Stairs. That’s my big picture overview of this park. So many stairs. I guess that’s what you get when you’re on a cliffy point overlooking the ocean. And I suppose I could have just overlooked, rather than going all the way down to the beach, or all the way up to the lookout points. But… the views! So, yeah, I got my stair stepping in for the month.
We backtracked from Grizzly Creek up north to Patrick’s Point and arrived after a quick stop at a private RV park to dump tanks and fill with fresh water. We knew we’d be in shade for three days, having come out of shade for three days, and would likely need to run the generator. Plus, we decided to do a Caravan Mover Maneuver to situate in the site, and that drains the battery something fierce. Again we found our site to be better suited to a van or motor home, with the hanging out area placed on the right. This time we wanted to use the grill and facilitate outdoor cooking, so we spun Dory 180 degrees. It took a while to avoid both roots and posts, and would have been easier if we’d spun her in the loop road before entering the site. We got her in eventually though and started up the generator. I used the time to catch up on blog writing, if not uploading, and Richard scoped out the local bike routes.
We took in a nice sunset from Patrick’s Point and discovered that most of the trails at the coast either go steep steep down to the beach, or steep steep up to a rocky point, or both. Once such is named “Wedding Rock” and we saw a family all gussied up to take photos out there as the sun set. That one involved not only the drop from the cliff to the shore, but then a narrow stairs climb up to the cliffy selfie spot. I was content to catch the view from back on solid footing, behind a guard rail.
The next day Richard had to get some work done, and we both started feeling the angst coming on as our journey was wrapping up. To shake it off, we ventured over to Trinidad after lunch. There’s a beautiful beach there, plus a trail that I thought would take us up to a lighthouse. I don’t know much about lighthouses it seems. I thought it would be located up high, you know, to light things. But apparently it was sort of hidden from view, past a locked gate, down closer to the water’s edge. But no matter, because lighthouses are not something we’ve chosen to be that interested in, and the trail provided some stunning scenic shots up at the top anyway. If we ever decide to love lighthouses, I guess we’ll have to go back on the first Saturday of the month, between 10 and 2. There’s a replica in the parking area of the beach, with the original bell too, and we were both fine with that.
This part of the coast is so lush with plant life, many of the seaside trails give you no indication you’re right above the ocean. It’s not until someone has come along to carve away the vegetation in order to make viewing windows that you even see water. I’m going to say that’s a bonus, because without the plant life, many of those trails would have been extremely deathy. Instead, it was a steep climb, but through pretty plants, with a view at the top.
For our evening entertainment, we rode our bikes out to Palmer’s Point and descended three flights of steps down to the tide pools. We’d missed the low tide by an hour or so, but we still saw some starfish, crabs, and all kinds of anemones. It was quite overcast and I wasn’t sure I was going to get a sunset, but the bright orange ball managed to punch through the cloud line, just at the last few minutes of the day. The results were quite spectacular and made the climbing back up somewhat more palatable. The last of the “stairs” are constructed in the same way as the Ladder of Terror from Badlands. I think that’s why I thought I could climb that thing; because it seemed like just another set of beach stairs. Thankfully, none of these trails ever reached that sort of straight up vertical angle. I won’t say I didn’t feel it in my thighs though.
On our final day in the park, we walked the interior trails. The first stop was to check out Sumeg Village, which is a series of Native American buildings and exhibits which are still used today for ceremonial reasons. Then it was up more stairs to Ceremonial Rock, which gives a nice view of the ocean beaches. Then it was back to Dory to grab bikes and ride over to Agate Beach. We could see a fog bank on the horizon when we went down (again) three flights of steps to the beach. After maybe an hour down there, we were totally socked in and could barely see the cliff walls in front of us. It was an eerie, warm fog, the kind where you expect pirate ghost ships to emerge and kill you. No ghost pirates encountered though, and we went back to Dory for one last grill dinner.
I would go here again. It has the proximity to the ocean, coastal biking yet to be explored, and close enough to fun little towns for excursions. The sites are nice and big and separated from others by greenery. No solar though, so plan accordingly. For me, any place where there’s a chance of sunsets over the ocean gets bonus points.
Total miles from Grizzly Creek: 69.7, 14.4 mpg, 2 hours 7 min. Site 32. No hookups, no dump, no solar. Little bits of LTE, stronger in odd places, like on the beach, at the top of lookouts. Slow wifi in the Visitor Center, but short-lived. Great cell service for both in nearby Trinidad. Water spigots, good bathrooms.
