A Walk in the Poison Oak Up From Muskrat Nest Beach

Tuesday November 4, 2014 Jenner CA.

It was sunny with a low breeze as I drove into Jenner this morning. I put my boat in the water and headed on up the river a short distance to Muskrat Nest Beach.

I’m just approaching Muskrat Nest Beach in this picture.

The beach is gone

The only trouble was there wasn’t any beach there anymore with the water level being high with the river’s mouth closed. That meant I had to find another place to land my boat to get ashore.

I found this place and pushed my way into the brush to land on a small beach.

It was a very small beach by a big tree. This is the spot with my boat behind the tree, where a trail begins, sorta.

Muskrat nest

Here’s one of the muskrat nests, a pile of small sticks, five or six feet high.

The trail up the hill

Ray and I have been poking around in this area a bit trying to find a way to the top of the hill, so I followed the trail we’d found so far.

It goes through a lot of poison oak and brush and then gets into these trees and the poison oak doesn’t stop here. It’s thick everywhere up here.

I went up as far as Ray and I had been the last time we were up here. There was about six feet of solid poison oak that I needed to climb over to get into the next tree area, here.

I sorta just stepped on the poison oak vines and continued on up the hill under the trees.

I spotted an old fence corner up there in the middle of the brush. Lots of what you see is poison oak.

I was following a little sometimes creek up the hill and was also looking for any water holes that might exist. Near the top, I found a water hole in these ferns. It’s hard to see, but that black spot is water in the ferns.

Hands and knees

I could see a spot that broke out of the trees and ferns and went on up the hill in the grasses and poison oak, but to get there, I had to get down on my hands and knees and crawl the last twenty feet or so.

I broke out into this area where I sat down and had a nice long break.

I looked up the hill and into the sun and decided to go on up to the mound to the left of this picture. I had to hike through the grasses turning this way and that to get through to the top.

I was watching carefully for where the sorta trail I was walking on,  so I could find my way back, as the trail isn’t just a nice trail, but one that goes a short ways, then forks, sometimes multiple times, so it’s not east to follow and I would need to get back down later.

I made it up to the mound, which wasn’t the top yet, but good enough for the day.

This is my view looking back to the town of Jenner.

Hard time finding the trail back down

I had hiked up from below this spot, from the river and was now looking for the trail back down.

As you can see, not much of a trail, but there are some trails  in the grasses, but which way now? I started off down the hill, but couldn’t find the way I’d come up the hill and was getting off track, so I retraced my steps and tried again to find my way and wasn’t having much luck, so just started working my way across and into the trees on the left when I finally picked up the trail. Good thing or I might still be there. :O)

There sure was a lot of poison oak on that walk, good thing I don’t get it too much. We’ll have to do some more exploring up there as the area looked real nice, except for all the poison oak.

Seal splashes

I got back in my boat and sat in the water in that spot for a rest. Something splashed just out in the water from me and a seagull landed. It must have been a seal with a fish or hunting fish. The seagull dived in the water for some scraps of  what ever the seal was eating?

Looked for the coyote

I was headed on over to the Paddy’s rock area, where I’d seen the coyote the last few days, which is off to the right of this picture.

I paddled along the shoreline looking for the coyote, but I didn’t see it today. I don’t think it was here today, as there were birds along the shoreline that leave when the coyote is around.

Nice looking bovines

I did run into these bovinosarous feeding along the shore. This one is a female and didn’t attack me. :O)

I took my time paddling back down the river and passed by the old milk barn on Penny Island.

From there, it’s just a short paddle over to the boat ramp where I put the boat on the car and went on home for the day.

Still working on my bar blower fan problem

I worked on my car’s heater fan problem some more. I got part of it to work, but there is another relay someplace I can’t find that puts power to the relay I replaced. I hunted and hunted around the car, but so far can’t seem to find it.

That was it for another nice day.