Monday, May 11, 2009

The Long Road Home...

My use of the word "home" here is a bit controversial, as "home" will always be California, even as Victoria becomes more and more "home." After a wonderful visit in my California home with family and a few friends, Drew flew in, had quick meet and greet dinners with each side of the family and we headed on our adventure. The next few posts are from days over a week ago...but I am just starting to get caught up from all the excitement!

The first day of the adventure was actually in SoHum (Southern Humboldt) just east of Shelter Cove. The trail was a loop aptly named "Paradise Royale" as it is perched upon a remote peak in the King Mountain Range. We read about this trail in Bike magazine's "Trail" issue and decided that we had to ride it. We drove until we thought we were lost, along stunning but heinous roads that would switchback on themselves so much it was dizzying.

We rode the trail from the Tolkan Campground. It started with a smooth and flowy descent for few kilometres, crossed a stream, through a meadow, and then started climbing. The climb was long, but with good rhythm: steep with rolling rests. The kind of climb that makes you want to hammer because the more momentum you have the faster and easier it is...except that you earn every kilometre of momentum. At the top we hoped for a lookout, there wasn't one, but through the trees along the highest points of the trail were glimpses of a sea of green forests stretching miles and miles in every direction. The descent was fast, with loose gravel, smooth trails, and lots of off camber bits. The best part was actually climbing a rolling section just before getting back to the Tolkan campground, it was tighter and twistier with less loose gravel and more reward for smooth, skilled cornering.
The trail was beautiful, but the drive home was stunning--lungs tighteningly beautiful, actually. Before I go further, Humboldt is not your normal area to grow up in. It takes 1.5 hours to get to a major highway to take you to a major city. The area has banned Walmart from opening, one city has a ban on fast food restaurants, there are beaches with cows (the kind that moo!) on them, not condos, and the redwood trees dwarf even the largest houses. Growing up here removed "remote" even further outside of society. The drive home was my idea of remote...where you have to worry about having enough gas in your car because there is no such thing as a "truck stop."

The route we took home follows the Lost Coast, the entire way is a two lane road that climbs to the edges of the King Range and then descends down onto the most achingly beautiful stretch of beach imaginable. To the left of the road (heading north) are beautiful dunes inhabited only by cows, to the right are rolling hills that open up into fields that run into barbed wire fences and an occasional tamed farm house yard. The road is mostly straight with brief jags around rock outcroppings that interrupt the smooth hills.

We paused at Cape Mendocino (above) before starting our ascent (nicknamed "the wall" to people who have ridden the Tour of the Unknown Coast) back up and over the hills and into Ferndale where we hooked back up with highway 101 to head back to my mom's house for a huge and delicious dinner of homecooked enchiladas with home-made cream puffs for dessert (for the record, my mom has a cult following for her meals...I'm pretty sure you can taste all of the attention and care she puts into every dish she makes).

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