikes complete with helmets, locks, and carry baskets (first-some, first-served), and bike racks if you’d rather bring your own; a spacious outdoor patio with BBQ and tables; personal dorm lockers (BYO lock); and free maps plus helpful savvy-local advice about where to go and what to do. The hostel provides free day storage for your luggage plus outdoor gear storage (BYO lock for that too).

Rates are $30 to $35 for a dorm bed (higher rates in summer and winter, lower for stays longer than a week), $65 and up for a queen room (sleeps two), and $75 and up for a family room (sleeps three or four). All rooms feature private bathrooms—complete with Dr. Bronner’s organic soaps—even the four-bed male and female dorms.

No pets, though true service animals are allowed.

YOSEMITE BUG RUSTIC RESORT

Need to get away from it all? For many of us, Yosemite is the ultimate escape. Luckily the area even offers a resort for the 99 percent.

Also known as Hostelling International’s Midpines Hostel, the Yosemite Bug Rustic Mountain Resort outside Mariposa—just 26 miles from Yosemite Valley via Highway 40—is in many respects a destination in its own right, what with the good-food June Bug Cafe, affordable spa, yoga classes, and all. Yosemite Bug could even be an inspiring yet affordable reunion or meeting choice. No in-room TVs or phones. What could be better?

Accommodation options here are almost as varied as the real-food cafe menu, ranging charming, full-service private cabins with down duvets (some have shared private baths) to hostel bunkbeds and classic rubberized canvas or heated, furnished tent cabins

Prices for “camping bathroom” stays range from about $25 to $30 per person per night for bunk beds in the single-sex or group dorm cabins to $40-$65 and up for tent cabins (two to four people).

The most affordable options for private rooms in cabins are those that use the “camping baths” (communal bathrooms), with multiple sinks, toilet stalls, etc., much like bathrooms at campgrounds, dorm-style stays starting at $50 per night for two to four people. Private cabins that share a large bathroom between two rooms are $65 to $115 per room (up to four people, additional rollaway bed sometimes allowed). Cabin rooms with well-appointed private rooms—complete with private decks and outdoor tables—are $75 to $155 per night.

The Bug is pet-friendly, too, at $20 per stay, though you can’t leave four-legged family members in your room all day.

One potential drawback for aging boomers is ease of access; you might have to hoof it up and down hills for 500 feet one-way just to get from your car to where you’re staying. However, two cabins are accessible (call to make arrangements), as are the restaurant and onsite meeting rooms. Another option, especially for families or small groups, is the nearby Starlight House just off the highway in Midpines proper ($260 and up).

Hostellers and other guests enjoy all the benefits here that most hostels offer, including a fully stocked, self-serve kitchen and laundry facilities (small fee), storage lockers, games, Internet access, and free wifi. Unique attractions include Bug trails, swimming hole (drought permitting), and summer fireside singalongs on Tuesday and Wednesday nights.

A $10 day pass lets you enjoy the spa’s spring-fed, stainless steel hot tub, hot-rock sauna, and seven-jet and cold-rain showers. Massages, specialty baths, and body scrubs are extra.

And believe it or not, you don’t even need a car to get here—or to get from here into Yosemite. Shuttles from valley Amtrak connections and Yosemite’s YARTS bus stop at the bottom of the Bug’s driveway.

About that café: The June Bug serves three meals a day, everything reasonably priced, with local and organic foods, produce from the Bug’s garden, and sustainable fish and meat choices worked into the menu as much as possible. Vegan and vegetarian options here are much more than an afterthought, so everyone will eat well here. The dinner menu changes ever few days. Children’s menu, too. You can even request a homemade sack lunch (order during breakfast). Premium wines and locals beers and ales served.

Hostel up, whichever inland option you choose.

What do you think? Let us know by sending a letter (a.k.a. email). Send your comments to editor@uptheroad.org. Please include a phone number in case we need to chat.

Up the Road’s Editor Kim Weir has been scribbling away at one thing or another for a shocking number of years.

A member of the Society of American Travel Writers since 1991, as a nonfiction writer Weir tends to focus on California and the West. She holds a bachelors degree in environmental studies and analysis and a MFA in creative writing.

Said it before and will surely say it again: Hostels are among the best travel bargains around, for travelers of all ages. And hosteling now, during the off-season, is ideal for Californians. You won’t meet as many international travelers, always an appeal of hostel stays. But you’ll have an easier time getting reservations where and when you want them—with the possible exception of special events such as whale-watching and the annual return of the elephant seals. 

Keep in mind, you don’t have to be destitute to be a happy hosteler. Many of the people you meet won’t be. They’re solidly middle class, simply adventurous enough to avoid cookie-cutter accommodations, seeking instead good company in a homey, safe, and welcoming community. Communal kitchens to prepare meals, on-site laundry facilities, and extras such as hot tubs and free bikes all add up to a fine, friendly, frugal getaway.

Seeking salt air and some outstanding scenery? California’s coastal hostels serve up both in abundance. Starting either north or south of San Francisco, you can even hostel-hop up and down the coast—visiting all of them during one extended trip or enjoying them in separate adventures.

NORTH OF SAN FRANCISCO

If you love the idea of San Francisco but find the actual experience overwhelming, then stop just short of the city, in Marin County, and gaze out at it from the other side of the Golden Gate. You’ll never regret staying a while to bird-watch, beach-comb, and hike the vast expanses of Golden Gate National Recreational Area and Point Reyes National Seashore. One of the Bay Area’s outposts of affluence, Marin offers a surprising wealth of low-rent choices—two fine hostels and two historic rustic stays.

MARIN HOSTELS

Hostelling International’s historic HI Marin Headlands Hostelat 1907-vintage Fort Barry, 415-331-2777, offers 103 beds and early-20th-century hospital buildings in a park-like setting. Basic dorm-style accommodations predominate here but private rooms and family rooms in the annex are available by advance reservation. (No private bathrooms; shared hallway baths.) Facilities also include a great kitchen (bring your groceries), dining room, a welcoming common room with fireplace, even laundry facilities, game room, tennis court, and bike storage. Quite popular in summer and on good-weather weekends, so reservations are advised. Rates in early 2015: $28-35 for dorm rooms, $82-132 for a private room sleeping up to three. Towels and linens are provided. Call for information and reservations or reserve online. Ask about group rates.

Ideal for a seashore stay is HI’s Point Reyes Hostel on Limantour Road in Point Reyes Station, 415-663-8811. Pluses here include location, location, location, and all that beach, just a couple miles away. Advance reservations advisable. Rates for dorm beds are $26-29 per night for adults, $13-14 for children, and private rooms (sleep up to five) are $87 to $134 (two-night minimum on weekends). Reserve online or by phone; call to reserve group rooms.

RUSTIC IN MARIN

The very reasonable price of two rustic stays put them within reach of hostelling groups or families. The state’s Steep Ravine Environmental Cabins on Rocky Point in Mount Tamalpais State Park look out to sea from near Stinson Beach. Before the state wrested custody of these marvelous cabins from the powerful Bay Area politicians and other clout-encumbered citizens who had up until then held long-term leases, photographer Dorothea Lange wrote about staying here in To a Cabin, co-authored by Margaretta K. Mitchell. Even the walk down to the bottom of Steep Ravine Canyon is inspiring, Lange noted, with “room for only those in need of sea and sky and infinity.”

These 10 small, rustic redwood cabins offer just the basics: platform beds (bring your own sleeping bag and pad), woodstoves, separate restrooms with pit toilets, and an almost-private beach below in a spectacularly romantic setting. Rates are $100 per night (each sleeps five). One cabin is wheelchair accessible; none have electricity, but they do have outside running water. Bring your own provisions.

To reserve a cabin—plan well in advance—try ReserveAmerica (cabin link above) online or call 800-444-7275. Cabins and environmental sites at Mt. Tamalpais may be booked from 10 days to seven months prior to the arrival date. Be determined!

Also notable and inexpensive in the area is the historic, rustic West Point Inn, built in 1904 as a traveler’s stop for the Mill Valley/Mt. Tamalpais Railway and now operated by a nonprofit association dedicated to its preservation. One of the five rustic cabins is wheelchair accessible, and there is a single-use restroom in the main lodge featuring a roll-in shower. Lodge rooms are coziest in winter months. Travelers with disabilities can drive in on an access road, but otherwise this is strictly a hike-in or bike-in experience. (Bring your own food. Lodge cooking facilities available.) Rates are $25 to $50 per person per night, with a two-night minimum for cabins. For more information and reservations, try the website or call 415-388-9955.

