The Ravaged Coastline

 

Today I hiked Kirk Creek Trail for the second time.  Maybe later, if I feel the need to climb up on my soapbox, I will explain why I went up the same trail twice but for now, let’s just enjoy the story.

As I type this, I am sitting in Beagle, the sun is pouring in, I have all the windows and doors open to the ocean breeze; Kirk Creek Campground on California’s Big Sur coastline was quite a find:  One of the few campgrounds on the western side of Highway 1, half of the pitches are right on the cliff, the other half enjoy lovely views of the ocean from slightly higher ground.   There is a short trail down to a beach (during low tide.)  The Kitness was in great working order the evening I found one night available online and then, once here, the host changed me over to a site that had a cancellation the night before.  Three nights total in a spot that people try for months to secure.

Since the drive up was a mere sixty-four miles from my house—entirely on Highway 1—the Noses and I arrived on Tuesday in plenty of time for a short hike.  It was foggy as all get out but Opus and I set off up the mountain anyway.  After a mile or so I was about to turn around, you could only see about ten feet in front of you, the ocean just a roar way down below, when I ran into a German couple coming down.  They said it was clear and “like another world” only half a mile up ahead and that the views to the water were stunning.  So we kept on. 

I began to notice the little things that are so often overlooked when you are in awe of so much grandeur:  How bright green shoots of grass were pushing their way up between the taupe-colored grasses recently gone to seed, the dried foliage looking almost like a soft fur; a nice reminder of how everything has its cycle.  And we were not alone, the smallest lizard I have ever seen crossed the trail as did, sadly, not the smallest snake I have ever seen.  And a grasshopper.

At two miles in, the fog had not cleared and we had not been presented with stunning views of the ocean below; I decided that the Germans had miscalculated metric to miles or that the fog had moved—money on the later.  We turned around.

Today was a different story:  I woke early and sat gazing out Beagle’s windows into the light grey dawn, enjoying the sound of the crashing waves and my first cup of coffee.  (The Noses do not stir at that early hour.)  As this side of Earth turned toward the sun, color and focus arrived; the dark green tree across the field and the blue ocean just beyond.  It was a clear, bright morning and a perfect day for a long hike.

I drove down to Limekiln Trail only to find it closed for reasons completely beyond my understanding.  [Insert sound of soapbox being placed on the floor.]

I decided to just go up Kirk Creek Trail again.  This time the entire coastline was visible from the first step; I wouldn’t have even known it was the same trail—I had seen so little of it before.  We stopped for coffee about a mile in; it took some time to find a spot without poison oak (sprouting up everywhere), eventually I settled into the hillside, amongst the many mole holes, and enjoyed the view.

Back on the trail, Opus who, as you know, typically walks in front, was hanging behind me and so it happened that I was first to almost step on the tarantula.  Yep.  That gorgeous ocean vista keeps your eyes off the trail.   Once I was done with my involuntary jump and yelp, I stood and watched him make his way across the trail.  He was not in any great hurry, which was nice, so I had time to appreciate his black legs and body with their abundant, fine, taupe-colored fur covering.  He ambled along to the western side of the trail, onto the hillside and abruptly did a u-turn, placing his head into a mole hole.  Then he commenced to gather his legs underneath his body, pulling himself into a taupe-colored oval.  Looking, you know, just like the dried grasses recently gone to seed. 

Two lessons in one tarantula.

Further up the trail we saw a newly dead Coral Snake, expertly killed with a skull piercing by, I assume, the two hikers who had passed me earlier.  And, on the way down, a smaller, simply black tarantula which I pointed out to some hikers coming up the trail. 

“Fantastic!”, one hiker exclaimed, “And look, this must be a colony—see all the holes in the hillside?”

I may never sit in the dirt again.

-K

PS:  And more to the point of the post title:  This coastline has been ravaged by rain and fire and it is because of this that Limekiln Trail is currently closed.  The ranger said it was to “protect hikers from falling trees and/or mud slides”.  I do wish the government would stop pretending to care so much about my body.  #stillnotvaccinated