Day Seven: Fern Canyon

Fern Canyon is about an hour north of Eureka.

That is, it would be an hour out of Eureka if the roads were not flooded, potholed, and occupied by the stray elk and/or tourist.

What with unruly tourists blocking the road with their car to idly wade in the middle of the creek (which coincidentally is also the middle of the road), you'd better plan for at least an hour and a half of drive time.

But once you get there, it is like stepping onto the abandoned set for Jurassic Park. Oh, that's because it is the abandoned set for Jurassic Park. Funny thing about that.

We'd been warned that we were coming too early in the year to see the canyon at it's peak, but oh. my. goodness. So beautiful.

Also, very wet.

Like dew lingering on plants in the mid afternoon wet.

Like tromping through the creek wet.

Like waterfalls oozing from the canyon walls wet.

Like CutieLittleBoy falling in the creek wet.

This was another one of those adventures where I wondered if we were foolish. So many spots on the trail seemed impassible… even after we decided we weren't going to even try to pretend to keep our shoes anything less than squishy-soggy wet.

 

But I was wrong. We made it through the long canyon, up the side, and back along the rim.

A great accomplishment, I tell you, especially since we passed several others who gave up long before seeing the worst of it (and also singlehandedly convincing at least two groups of people it wasn't possible by them merely observing our passing).

So let me try to compensate by convincing you to go and hike it. Go. See it. Get wet. (But not eaten by dinosaurs.)