SOUTH OF SAN FRANCISCO

Affordable and dramatically different even by California hostel standards are the two appealing lighthouse hostels offered by Hostelling International (HI) just south of San Francisco, on the coast north of Santa Cruz.

POINT MONTARA HOSTEL

North of Half Moon Bay between Montara and Moss Beach is HI’s picturesque Point Montara Lighthouse Hostel, quite popular with bicyclists and also accessible via bus from the Bay Area. People also come to kayak (rentals just a few miles away), surf, and otherwise enjoy nature. Half Moon Bay is another draw.

The 1875 lighthouse itself, originally a fog signal station, is still operated by the U.S. Coast Guard. Hostel facilities include two kitchens with stainless steel countertops, “view” dining rooms, laundry, bunkrooms, and couples’ and family quarters. Other amenities include DSL Internet and free WiFi, free parking, and an espresso bar. Popular, so reserve in advance.

Rates for HI members are $27 for bunk beds (both shared co-ed and one-gender dorms are available) and $78 to $101 for private rooms. Group reservations are also available. HI membership ($28 per year or $3 per day) is required. Call 650-728-7177 from 7:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. or reserve online.

PIGEON POINT HOSTEL

Closest to Santa Cruz is HI’s Pigeon Point Lighthouse Hostel, the inexpensive place to stay while visiting the elephant seals at Ano Nuevo. Named  after the clipper shipCarrier Pigeon, one of many notorious shipwrecks off the coastal shoals here, the 115-foot 1872 lighthouse is now automated but still impressive with its Fresnel lens and distinctive 10-second flash pattern. The lighthouse has been closed to public tours since 2001, when exterior brick and other trim started raining down. But you can wander around on the outside, visit the docent-staffed gift shop, and take docent-guided history walks on weekends.

The hostel itself is made up of four former family residences for the U.S. Coast Guard—basic male or female bunkrooms, plus some simple couples’ and family rooms. The old Fog Signal Building is now a rec room; there’s also a hot tub perched on rocky cliffs above surging surf. In addition, come for the fabulous sunset views, wonderful tidepools, great whale-watching. Get groceries in Pescadero and prepare meals in the well-equipped communal kitchens, or ask for local restaurant suggestions. Satellite Internet, free WiFi, and free parking.

Rates are $25.50 to $28 per dorm bed for HI members, offered in both co-ed and one-gender shared rooms. Private rooms with double bed (for one or two people) are $76; double bed with single bunk for three people, $104; family room with six bunks, $168. Membership in HI is $28 per year, or $3 a day if you’re just passing through. Time in the cliff-top, ocean-view hot tub, open 4 to 10:30 p.m. only for hostel guests, is no longer free, alas. It’s $8 per half-hour session, with a minimum of two people and a maximum of four. Make hot tub reservations when you check in. Call 650-879-0633 between 7:30 a.m. and 10:30 p.m. daily or reserve online.

Santa Cruz, Monterey & SLO Hostels

Next south in Santa Cruz is HI Santa Cruz @ The Carmelita Cottages, a collection of charming Victorian cottages in a park setting on Main Street just a couple blocks from the beach and Boardwalk, and also an easy stroll downtown.

For HI members high-season rates (June through September) are $26 for adults or $15 youths for bunk beds, offered in four- or six-bed dorms. Private rooms with shared baths start at $60 for one or two people Private rooms with private bathrooms are $90 for one to three people, $10 for each additional person. Prices are slightly lower at other times. Call to make reservations 831-423-8304 between 8 a.m. and 10:45 a.m. or 6 and 10 p.m., or book online through HI’s main website.

Another great choice is in Monterey, at the other end of crescent-shaped Monterey Bay. Not on the coast but pretty darn close—just four blocks from Cannery Row, the coastal trail, and the amazing Monterey Bay Aquarium—the HI Monterey Hostel offers 45 beds, men’s and women’s dorms, and private rooms too, with shared bathrooms all around. The onetime Carpenter’s Union Hall also offers the latest in water conservation technology—from token-operated showers, metered faucets, and ultra-low-flow, half-gallon Microphor toilets to water-saving appliances.

Monterey dorm rates for HI members are $27 to $37 per night for adults (highest rates in summer), $18 for children or youths. Private rooms are $79 to $99. Non-members, add $3 per person per night. For groups, discounts on overnight fees are available for youths and children. There’s free on-site parking, but to avoid adding to local traffic woes leave your vehicle here and take public transportation. Given the area’s popularity, advance reservations are usually essential. Call 831-649-0375 to make reservations directly or book online through HI’s main website. For information, email the hostel:info@montereyhostel.org. The office is open daily 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Sourdough pancakes for breakfast, anyone? If you’re heading farther south still, consider the college town of San Luis Obispo and HI’s homey Hostel Obispo for your next stop, just one block from Amtrak. This friendly hostel offers 28 beds in a converted Victorian, with dorm beds $27 to $31, private rooms (very popular) $60 and up. Fully equipped kitchen, laundry, free parking, plus free WiFi and public computer. For reservations call 805-544-4678 from 8 to 11 a.m. or 4:30 to 10 p.m., or email reservations@hostelobispo.com.

Next time: hostels elsewhere in Northern and Central California.

Up the Road’s Editor Kim Weir has been scribbling away at one thing or another for a shocking number of years. A member of the Society of American Travel Writers (SATW) since 1991, as a nonfiction writers she specializes in California and the West. Weir wrote most of Moon Publications’ original California travel guides, including the ever popular Northern California Handbook.

Not just “youth hostels” anymore, California’s classy low-rent accommodations welcome travelers of all ages, and certainly anyone with a mild sense of adventure plus a willingness to toss sleeping bags onto bunks.

But these days, fresh linens and towels are the rule rather than the exception (no need to BYO bedding anymore) along with the option of couples’ and family rooms. Hostels typically offer living space to share, with TV, computers, free wifi, and endless other communications or entertainment options. Most also include laundry facilities and a full kitchen, so travelers can keep it clean for free as well as prepare their own meals, other cost savings. Best of all, hostels offer the opportunity to meet a great variety of fellow travelers, of all ages and backgrounds, from around the world. And many are located within easy reach of some of the most stunning scenery or lively city scenes in the state.

How can you beat all that for less than $30 per night? It costs more, of course, for hotel-style rooms, and for ocean- or bay-view couples’ or family accommodations. But still. Such a deal.

Say you’re pining for some time in San Francisco but can barely pay your cell bill. You can plan a sublime time for next to nothing.

Consider starting along the waterfront in Golden Gate National Park with a stay at Hostelling International’s San Francisco Fisherman’s Wharf Hostel in Fort Mason, looking out onto San Francisco Bay. Housed in historic buildings (the main building used to be the infirmary) the Fisherman’s Wharf Hostel offers right-there views of Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge, not to mention easy access to some of the city’s prettiest parklands.

Step out the hostel’s back door onto paved paths that run right along the water, heading either east to Fisherman’s Wharf or west to the Marina Green, Crissy Field, the Presidio, and the Golden Gate Bridge. It’s also an easy stroll from the hostel to North Beach and the Marina District.

The range of accommodations at Fort Mason including both shared dorm rooms and private rooms, with rates in the $30 to $42 range for dorm beds and $75 to 100 for private rooms. Families with kids under 12 need a private room or an entire dorm room. Other restrictions apply to U.S. citizens under 18 who are traveling without a legal guardian.

There’s a nice kitchen to DIY at meal time (free continental breakfast) but also an onsite, three-meals-a-day cafe, Cafe Franco, for great bay vistas. Bring in your breakfast to drink in the view. Other common areas include a spacious lounge, theater-style TV room, rec room (billiards, anyone?), and outdoor deck. Staff members organize all kinds of daily activities, too, from history walks to pub crawls.

If for you downtown is where the action is, HI’s San Francisco Downtown Hostel is the place, just one block from Union Square shopping, near China Town, an easy amble through the city’s museum district, and close to all public transit systems (including BART).

