Monday December 2, 2013 Jenner CA.
There is a good reason this is called poison oak Alley
When I arrived at Jenner this morning around eleven AM, it was calm and the water was flat. You could tell the river’s mouth was still closed as the water level was still high.
I put my boat in the water and headed across to Penny Island and into the little channel at the east end. While I was there the wind picked up a bit.
I continued on up the south side of the river to Otter’s log where I sat for awhile, then continued on up to Eagle’s landing, where I was thinking of going to shore, which I did.
I was just going to dally for a bit, but then I started walking down the trail called poison oak alley, which heads down the river along it’s edge. Last time I was on this trail, I was able to go down a couple hundred yards before even I ran into too much poison oak to continue, so I wasn’t planning to go very far. However, the deer had opened the trail farther this time, so I went down that trail about a half a mile before turning around this time.
Here I put ashore at Eagle’s Landing where I was just planning to sit around for awhile. It’s a nice area, very scenic.
The trail called Poison Oak Alley
This is the trail I’m following down along the river, very brushy, with lots of poison oak mixed in.
The trail went though these horse tails.
And though some trees too, with even more poison oak. It’s dormant right now, so hard to see the stuff.
And under this fir tree.
And though this grassy area and yes there is poison oak mixed in the grass too. This is also the area of the last Indian settlement on this side of the river to my knowledge.
And even though some swamp type grass and yes, more poison oak mixed in that too.
I made it almost back to the east end of Penny Island, before I realized I was running out of time today and better get on back.
The otter’s showed up
When I got back to my boat, I sat down for a much needed break and was just taking it easy when there was a big splash in the water right in front of me, but I didn’t see what made that splash, so I watched and it was an otter heading down the river, just the direction I needed to go. I figured the otter would make it to about Otter’s log before I caught up to it, as I had to get my gear together before I could leave.
That was about right, the otter was almost to otter’s log when I saw it again, with a whole bunch of other otters too, about twelve of them or so.
They were headed down river at a fairly fast pace, so I stayed out in the river a bit and just followed along and tried to get some pics but wasn’t too successful.
This was the only half decent picture I got of them today and only one of them too.
I followed the otters down the back channel of Penny Island where they went to shore in some brush and they were gone. I followed them down river like this the other day and they went to the island too. I think they are going to the island to spend the night as it was getting late in the day and the sun was going down and they were in a hurry, not fishing a lot.
I left them and headed back in for the day.
It’s almost time for them to open the river’s mouth
This is a picture of the water level gauge at the visitor center. Note it is almost seven feet, the magic number for them to think about taking the river’s mouth out. It should reach seven feet tomorrow, so they’ll likely open it sometime soon after that.
I had a nice day at Jenner, as usual.