What A Mess! (Estero Trail Hike, May 5)

Last week during a fine Spring outing on the slopes of Mount Burdell, Wendy remarked that she had decided not to do the Estero Trail (location of our next hike) in Winter anymore because there was too much mud and evidence (i.e., cowpies) of cattle grazing during that time of the year. Apparently her comments irked Mother Nature provoking her into steering one, last, and very wet storm at the North Bay last weekend and turning what may have been a reasonably dry track above Home Bay into a quagmire of ochre-colored clay goop sprinkled with cow plops (which, when wet, slurries into dark green, slimy blobs of crud resembling bloated sea anemones on land).

The hike didn't start out too badly even though the weather gods wrung the clouds hanging low over the trailhead like a wet dishrag causing a light drizzle to fall on our heads and the nearby cattle. But the temperature at "game time" was around 60, several degrees higher than forecast by the National Weather Service, so we didn't foresee poor hiking conditions. Swallows nesting on the outhouse at the trailhead reminded us that, after all, this was Spring, not mid-winter.

So we trucked off across fairly open meadows until we reached a long line of Bishop Pines stretching from south to north across the ranch road that we had driven in on. (Dick believes when he last hiked this trail many moons ago the trailhead may have been farther to the west, passing much closer to the Drakes Bay Ranch than it does today. He also recalls the pine forest being severely decimated twenty years ago by bark beetles or some other form of tree blight). The path through the forest was quite wide, and the trees are set far enough apart that wildflowers like Cow Parsnip and shrubbery plants like Huckleberry can grow under the canopy.

In less than an hour we had walked from the trailhead through the forest and arrived at Home Bay where we stopped to look for Pickleweed and Salt Grass in this marshy area. A dike once separated the landward side of the bay from the sea, probably creating a fresh water pond for cattle. But the dike has now been breached and a fairly new foot bridge constructed by the National Park Service spans the narrow channel connecting the "back bay" to the main body of water.

Clouds scudding over the hills dampened our raingear, but not our spirits, even though the weather created an eerie, foggy atmosphere that would have been perfectly fitting if we had come upon the skeletal remains of mariners who had long ago perished in a shipwreck along the shores of Drake's Bay. Once on the other side of the dike, we began climbing to the top of the headland. But here is where Mother Nature's wrath and the past few days of rain would thwart our efforts to complete the hike. The trail was a soggy, gooey mess. Making uphill progress was difficult, at best, even for those using hiking poles to propel themselves along and help maintain balance on the slippery terrain. Dick fell to one knee during the climb, leaving streaks of mud on his poncho and fleece pants. Theresa was ready to call it quits, but soldiered on after borrowing one of Dick's poles.

When we reached a level spot on the hill after a fifteen minute slog, we stopped, looked at each other and said "Been There, Done That, Nothing More to Prove Today!" But reversing course and heading down this slippery slope proved trickier than the uphill hike. Angie made a short unplanned "toboggan slide" on the muddy path, and everyone's feet were continually slipping out from under them, giving the group the appearance of a passel of Gortex-clad sots weaving their inebriated way down a steep hill after imbibing one too many "for the road".

By around 11:30 am we were back on the dike, scrapping our mud-laden boots and rainpants against the grassy growth to remove the muck and present the appearance to any "normal" people we might encounter on the trail that we did indeed believe that Cleanliness Is Next to Godliness. Apropos the muddy hiking conditions, on the way back through the Bishop Pine forest we found a Slippery Jack mushroom. (Two weeks ago on Wolf Ridge's Hill 88 we were "The Wandering Nomads"; today we were the Estero Trail Slippery Jacks and Jills).

We moseyed our way back to the cars over the next 45 minutes, checking out plants and birdwatching. (Click here for Wendy's list of flora and fauna spotted on this hike). The damp weather ruled out lunching near the trailhead, so we drove back over Inverness Ridge to Bear Valley where the sun was shining. There it was warm enough for us to shed layers of clothing while enjoying our midday repast.

Most of us called it a day after lunch, but Dick, Theresa, Nate and Neil joined Wendy for a half hour stroll on the Woodpecker Trail which loops for a half-mile uphill from the Bear Valley Trail, across a grassy meadow, through a damp mixed-wood forest, and back down past the Morgan Horse Ranch above the visitor center. (Click here to view and print a map of the Bear Valley area which shows this trail).

A word to the wise: Those who go home early will miss out on the best wildlife viewing --- in this case, a very close encounter with the exotic (non-native) Fallow Deer which crossed the Woodpecker Trail just uphill from us. (A Jumping Spider we saw later by the horse ranch would beg to differ on the question of whether he, and not the Fallow Deer, was the most significant critter we spotted today).