Recently renovated guest rooms include four-bed dorms (55 of them) and private rooms, available with or without private bathroom. Rates are $29 to $49 for dorm beds, $89 to $149 for private rooms. (Lower group rates are also available, for eight people or more.) On the second floor there’s a well-equipped shared kitchen (free continental breakfast) plus guest lounge/media room. Staff offer organized San Francisco-style fun almost daily here also.

At home in a 1920s boutique hotel near the Civic Center and Little Saigon, the San Francisco City Center Hostel is also newly renovated. This is a great “affordable foodie” stay, located as it is near excellent inexpensive restaurants and non-touristy nightlife.

The hostel offers shared four- or five-bed dorm rooms as well as private and “premium” private rooms. All City Center guest rooms have private bathrooms, a big plus for many folks. The onsite Ivy’s Place cafe serves free continental breakfast in the morning, and snacks plus beer and wine in the evenings. Other pluses include the City Center’s big, well-equipped kitchen, multiple guest lounges, and full roster of urban activities. Free tea tastings, anyone?

The ever popular and award-winning USA Hostels San Francisco on Post Street is also near the city’s center and a few blocks from Union Square. It offers the usual amenities and many, many more, including a 45-seat TV/movie theater, “privacy pods” in dorm rooms, and private rooms (some have private baths) with duvet, MP3 player, cable TV, in-room frig, and microwave. Big kitchen with eight cooking stations, not to mention a very generous free breakfast. Dorm beds start at about $30, private rooms around $50.

San Francisco hostels popular with a broader traveling public include the family-owned, kid-friendly Mayflower Hotel at 975 Bush Street, with comfy private rooms with bathrooms, in-room frig, microwaves that start at about $55.

Many cater to the younger set, of course, including the livelyGreen Tortoise Hostel (“San Francisco’s #1 Party Hostel”), which also books adventure tours aboard the famous Green Tortoise bus. There’s a newer Green Tortoise hostel in Seattle.

For other San Francisco hostel ideas try hostel-booking umbrella sites such as hostels.com, which list just about everything and typically offer traveler reviews.

Up the Road’s Editor Kim Weir has been scribbling away at one thing or another for a shocking number of years. A member of the Society of American Travel Writers (SATW) since 1991, as a nonfiction writers she specializes in California and the West. Weir wrote most of Moon Publications’ original California travel guides, including the ever popular Northern California Handbook.

Sleeping porch, the Greene & Greene Caroline DeForest House. Photo by JLT.

Surprisingly appealing, this self-satisfied city is so sure of its essential worth that it sees little need to primp and pimp for the almighty tourist dollar. Pasadena is low-key about its attractions, which are legion. Southern California boosterism played its part in Pasadena’s past, sure, but these days heavy-handed hype is notably absent. Pasadena simply allowsguests to enjoy its fairly civilized pleasures. And what a pleasure that is.

For a contemporary yet traditional introduction, start with Old Pasadena, the astonishingly successful shopping, entertainment, and restaurant district, the result of Pasadena’s very careful restoration of its 1880s old-brick downtown.

Garage door detail, Pasadena craftsman home near the Gamble House. Photo by Rictor Norton & David Allen/ CC BY 2.0.

Next, tour at least some of the attractions in and near Pasadena’s Arroyo Seco, the deep ravine on Pasadena’s west side. Here you’ll find Cal Tech and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Rose Bowl stadium, and the fabled Gamble House  and other Greene and Greene craftsman-era accomplishments, concentrated in Little Switzerland and Prospect Park.

If there’s time for nothing else while in Pasadena, do visit the Gamble House at 4 Westmoreland Place (three blocks north of Colorado Blvd.), open for docent-led tours Thurs-Sun. starting from noon to 3 p.m. (buy tickets online). Pasadena’s premier architectural showpiece, often praised as a “symphony in wood,” this is one of the finest examples of the finest moment in American domestic design—justifiably designated both a state and national historic landmark. Architects Charles and Henry Greene designed this Japanese-influenced craftsman as a winter home for David and Mary Gamble of Cincinnati, heirs to the Procter & Gamble fortune. No expense was spared in constructing this richly detailed early 1900s ode to simplicity. At a time when $5,000 would buy a very spacious house on a view lot, the Gambles spent $50,000 for this shingle-sided home graced with exotic hand-rubbed woods and inlays, leaded-glass windows, and the home’s trademark oak-motif Louis Tiffany stained-glass door. Most of the handmade furnishings were made in Pasadena.

Kitchen detail from a Greene & Greene craftsman home. Photo by j l t/ CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

After a stop at the nearby headquarters of the Pasadena Historical Society, a continuing architectural tour leads down South Orange Grove Boulevard, though only the restored mansions at the old Ambassador College campus and the Wrigley Mansion (now office space for the Tournament of Roses) are open for events or tours.

Other particularly striking neighborhoods, architecturally speaking, include the Oak Knoll area, with the historic Huntington Hotel as centerpiece, nearby Lombardy Road, and, north of downtown, Bungalow Heaven, Pasadena’s largest neighborhood of craftsman bungalows.

Take a good walk in Pasadena’s Bungalow Heaven, located north of the Foothill Freeway (I-210) between Lake and Hill Avenues, bordered on the north by Washington Boulevard and on the south by Orange Grove. Here you’ll find block after block of middle-class takes on the craftsman theme. True bungalow aficionados, come back on the last Sunday in April for the annual neighborhood home tour, the best way to appreciate the impressive interior workmanship (now is not too soon to get your tickets). Pasadena Heritage celebrates bungalows in mid-October or November each year with its Craftsman Weekend.

This introductory exploration comes full circle downtown at the California Institute of Technology (Cal Tech), home of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and a look at still more architectural and cultural gems, including noteworthy nearby art museums.

At home in the arroyo near the Colorado Street Bridge: the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, a building that was once the Vista del Arroyo Hotel. Photo by Mark/ CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

For further appreciation of both the aristocratic and democratic ideals woven into the Pasadena idea, mandatory side trips include the nearby Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino and, back toward Los Angeles in Highland Park, the Charles Fletcher Lummis home El Alisal (open Friday through Sunday only). Worth time nearby but open only on Saturdays is the Southwest Museum of the American Indian, now part of the (Gene) Autry National Center of the American West. If there’s time, take in Descanso Gardens, with the world’s largest camellia collection, the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden, and maybe even a thoroughbred race at Santa Anita Park (live racing starts after Christmas).

Pasadena City Hall. Photo by Michael Chen/ CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

If you’re heading back downtown from Cal Tech, don’t miss the Pasadena Civic Center.Inspired by the City Beautiful movement, Pasadena’s regal 1920s beaux arts civic center is an intentionally striking symbol of civic pride. Most striking is Pasadena City Hall, 100 N. Garfield, with its crownlike dome and Italian Renaissance courtyard design, by John Bakewell Jr. and Arthur Brown Jr., who also created San Francisco’s City Hall. The formal Italian/Spanish vernacular 1927 Pasadena Central Library, 285 E. Walnut, was designed by Pasadena architect Myron Hunt, more famous for the Huntington estate in San Marino. Now effectively cut off from the rest of the Civic Center by the Plaza Pasadena, the revered Pasadena Civic Auditorium, 300 E. Green St., is an Italian Renaissance palace, known for its Pompeian revival interiors by artist Giovanni Smeraldi. Heading toward Lake Avenue is the Spanish revival Pasadena Playhouse, on S. El Molino between Colorado and Green, the State Theater of California since 1938.

Museum-Quality Pasadena

About those art museums: The Norton Simon Museum near the Colorado Street Bridge, founded by charismatic corporate leader and one-time candidate for U.S. Senate Norton Simon, honors this “art collector of genius,” whose personal collection represented 2,000 years of Western and Asian art. Tough times for the Pasadena Museum of Modern Art coincided with Simon’s desperate need to find a home for his burgeoning collection.

Sculpture garden at the Norton Simon Museum . Photo by Jim Sneddon/ CC BY 2.0.

