Friday May 15, 2015 Jenner CA.
It’s a windy one
The weather page said it was going to be windy today, but not too bad. I headed on down to Jenner and found Ray at the boat ramp getting ready to put his kayak in the water. I asked if it was too windy for him and he said no, so we put our boats in the water and headed across to Penny Island.
Partly because of the wind, we decided to head on up the river where we were hoping the wind was a little less than down by the river’s mouth.
As we cleared the upper end of Penny Island, we passed by these geese which appeared to be just taking it easy.
Hiking up the hill
As we were paddling along Ray said he wanted to go for a little walk, so I suggested we go up the Muskrat trail which we hadn’t been up in a couple months or so. I also suggested we check out the higher hill on the ridge top. That hill is the one you see just in front of my kayak in this picture, the one on the right.
We passed by this osprey resting on this dead tree branch while paddling along.
Trying to stay out of the mud
When we arrived at Muskrat Nest beach, we looked for a place to go to shore without getting too muddy. It was iffy as far as the mud, as when we would come back from our hike, the tide would be out a bit and the water level would be lower exposing more mud. We decided to take a chance and put in tying our boats up just to make sure they would be there when we returned from our hike up the hill.
Some new muskrat trails
I did notice several new muskrat trails worn in the grasses by the water leading up to the shore where there are a bunch of their nests.
Headed up the hill
We headed on up he hill using old animal trails that go through the brush. This trail has a heavy concentration of poison oak. Another one of the trails nearby is called Poison Oak Alley Trail, which would make this one Poison Oak Alley Trail Plus as this trail has even more poison oak.
There’s some of the poison oak just in front of my shoe. There is so much of it, it cannot be avoided while walking.
A little higher going up the hill we went through this fern patch that also has a little creek running through it.
When we got to the ridge top, there were quite a few wild flowers which we had to walk through.
We are up on the ridge now and headed to that hill top in the background.
Here we are almost on the top as we walk along the ridge to get to the high point. This is looking down the river towards the town of Jenner which can be seen down that way. And yes, that’s poison oak Ray is walking through. You can see the wind blowing on the river water down there.
Hilltop views
We made it to the hilltop and this was our view back down the river.
And the view up the river.
And this was our view looking south to the Pacific Ocean. That’s the Goat Rock turn off there, off highway 1, which is a State Park ocean beach just below Jenner.
The wind has come up more while we were hiking up the hill so it was blowing good on the hill top.
Can’t avoid the mud
We hung around long enough to enjoy the view, then headed back down to the river. By now the tide had gone out just a little. Enough to expose some mud on the shoreline so we did get a bit muddy putting our boats back in the water.
Can’t avoid the wind either
And the wind was blowing good now, so we’d have to paddle against it to get back to Jenner which meant we were going to get some exercise, which we did. We paddled along the river’s edge to stay out of the wind as much as possible, working our way down the river. We usually find places to stop along the way out of the wind, but not today. The wind was blowing into the shore, so there was no getting out of it.
We passed by this pair of geese with the two little ones moving out of our way. The little guys are hard to see. One is behind them and the other little guy is in back of them trying to keep up.
As we crossed the river to the boat ramp we had to paddle fairly hard in the wind as it was blowing good now, but we made it. We did take on some splashes and I think Ray was wetter than I was. :O)
Good exercise, eh
All that paddling was good exercise, but we were both real tired out. We loaded our boats and went on home for the day and that was about it for me.
Nice day exploring around Jenner.
