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Hiking Fern Canyon/James Irvine Trail in Northern California

The ancestry of the ferns in Fern Canyon at Prairie Redwoods State Park can be traced back 325 million years.
The ancestry of the ferns in Fern Canyon at Prairie Redwoods State Park can be traced back 325 million years.

Fern Canyon on the Northern California Coast is a very green must do hike. The 50-foot high walls are covered with ferns that include lady fern, wood fern, five-finger fern, deer fern, leather leaf fern, and sword fern, and their lineage can be traced back 325 million years. Fern Canyon is beautiful, and as well as the James Irvin Trail.

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Hiking Crags Trail to Castle Dome at Castle Crags State Park

A pair of crags tower over the end of the Crags Trail at Castle Crags State Park.
A pair of crags tower over the end of the Crags Trail at Castle Crags State Park.

Iwon’t sugar coat this. The hike to Castle Dome at Castle Crags State Park is not easy… especially on a hot day.

The hike starts off easy enough on the wide Root Creek Trail under forested canopy, but then you come to a junction about .3 miles in where you make a left turn, and then the climbing begins. Roughly after 500 feet, you will intersect with and cross over the Pacific Crest Trail.

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Hiking Creamery Meadow, Bluffs, Panorama and Ridge Trail at Andrew Molera State Park

The view from Panoramic Trail looking over the Pacific Ocean from above the marine layer.
The view from Panoramic Trail looking over the Pacific Ocean from above the marine layer.

Andrew Molera State Park at Big Sur offers beautiful views of the Pacific Ocean and the nearby mountains. While the hike to see some of the views is challenging in places, it is worth it.

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Hiking Silver Lake to Spanish Peak in the Bucks Lake Wilderness

The view from the top of Spanish Peak is vast and sweeping with Mt. Lassen vaguely visible in the distance.
The view from the top of Spanish Peak is vast and sweeping with Mt. Lassen vaguely visible in the distance.

In 2021,  the Dixie Fire burned much of the area, so the landscape may be different now than when we were there about a month or so before the fire occurred.

Hiking to Spanish Peak from Silver Lake in the Plumas National Forest is not easy, but the views are a spectacular payoff. The terrain is diverse. You start off in the forested area at Silver Lake, then you hike exposed over granite as you climb, and then you hike through forested areas again.

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Trash in the Snow Mountain Wilderness in the Mendocino National Forest

Trash left behind by backpackers and hikers in the Snow Mountain Wilderness.
Trash left behind by backpackers and hikers in the Snow Mountain Wilderness.

We went backpacking at Snow Mountain in late March, but this is not a trail summary. It’s more of a gripe similar to what I wrote in 2019 about garbage people left behind near the Fleming Trail System in the Eldorado National Forest.

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Hiking the Historic Orchard at Jack London State Historic Park

The Historic Orchard at Jack London State Historic Park once produced apples, apricots, pears, plums, and prunes.
The Historic Orchard at Jack London State Historic Park once produced apples, apricots, pears, plums, and prunes.

The hike to the Historic Orchard at Jack London State Historic Park is mild. The one-time 100 acre orchard once produced apples, apricots, pears, plums, and prunes. The orchard is a casual hike, but getting there is a hike up and down hills and through forests.

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Hiking Sunset Trail, Mount Livermore and North Ridge Trail on Angel Island

The views from the top of Angel Island offer a 360 degree view of the San Francisco Bay.
The views from the top of Angel Island offer a 360 degree view of the San Francisco Bay.

The views from the top of Mount Livermore on Angel Island State Park of the San Francisco Bay are incredible on a clear day. You can see the San Francisco Skyline, the East Bay, the Golden Gate Bridge and the hills of Marin County and much more.

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Blue Ridge Loop Revisited

The vegetation at the Stebbins Cold Canyon Reserve was decimated in the 2020 LNU Lightning Fire Complex.
The vegetation at the Stebbins Cold Canyon Reserve was decimated in the 2020 LNU Lightning Fire Complex.

I haven’t been on the Blue Ridge Loop at the Stebbins Cold Canyon Reserve in a couple of years, and I wanted to check it out again, so I hiked it last weekend. In 2020, in the LNU Lightning Complex fires, the entire area was ravaged, and where there was once some canopy, now there is none. In hiking the whole area, you are exposed on all the trails around. The day I hiked it, the temperature was in the low 60s when we started, and it was just plain hot because there was little wind and no shading.

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