The Pacific Asia Museum at Los Robles and Colorado, now affiliated with USC, was designed in 1924 by architects Mayberry, Marston, and Van Pelt as both gallery and home for Grace Nicholson, aficionada of Asian art. Pasadena’s own northern Chinese Imperial Palace—included on the National Register of Historic Places—features a green tile roof, ceramic guard dogs to ward off evil spirits, and a peaceful central courtyard complete with bubbling brook and koi. (The garden is one of just a few authentic Chinese gardens in the United States.) Though the Pacific Asia Museum is the only Southern California museum specializing in the arts and crafts of Asia and the Pacific, most exhibits here are on loan from other museums or private collections.

Next door to the Pacific Asia Museum is the marvelous Pasadena Museum of California Art,the only California museum devoted exclusively to exhibiting and exploring California art, architecture, and design from 1850 to the present. Except when summer smog prevails, views of the city from the third-story terrace are spectacular.

For information about other museums in and around Pasadena and other visitor info, contact the Pasadena Convention & Visitors Bureau.

Tea House in the Japanese Garden. Photo by Wil Weaton.

Enthroned above an oak-studded arroyo in the shadow of the San Gabriel Mountains, Pasadena the place is actually an idea—the idea that simple, healthful living amid gardens, orange groves, and the fellowship of good neighbors can save civilization from the mass-production mindset of the industrial era. Pasadena represents the central idea that created Southern California. Described by acclaimed turn-of-the-20th-century astronomer George Ellery Hale as the “Athens of the West,” Pasadena took root in agriculture and then grew its own golden age of arts and sciences.

But in the beginning there was Indiana, where winters were cold and brutal. After the particularly harsh winter of 1872-73, a like-minded group of Indiana farmers sent schoolteacher and journalist Daniel M. Berry west by train to scout out a Southern California site for an agricultural paradise. Berry’s choice was the western San Gabriel Valley, where Ivy League-educated farmers already cultivated vineyards, orange groves, and roses in the sunshine and salubrious fresh air.

Berry and his fellows, who came to be known as the Indiana Colony, bought a 4,000-acre section of the San Pasqual Ranch, at the price of $6.31 per acre. The Indianans established themselves as the San Gabriel Orange Grove Association in 1875. They called their community Pasadena, a Chippewa word purported to mean “Crown of the Valley,” and set about cultivating the good life. The arrival of the railroad in 1885 brought bushels of well-heeled easterners eager to escape to a kinder climate—the beginning of Pasadena’s long-running reputation as a choice West Coast winter vacation destination.

Many of Pasadena’s wealthy winterers decided to stay on year-round, to soak up a full measure of sun and the scent of orange blossoms. They soon built grand homes on the city’s wide, wandering streets. Business tycoons and the heirs of industry included Adolphus Busch of St. Louis, Chicago’s William J. Wrigley, and Henry E. Huntington. Prominent new citizens also included Mrs. James Garfield, widow of the assassinated president, and the children of John Brown, abolitionist martyr. Feminist writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman, once freed from the insanity behind “The Yellow Wallpaper,” made her last home in Pasadena.

Pasadena’s iconic Gamble House, built by Greene & Greene for heirs of the Procter & Gamble fortune. Photo by Brandon Shigeta/ CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

For writers and artists, Pasadena was a good choice. The arts and all aspects of culture, not just agriculture and horticulture, flourished. Pasadena’s genteel pursuit of history, literature, poetry, music, art, and the artistic aspects of horticulture created a heaven on earth for the upper middle-class liberal Protestants who made it their home.

Wearing the Craftsman Crown

The design and decorative demands of the city’s well-to-do residents meant steady work for the country’s finest artists and architects. It was no accident, then, that Pasadena soon became an architectural showcase. Many of its treasures still stand. The Hollywood types on L.A.’s westside may have square footage but Pasadenans have architecture.

Louis Tiffany stained glass, in the intricate image of a spreading California oak, accents the handcrafted oak doors of the Gamble House. Photo by John Lopez/ CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Most “Pasadena” of them all, ultimately, was the impact of the Arts and Crafts movement, inspired by John Ruskin and William Morris in England but popularized throughout the United States by German immigrant Gustav Stickley, publisher of The Craftsman magazine and himself a craftsman-style furniture designer.

Leaded-glass window detail, Gamble House. Photo by Michael/ CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Craftsman architecture was inspired by the nature-oriented style of summerhouses built in British colonial India—an uncluttered, outdoorsy design that seemed to combine Japanese (sometimes Chinese) sensibilities with Tudor touches and the broad, sweeping eaves of a Swiss chalet. In Pasadena these distinctive homes were sided with shakes or shingles, usually redwood, and built upon a foundation of boulders brought up from the Arroyo Seco; prominent chimneys also were built of arroyo stone. With wide porches supported by heavy tie beams, craftsman houses typically featured roof supports that extended beyond the gable. Many included sleeping porches, to take full advantage of Southern California’s mild weather.

Most important, though, the craftsman approach was a repudiation of all things Victorian, including architecture and furnishings that were ornate, overly fussy, overstuffed. The Arts and Crafts movement instead emphasized simplicity and harmony with nature—integrating every element of interior design, including light and air, with the world outside, down to the last landscaping detail.

The architectural achievements of brothers Charles Sumner Greene and Henry Mather Greene in Pasadena came to epitomize America’s Arts and Crafts movement—pragmatic, functional design with aesthetic sensibility, a social statement made through architecture. “I seek till I find what is truly useful, and then I try to make it beautiful,” Charles Greene once said. The Greenes’ oft-imitated style was reserved not just for a home’s architecture. Greene and Greene also shared their design vision with talented craftspeople who created Tiffany stained-glass lamps, leaded-glass windows, furniture, light fixtures, rugs, and other interior and exterior items. Yet the brothers Greene reserved their talents for the wealthy, contradicting core Arts and Crafts ideals. As historian Kevin Starr observed, a notable characteristic of a Greene and Greene home is its “cunning concealment” of servant staircases and other service features.

The craftsman-style bungalow is popular throughout California (this home is in San Jose), representing the middle-class desire for quality craftsmanship. Photo by David Sawyer/ CC BY-SA 2.0.

But even in Pasadena there was hope for the middle classes. The desire for quality craftsmanship and new, higher standards in housing for the masses led to Pasadena’s craze for craftsman bungalows. Known for both quality construction and innovative style, the craftsman represents Pasadena’s most popular approach to domestic architecture.

Photo by Thomas Hawk/ CC BY-NC 2.0.

Road Trip! Sunny Dreams Part 1

No sooner do we stop complaining about the summer’s heat than we start grousing about the chill in the air—minding not so much the nippiness itself as anticipating the toe-numbing cold that comes later, hitched to the memory. Such ingrates, we Californians.

Deciding where to go and what to do for some winter fun, that’s easy if you’re a skier or snowboarder. But what if you’re not a winter sports fan? What if you’re dreaming instead of sunny and warm? Where can you go, fairly close to home? 

California, always happy to be all things to all people, surely offers just what you need. This week and next Up the Road will suggest some unusual yet affordable warm-winter getaways to expand your list of “possibles.”

Down to the Desert

The popular conception of desert as a barren wasteland, some monotonous sea of naked sand baking under a steady sun, does not fit California’s complex desert landscape. What we have instead is an astonishing diversity of landforms and plant and animal life, not to mention fascinating human communities. And if we ever again enjoy a very, very wet winter, the spring wildflower display throughout the desert will be spectacular—because many desert plants only bloom in years of unusually high rainfall.

Sunrise over Mesquite Dunes, Death Valley National Park. Photo by Andrew Mace/ CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Palm Springs and vicinity, the California desert’s most famous urban outpost, was once the winter playground of the Hollywood set. Now everyone else has discovered the peak-season pleasures of the Coachella Valley, which makes finding inexpensive accommodation a winter challenge. The valley is famous for its lush golf courses, so if golfing’s your game this is the place. The region’s astounding natural history is another big draw, along with an excellent art museum and other cultural attractions. Coachella Valley Music and Art Festival, anyone?

Joshua trees at sunset. Photo by Spencer Goad/ CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

The desert offers winter solitude too, though this being its most popular season alone time will be harder to come by. Walking in Joshua Tree National Park may be the answer. Early California travelers had few kind or poetic words for these desert giants—Spanish and Mexican explorers called them “cabbage palms”—but these strange, slow-growing trees are an endless fascination, which is why most of us can spend day after day just wandering among them, studying their eccentric shapes, shadows, and unintended impersonations.

