ESCAPE THE HEAT
Big River trail offers views of water, ferns and redwood trees
Apparently, there are people in California who feel they have too much fog in their lives right now. I don’t know much else about them except that they don’t live in Ukiah, where it feels like every day since May has been at least 100 degrees.
Fortunately, it only takes about an hour’s drive from Ukiah to reach the cooling fog, typically tucked teasingly away behind the mountains separating the coast from the Ukiah Valley, at an oasis called Navarro State Beach, which was still steeped in fog at 11 a.m. on a recent weekday.
And just 10 miles north is another lovely change from the bone-dry grass and thirsty trees blanketing most of inland Mendocino County: miles and miles of trail along a wide river lined with ferns, redwood trees and happy bees visiting flower after flower. And yes, even a bit of fog.
Big River
The road down to the Big River Trail is located off northbound Highway 1 just south of the village of Mendocino, and ends at a large, free parking area featuring outhouses, then bathrooms a bit farther east. To the west of the highway is a large beach where Big River meets the Pacific Ocean.
Nearly every day of the year
the beach is quite full of people strolling, often with dogs, or just playing in the sand, and a recent August Tuesday was no exception. There were also many kayakers heading onto the river near the estuary, but if you follow the flat trail along the river that begins at the end of the last parking lot you soon leave most of the people behind.
Even on a weekday you will likely share the trail with plenty of other walkers as well as bicyclists, but you’ll also see far more bumblebees and flowers than people. Leashed dogs are also welcome to join their humans, so expect to see plenty of those, too.
For history buffs, there is a rock quarry and remnants of the logging industry along the trail. According to information on the Mendocino Land Trust website, after a lumber mill was built along Big River in 1853, redwood trees were “cut down by hand and dragged by oxen to the river, and then floated down to the mill via a series of check dams. The mill then processed the lumber for building construction, railroad ties, and redwood shingles. The lumber was transported to the Mendocino Headlands where it was loaded onto ships, bound mostly for San Francisco.”
For those of us who just like to admire redwoods, however, this trail is a particular treat because you can walk your canine companion under these majestic trees, something you cannot do in the other nearby parks. Though not nearly as lush as the forest trails in either Van Damme or Russian Gulch State Parks, the Big River trail does offer many views that rival those lovely paths. And even some that those more heavily forested trails can’t offer — one outstanding view after another of all the water flowing in Big River.