Death Valley National Park may be the California desert’s most famous attraction, internationally, and winter is the most hospitable time to visit—which may mean its somewhat limited facilities will be overwhelmed, if creature comforts are high on your list. But if wide-open space is what you’re after, Death Valley offers lots of it, along with intriguing natural history and outposts of colorful local history.

Santa Barbara and the Channel Islands

The old-California city of Santa Barbara now markets itself as The American Riviera, which is a bit hoity-toity even by Santa Barbara standards. Life here can be precious, if you’re talking about high-end hotels and boutique wineries, but there’s another, older, and earthier city underneath all that money. It’s well worth visiting, too, from the lovely mission and other historic buildings to the natural history museum, from the white-sand beaches to the botanical gardens. There are some great oceanside state campgrounds not far from town, for a low-rent stay.

Mission Santa Barbara, “Queen of the Missions.” Photo by Kevin Cole/ CC BY 2.0.

Offshore are California’s astounding Channel Islands. Privately owned Santa Catalina Island is the only truly populated island among Southern California’s eight Channel Islands. Populated by humans, that is. Many of the rest are inhabited by, or surrounded by, such rare, endangered, and endemic animals and plants that biologists describe the Channel Islands, collectively, as North America’s Galápagos.

The Anacapas at sunset. Photo by Brian Hawkins/ CC BY-NC 2.0.

The five northernmost Channel Islands are now included in Channel Islands National Park, 250,000 acres of isolated Southern California real estate set aside in 1980 by President Jimmy Carter for federal preservation. (Odd, by national park standards, is the fact that half these acres are below the ocean’s surface.) The park is also a national marine sanctuary and an international biosphere preserve. Visitors can set out for the islands for primitive campouts; private boat tours are also available.

Orange County

Disneyland! you’re probably thinking. Well yes, Disneyland is there in Orange County, right off the freeway in Anaheim, adjacent to Disney’s California Adventure and all that Disney-branded shopping.

Laguna Beach. Photo by Mark Weston/ CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

But Orange County, the next county south of Los Angeles, offers a whole lot more, including some very distinctive and diverse beach towns—Huntington Beach, Laguna Beach, andNewport Beach, to name a famous few—and surprising cultural attractions. One of my favorites is the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art, which is now known simply as the Bowers Museum. Situated in placid downtown Santa Ana, the Bowers is an amazing cultural art collection founded by the city in 1936 through a bequest from Charles and Ada Bowers. But the museum does more than offer rotating glances at its own vast collection; it also hosts rare traveling exhibits from around the world such as Heavenly Horses: Two Thousand Years of Chinese and Japanese Equine Art and Beethoven: The Late Great. One of this winter’s exhibits (through March 15, 2015) is China’s Lost Civilization: The Mystery of Sanxingdui. For families the Bowers also offers the Kidseum nearby, where the focus is still cultural art but the approach is hands-on.

The beautiful grounds of Bowers Museum, Santa Ana. Photo by Chris/ CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

No matter what you think of Orange County homeboy Richard Nixon, another must-stop is theNixon Presidential Library and Museum—especially for you youngsters who’ve never quite been clear on what the fuss was all about (Watergate, etc.). The last 94 of the “Nixon Tapes” were released in 2013; now you can even listen in online.

Up the Road will share more details about these destinations and attractions, and offer still more suggestions, later, when winter has fully arrived.

And let’s hope it arrives as one wild storm after another.

A giant tree at Jedediah Smith Redwood State Park. Photo by Will Smith.

Following Hwy. 1 north from Mendocino County leads to Leggett and the junction with Hwy. 101. The big attraction here is the Drive-Thru-Tree Park, as schlocky as it sounds, but for some reason we humans just love driving through trees. They carved this car-sized hole in the Chandelier Tree in the 1930s, and for a fee you can “drive thru” it, or bike or walk (RVs won’t make it).

A couple miles farther north is the 1,000-acre Standish-Hickey State Recreation Area, a forest of second-growth coast redwoods, firs, bigleaf maples, oaks, and alders also thick with ferns and, in spring, water-loving wildflowers. Good camping, and you can also hike to the 225-foot-tallMiles Standish Tree and then continue on to the waterfall. Two miles farther is lovely Smithe Redwoods State Reserve, reached from the west side of the highway though most of the park’s protected trees are to the east. Nearby is Confusion Hill, one of those places where gravity is defied and water runs uphill, etc. Open year-round. You can also take the kids on a train ride through the redwoods (summers only).

Redwood sorrel (redwood clover). Photo by Brian Kurtz.

Richardson Grove State Park is where you’ll find the first serious groves of old-growth redwoods. There’s even a walk-through tree here. It’s an easy stroll to the historic Hartsook Inn, at last report still in need of new purpose. The Richardson Grove Nature Trail is fully accessible. Picnic near the Eel River then choose from three developed campgrounds (Huckleberry/Madrone open all year). The old Richardson Grove Lodge serves as a seasonal visitor center.

Next north is Benbow Lake State Recreation Area, in the midst of open woodlands two miles south of Garberville but aptly named only in the summer, when a temporary dam goes up on the Eel River’s south fork to create Benbow Lake. State budget cuts in recent years, however, mean both the lake and campground are questionable. Even the 20-year-plus run of Shakespeare at Benbow Lake is no more. Find out what is going on when you’ll be around at the historic Benbow Inn. 

A former sheep ranching town, Garberville is not an outlaw enclave paved in $100 bills by pot-growing Mercedes Benz owners, as media mythology would have it. The town was once considered the sinsemilla cultivation capital of the world, an honor most locals are fed up with. Big-time growers have long since gone elsewhere. But this is a good stop for groceries or a meal.

Humboldt Redwoods State Park

This is the redwood heart of Humboldt County, where more than 40 percent of the world’s redwoods remain. The Save-the-Redwoods League and the state have added to the park’s holdings grove by grove. Most of these “dedicated groves,” named in honor of those who gave to save the trees, and many of the park’s developed campgrounds are along the state-park section of the 33-mile Avenue of the Giants parkway.

Humboldt Redwoods State Park is one of the largest state parks in Northern California and the state’s largest redwood park, with more than 51,000 acres of almost unfrequented redwood groves, mixed conifers, and oaks. The park offers 35 miles of hiking and backpacking trails, plus 30 miles of old logging roads—and surprising solitude so close to a freeway. Down on the flats are the deepest and darkest stands of virgin redwoods, including Rockefeller Forest, donated by the John D. Rockefeller family, the world’s largest stand of stately survivors. The rolling uplands include grass-brushed hills and mixed forest. Calypso orchids and lilies are plentiful in spring, and wild blackberries and huckleberries ripen July-September.

A fallen redwood on Jedediah Smith Redwoods Mill Creek Trail. Photo by Miguel Vieira.

Camping is easy at Humboldt Redwoods, which offers hundreds of developed campsites—hot showers, restrooms, tables, the works—some wonderful backpackers’ and environmental camps, group and horse camps, plus four picnic areas.

Worthwhile stops on the way north to Redwood National Park include neat-as-a-pin Scotia, home to generations of Pacific Lumber Company employees and their families but now an LLC. The Scotia Museum and visitor center on Main is a storehouse of local logging history housed in a stylized Greek temple built of redwood, with logs taking the place of fluted columns. (Formerly a bank, the building’s sprouting redwood burl once had to be pruned regularly.) TheScotia Inn is still the town’s social center. With extra time on your hands also take in Del Rioacross the river and much larger Fortuna not far beyond, established in 1875. Come in July for the Redwood Fortuna Rodeo, the oldest rodeo in the West.

Eureka and Vicinity

If you’ll be spending time in and around Eureka, you won’t want to miss the very Victorian town of Ferndale, the kind of place Disney imagineers would create if they needed an old-timey movie set. Ferndale, however, is the real thing, a thriving small town settled by Danish immigrants in 1864. Ferndale also happens to be the final destination every Memorial Day weekend for participants in the annual Cross-Country Kinetic Sculpture Race from Arcata. Stop by the Kinetic Sculpture Museum on Main to appreciate some memorable kinetic-sculpture contenders.

Lost Coast Mutineers during the Kinetic Sculpture Race. Photo by Sandwich Girl.

Then there’s the big city of Eureka, also notable for its neighborhoods of redwood Victorians, vividly painted as if to burn away the fog. When James T. Ryan slogged ashore here from his whaling ship in May of 1850, shouting (so the story goes) Eureka! (“I have found it”), what he found was California’s largest natural bay north of San Francisco. Russian-American Fur Company hunters actually entered Humboldt Bay earlier, in 1806, but the area’s official discovery came in 1849 when a party led by Josiah Gregg came overland that winter seeking the mouth of the Trinity River (once thought to empty into the ocean). Gregg died in unfriendly forests on the return trip to San Francisco, but the reports of his half-starved companions led to Eureka’s establishment as a trading post and port serving the far northern inland gold camps.

Humboldt Bay was less than ideal as a port, with its treacherous sandbar, and dozens of ships foundered in heavy storms or fog. But it offers attractions for landlubbers, including

Humboldt Bay National Wildlife Refuge, established on the edge of the bay’s South Jetty to protect the black brant, a small migratory goose, and more than 200 other bird species. Other harbor life includes sea lions, harbor seals, porpoises, and gray whales, seen offshore here in winter and early spring. Humboldt Bay’s Egret Rookery and other refuge features are best observed from the water. The Humboldt refuge also includes Lanphere Dunes near Arcata.

The Samoa Bridge connects the city of Eureka with the narrow peninsula extending south from Arcata (almost across Humboldt Bay) and the onetime Simpson Lumber Company town of Samoa, the name inspired by the bay’s resemblance to the harbor at Pago Pago. The Samoa Cookhouse, noted rustic restaurant and the last logging camp cookhouse in the West, also offers a fascinating museum.

Detail of the Carson Mansion in Eureka, Calif. Photo by David Berry.

Take in Eureka’s Victorians, especially the geegawed Gothic Carson Mansion, 143 M St. at the foot of Second St. (locals say “Two Street”), once the home of lumber baron William Carson. Those in the know say this is the state’s—perhaps the nation’s—finest surviving example of Victoriana. Now home to the exclusive all-male (how Victorian) Ingomar Club, even unescorted men are not welcome inside or in the club’s palatial gardens. So be happy with a look at the ornate turrets and trim of this three-story money-green mansion built of redwood.

Romano Gabriel Sculpture Garden. Photo by Denise Comiskey, courtesy Eureka Heritage.

Also well worth extended appreciation is the Romano Gabriel Sculpture Garden nearby at 315 Second St., a blooming, blazing, full-color world of delightful plants, people, and social commentary, crafted from packing crates with the help of a handsaw. This is “primitive art” (snobs say “poor taste”) on a massive scale, one of two pieces of California folk art recognized internationally; the other is Watts Towers in Los Angeles. Gabriel worked on this garden, which includes likenesses of Mussolini, the Pope, nosy neighbors, and tourists amid the fantastic flowers and trees, for 30 years. After Gabriel’s death it was restored then transplanted downtown from his front yard on Pine Street. Worth it, too, is a stop at the fine and friendlyClarke Historical Museum, 240 E St. (at Third), where you’ll feel as though you’re stepping into a 19th-century parlor.

“Lumberjacks” at the Kinetic Sculpture Races. Photo by Sandwich Girl.

After poking around in the galleries and shops of Old Town Eureka near the bay—lots of local events happen here—head to Humboldt State University and the city of Arcata nearby, to sample the North Coast college scene. Arcata is Eureka’s alter-ego, no more resigned to the status quo than the sky here is blue. It would be natural to assume that the genesis of this backwoods grass-roots activism is the presence of academia, namely Humboldt State, the only university on the north coast. But the beginnings of the Arcata attitude go back much further. When Arcata was still a frontier trading post known as Union Town, 24-year-old writer Bret Harte set the tone. An unknown underling on The Northern Californian newspaper in Arcata between 1858 and 1860, an outraged Harte—temporarily in charge while his editor was out of town—wrote a scathing editorial about the notorious Indian Island massacre of Wiyot villagers by settlers and was summarily run out of town, shoved along on his way to fame and fortune. Besides activism, general community creativity, and education, farming and fishing are growing concerns. Appropriately enough, the popular semipro baseball team, a proud part of the community since 1944, is called the Humboldt Crabs. The Arcata Marsh and Wildlife Preserve at the foot of I St. was one of the first wildlife preserves in the U.S. to be created from an old landfill dump and “enhanced” by treated sewage water. The aesthetic settling ponds offer pleasant walks and excellent bird-watching.

North From Arcata

In the Mad River Valley just northeast of Arcata on Hwy. 299 is Blue Lake, a tiny town in farm, dairy, and timber country with a fish hatchery, museum, roller rink, and amazingDell’Arte International School of Physical Theatre. One thing not in Blue Lake is a lake, due to the Mad River changing its course some time ago; the original lake is now a marsh. East via Hwy. 299 is Willow Creek, where folks around here go when the summer fog finally becomes unbearable—and where Bigfoot is everywhere, starting at the local museum.

Heading north from Arcata on Hwy. 101, the first wide-spot-in-the-road is fast-growingMcKinleyville. The town lies adjacent to the Azalea State Reserve and offers good whale-watching from McKinleyville Vista Point. Then comes charming Trinidad, once a booming supply town and whaling port complete with lighthouse, museum, great beaches, and Humboldt State marine lab and aquarium. Almost as beloved is Patrick’s Point State Park,where the point itself is one of the finest spots anywhere for whalewatching (not to mention camping, picnicking, and winter mushrooming). The Yurok people who for centuries seasonally inhabited this area believed that the spirit of the porpoises came to live here just before people populated the world—and that the seven offshore sea stacks that stretch north to south like a spine were the last earthly abode of the immortals.

When you arrive in the community of Big Lagoon just off the highway north of Patrick’s Point you’ll know you’re almost arrived at Redwood National Park. Humboldt Lagoons State Parkincludes Big Lagoon itself and the miles-long barrier beach separating it from the sea, along with three other lagoons, a total of 1,500 beachfront acres best for beachcombing, boating, fishing, surfing, and windsurfing (swimming only for the hardy or foolhardy).

Redwood National Park & Vicinity

Pointing north to Oregon like a broken finger is Redwood National Park, California’s finest temple to tree hugging. Well-traveled Hwy. 101 passes through the park, but much of the temple is remote and empty of worshippers. Visitors just passing through to the Trees of Mystery are likely unaware that they’re witnessing a miracle—forests being raised (albeit slowly) from the dead.

Redwood National Park is complete, yet unfinished. Standing in the shadow and sunlight of an old-growth redwood grove is like stepping up to an altar mindful only of the fullness of life. But elsewhere in the park—out back toward the alley, looking like remnants of some satanic rite—are shameful scars of sticks and scabbed-over earth, the result of opportunistic clearcutting during the political wrangling that accompanied the park’s formation. Today, these areas are still in the early stages of healing.

Yet Redwood National Park features some magnificent groves of virgin old-growth redwood. Three of the world’s 10 tallest trees grow here—one of the reasons for UNESCO’s 1982 declaration of the area as a World Heritage Site, the first on the Pacific coast. Redwood National Park is also an international Man in the Biosphere Reserve.

Driving through the Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park on the Howland Hill Road is a blast. The one lane dirt road winds around the huge trees for about 8 miles offering a unique way to experience the redwoods. Photo by Brian Hoffman.

But other people call it other things. When the sawdust finally settled after the struggle to establish this national park—the costliest of them all, with a total nonadministrative pricetag of $1.4 billion—no one was happy. Despite the park’s acquisitions to date, purists protest that not enough additional acres of old-growth redwoods have been preserved. Philistines are dismayed that there is so little commercial development here, so few gift shops and souvenir stands. And some locals are still unhappy that prime timber stands are now out of the loggers’ reach, and that the prosperity promised somewhere just down the skid roads of Redwood National Park never arrived—or, more accurately, never matched expectations.

Federal and state lands within the boundaries of Redwood National Park are technically under separate jurisdictions, but as a practical matter the national and its three associated state parks—the Prairie Creek, Del Norte Coast, and Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Parks—are cooperatively managed. In general, the visiting weather is best in late spring and early autumn. August and September are the busiest times here (the salmon fishing rush), but September after Labor Day offers fewer crowds and usually less fog.

Some of the lush terrain included within the borders of Redwood National Park is so strange that filmmaker George Lucas convinced much of the world it was extraterrestrial in his Return of the Jedi. The park’s dominant redwood forests host more than 1,000 species of other plants and animals. Roosevelt elk, or wapiti, survive only here and in Washington’s Olympic National Park, though they once roamed from the San Joaquin Valley north to Mt. Shasta. The park is also home to 300 species of birds, including Pacific Flyway migrants, gulls, cormorants, rare brown pelicans, raptors, and songbirds.

The rehabilitation of clearcut lands remains a top park priority—more important than recreational development. Because of the immensity of the task and the slow healing process, Redwood National Park will probably not be “finished” for decades.

That said, the main thing to do in Redwood National Park is simply be here. “Being here” to many area visitors means little more than pulling into the parking lot near the 49-foot-tall Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox at Klamath’s Trees of Mystery, buying big-trees trinkets, or stopping for a slab or two at roadside redwood burl stands in Orick. Though fishing, kayaking, surfing, and rafting are increasingly popular, nature study and hiking are the park’s main recreational offerings.

Parenting. Photo by Michael Mees.

For those seeking views with the least amount of effort, take a drive along Howland Hill Rd. (one-lane dirt road) through some of the finest trees in Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park. (Howland Hill Rd. transects the park and can be reached via South Fork Rd. off Hwy. 199 just east of the park, or via Elk Valley Rd. south of Crescent City.) Or try a sunny picnic on the upland prairie overlooking the redwoods and ocean, reached via one-lane Bald Hills Rd., eight miles or more inland from Hwy. 101.

Hiking here is not to be missed. The together-but-separate nature of the park’s interwoven state and federal jurisdictions makes everything confusing, including figuring out the park’s trail system. Pick up a copy of the local trails at park information centers. Among must-do walks is the easy and short self-guided nature trail on the old logging road to Lady Bird Johnson Grove. Nearby at the overlook is an educational logging rehabilitation display comprised of acres of visual aids—devastated redwood land clearcut in 1965 and 1970 next to a forest selectively logged at the end of World War II. The traditional route for true tree huggers, though, is the long (but also easy) 11.5-mile roundtrip hike (at least five hours one-way, overnight camping possible with permit) along Redwood Creek Trail to the famous Tall Trees Grove. The longest and most memorable trek in Redwood National Park is the 30-mile-long Coastal Trail, which runs almost the park’s entire length (hikable in sections) from near Endert’s Beach south of Crescent City through Del Norte Redwoods State Park, inland around the mouth of the Klamath River, then south along Flint Ridge, Gold Bluffs Beach, and Fern Canyon in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park. A summers-only spur continues south along the beach to the information center.

Roosevelt Elk at Redwood National Park. Photo by Steve Dunleavy.

Beyond Orick and the park’s excellent Thomas H. Kuchel Visitor Center is 14,000-acrePrairie Creek Redwoods State Park. Heavy winter rainfall and thick summer fog produce rainforest lushness. Redwoods rub elbows with 200-foot-tall Sitka spruce, Douglas fir, and Western hemlock above an amazing array of shrubs, ferns, and groundcover, not to mention 800 varieties of flowers and 500 different kinds of mushrooms. Fern Canyon is unforgettable. Also particularly worthwhile at Prairie Creek: beachcombing, surf fishing, nature walks and photography, picnicking, and camping. Prairie Creek’s Revelation Trail loop, which includes a rope guide for the blind, has been put forth as the national standard for trail accessibility.

You’ve arrived in traditional Yurok country when you get to Klamath. The 263-mile-long Klamath River—California’s second-largest—drains 8,000 square miles and is fed by more than 300 tributaries, including the Salmon, Scott, and Trinity Rivers. Despite the shocking die-off of 33,000 salmon along the river’s lower reaches in 2002, due to excess water use upstream (a long and ongoing story), the Klamath is still one of the world’s finest fishing streams. Anglers line the Klamath and the lagoon from late fall through winter for the salmon run, though fishing for cutthroat trout downstream from town is good year-round.

Just south of Klamath is the Tour-Thru-Tree, in case you haven’t toured-thru one yet. (To tour thru, take the Terwer Valley/Klamath Glen exit off Hwy. 101 and go east a quarter mile.) “New Klamath” (the old town washed away in massive floods) is dominated by theTrees of Mystery on the highway,  made famous by Robert Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Most notable in tiny Requa is the historic Requa Inn, a Yurok-owned bed-and-breakfast with good restaurant.

Next north is Del Norte Redwoods State Park, a dense and foggy coastal rainforest comprised of 6,400 acres of redwoods, meadows, beaches, and tidepools. It’s so wet here in winter that the developed campgrounds close.

Stout Grove Redwoods. Photo by Ray Bouknight.

Though the competition is certainly stiff even close by, Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park farther north is one of the most beautiful places on earth—and almost unvisited. Few people come inland even a few miles from Hwy. 101 near Crescent City. The Smith River, which flows through the park, was crossed by mountain man Jedediah Smith on June 20, 1828, after his grueling cross-country effort to reach the Pacific. Despite subsequent incursions this 10,000-acre stand of old-growth redwoods, Douglas fir, pines, maples, and meadows seems almost unscathed.

If so much verdant natural beauty cries out for balance—as in the comforts of civilization—head back to Eureka and environs or try nearby Crescent City, the only incorporated city in Del Norte County. See the Battery Point Lighthouse near town, originally known as the Crescent City Lighthouse and first lit in December of 1856. Weather and tides permitting you can walk out to it on a path more than 100 years old and visit the island museum.

King Range National Conservation Area. Photo by Bob Wick, US Bureau of Land Management.

Dust off the backpack, get new laces for those hiking boots. This is the place. California’s isolated “Lost Coast”—virtually uninhabited and more remote than any other stretch of coastline in the Lower 48—has been found. Here steep mountains soar like bald eagles, their domes tufted with chaparral, a few redwoods tucked behind the ears, and sink their rock-knuckled, grassy talons into surf that surges onto black-sand beaches. Local people, of course, snort over the very idea that this splendid stretch of unfriendly coast was ever lost in the first place, even if area highways were intentionally routed away from it. They knew it was here. And others have known, too, for at least 3,000 years. 

Much of the Lost Coast is included in two major public preserves. Some 35 miles of coastline connect Sinkyone Wilderness State Park in Mendocino County with 65,000-acre King Range National Conservation Area in Humboldt County. Central to the long battle over expanding the Sinkyone Wilderness was the fate of 75-acre Sally Bell Grove along Little Jackass Creek. The prolonged political skirmish between former property owner Georgia-Pacific (which planned to clearcut the area) and various private and public agencies focused first on the value of these thousand-year-old trees to posterity. But the war was also over preserving reminders of a lost culture.

Whale Gulch. Photo by Michael Mees/ CC BY 2.0.

Archaeologists believe proto-Yukian people occupied a site in the middle of Sally Bell 3,000 to 8,000 years ago. Chipped-stone tools, stonecutting implements, milling tools, the remains of two houses, and charcoal from long-ago campfires have been discovered. Since at least 2,500 years up until a century ago, the Sinkyone and Mattole peoples lived permanently along this vast seaside stretch, though other groups came here seasonally when the valleys inland roasted in 100-degree heat. The living was easy, with abundant seafood a dietary staple.

The beaches fringing the King Range were sacred to the Mattole. Descendants talk about the legendary wreck of a Spanish ship along the coast from which the locals retrieved triangular gold coins for their children to play with. The coins were lost, however, when their caves along the coast collapsed after the 1906 earthquake.

Getting Here (and Not Getting Lost)

Visiting the Lost Coast requires first getting there, something of a challenge. Roads here are not for the faint of heart nor anyone with an unreliable vehicle. Unpaved roads are rough and rugged even under the best weather conditions; some wags refer to driving the area as “car hiking.” Though Lost Coast road signs usually disappear as fast as they go up (the locals’ way of sending a message), existing signs that state Steep Grade—Narrow Road: Campers and Trailers Not Advised roughly translate as “Prepare to drive off the end of the earth, then dive blindly into a fogbank.”

King Range. Photo by Bob Wick for the Bureau of Land Management/ CC BY 2.0.

From Humboldt Redwoods State Park, take Bull Creek Rd. west through the park and over the rugged mountains down to Honeydew. There turn north on Mattole Rd. and continue north to Petrolia, near the north end of the King Range National Conservation Area. Lost Coast hikers “going the distance” south along the King Range beaches to Shelter Cove often start outside Petrolia, near the squat old lighthouse (reached via Lighthouse Road). Arrange a shuttle system, with pickup at Shelter Cove, to keep it a one-way trip (paid shuttle services are available).

The easiest path to the sea is steep, narrow, and serpentine Shelter Cove Rd., which ends up at the hamlet of Shelter Cove, roughly midway down the Lost Coast; from Garberville, take Frontage Rd. one mile to Redway, and go west 26 miles on Briceland/Shelter Cove Road. Off of this road, you can turn north on wild Wilder Ridge Rd., which connects with Mattole Rd. near Honeydew, or turn south on either Briceland Rd. or Chemise Mountain Rd. to reach Sinkyone Wilderness (the last nine miles are unpaved, 4WD-only in winter and never suitable for RVs or trailers). At Four Corners junction, you can take Bear Harbor Rd. down to the ocean at Needle Rock and Bear Harbor, or head south on Usal Rd., which eventually joins Hwy. 1.

If you’re coming north from the Mendocino area vua Hwy. 1, get to Sinkyone Wilderness via Usal Rd., which turns north off Hwy. 1 a few miles north of Rockport (watch carefully—it’s easy to miss).

The King Range

The northern reaches of the Lost Coast take in the King Range Conservation Area, and stretch 35 miles from south of the Mattole River to Whale Gulch. Most people come here to “beach backpack,” hiking north to south in deference to prevailing winds. The trailhead begins near the mouth of the Mattole River. Get there from Mattole Rd. near Petrolia via Lighthouse Rd., then head south on foot. After about three miles, you’ll come to the relict Punta Gorda light station; the rocks nearby harbor a seabird colony and a rookery for Steller’s sea lions. You can hike all the way south to Shelter Cove, a two- or three-day trip one-way (five days roundtrip), but a longer trek if you head on to Sinkyone.

Shelter Cove. Photo by Rene Rivers/ CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

The trail saunters along miles of sandy beaches, around some tremendous tidepools, and up onto headlands to bypass craggy coves. In wintry weather it’s quite the wild walk (check conditions before setting out); in any season, watch for rattlesnakes on rocks or draped over driftwood. Between self-protective downward glances, look around to appreciate some of the impressive shipwrecks scattered along the way. Also just offshore in proper season are gray whales, killer whales, porpoises, and harbor seals. Inland, forming an almost animate wall of resistance, are the mountains, their severity thinly disguised by redwoods and Douglas fir, forest meadows, chaparral scrub, and spring wildflowers. Make camp on high ground well back from the restless ocean, and always adhere to the backpacker’s credo: if you pack it in, pack it out.

Sinkyone Wilderness

Sinking into Sinkyone is like blinking away all known life in order to finally see. Named for the Sinkyone people, who refused to abandon their traditional culture and hire on elsewhere as day laborers, this place somehow still honors that indomitable spirit.

Visitor Center, Sinkyone Wilderness. Photo by Rene Rivers/ CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

At Sinkyone Wilderness State Park jagged peaks plunge into untouched tidepools where sea lions and seals play. Unafraid here, wildlife sputters, flutters, or leaps forth at every opportunity. The land seems lusher, greener, with dark virgin forests of redwoods and mixed conifers, rich grassland meadows, waterfalls, fern grottos. The one thing trekkers won’t find (yet) among these 7,367 wild acres is a vast trail system. Many miles of the coast are accessible to hikers, though, and the trail system includes a north/south trail and some logging roads. Sinkyone Wilderness State Park is always open for day use, and also offers scattered primitive campsites.

It’s not as if there are no redwoods before you get to Humboldt and Del Norte Counties. Stranded stands of coast redwoods can be found along the Central Coast, in protected, wetter areas as far as the southernmost reaches of Big Sur. But here, along the North Coast, is where the tribe truly thrives. They once numbered an estimated two million, but even here the native population of coastal redwood trees has been reduced through logging and agricultural clearing to isolated groves of virgin trees. The tallest trees in the state but only the fourth oldest, survivors of the species Sequoia sempervirens are nonetheless ancient. Well established here when dinosaurs roamed the earth, redwood predecessors flourished throughout the Northern Hemisphere 60 million years ago. Redwoods made their last stand in California, isolated from the rest of their kind by thick ice sheets a million years ago. Here in northeastern California is where they still stand.

The Trees That Live Forever

Elders among today’s coastal redwoods are at least 2,200 years old. These trees thrive in low, foggy areas protected from fierce offshore winds. Vulnerable both to wind and soil erosion, shallow-rooted redwoods tend to topple over during severe storms. These giants have no need for deep taproots. During dry seasons fog collects on their needle-like leaves, then drips down the trunk or directly onto the ground, where the fog-equivalent of up to 50 inches of rainfall annually is absorbed by hundreds of square feet of surface roots. That’s in addition to seasonal rainfall, which can be substantial.

Unlike the stately, individualistic Sierra big trees or Sequoiadendron giganteum, comparatively scrawny coastal redwoods (still, some are truly huge) reach up to the sky in dense, dark-green clusters—creating living, breathing cathedrals lit by filtered flames of sun or shrouded in fog. The north coast’s native peoples religiously avoided inner forest areas, the abode of spirits (some ancestral). But in the modern world, the sacred has become profane. A single coast redwood provides enough lumber for hundreds of hot tubs, patio decks, and wine vats, or a couple of dozen family cabins, or a hefty school complex. Aside from its attractive reddish color, pungent fragrance, and water- and fire-resistance, redwood is also decay-, insect-, and fungus-resistant—making it all the more attractive for human purposes.

On the Boy Scout Tree Trail, Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park. Photo by Miguel Vieira/ CC BY 2.0.

Trees may be “harvested” and then trucked off to sawmills, but coast redwoods never really die. Left to their own devices, redwoods are capable of regenerating themselves without seeds. New young trees shoot up from stumps or from roots around the base of the old tree, forming gigantic woodland fairy rings in second- or third-growth forests. And each of these trees, when mature, can generate its own genetically identical offspring. Sometimes a large, straight limb from a fallen tree will sprout, sending up a straight line of trees. In heavily logged or otherwise traumatized forest areas, tiny winged redwood seeds find room to take root, sprout, and eventually flourish, blending into a forest with stump-regenerated trees.

Head to Humboldt Redwoods State Park and Redwood National Park to learn more about California’s amazing coast redwoods.

Surviving on Shaky Ground

Even survivors as ingenious as coast redwoods can be brought down by unexpected trouble, of course—just like north coast settlements, which also tend to sprout up in valleys and other inland areas protected from the gale-force storms that pound the western edge of the continent.

But some of these areas, including those near the Eel, Garcia, and Mad Rivers, parallel major northwesterly earthquake fault zones. As it turns out, even the redwoods, those gentle giants of the North Coast, stand on shaky ground. The seismically active San Andreas Fault (responsible for San Francisco’s devastating earthquake and fire in 1906 and again in 1989) runs north from the Bay Area on the seaward side of the mountains before veering back out to sea at Point Arena. Other faults related to the 1992 Eureka-area quake cluster farther north.

According to recent geologic speculations, a massive earthquake is likely somewhere along the Pacific Northwest’s offshore Cascadia subduction zone within the next 50-150 years. Such a quake, expected to register as high as 9.5 on the “energy magnitude” scale (considered more accurate than the Richter scale for major quakes), could occur anywhere from Vancouver Island in British Columbia to Mendocino in California. This event would be more powerful than any earthquake the San Andreas Fault could generate, much more powerful than any quake ever measured in the mainland U.S., and roughly equal in destructive force to Chile’s 1960 earthquake (the 20th century’s most devastating).

The James Irvine Trail. Photo by Justin Kern/CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Before arriving at this ominous conclusion, Humboldt State University geologists studied the Little Salmon Fault near Eureka. Their preliminary findings, announced in 1987 at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America, suggest that the fault slipped 30-33 feet in separate earthquakes occurring roughly every 500 years during the past half-million years—facts pointing to quakes of “awesome, incomprehensible” power.