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North Coast Color

Vine maple, Prairie Creek Redwoods SP (10/22/19) Max Forster

The North Coast is peaking, from Del Norte County south to Mendocino County with bigleaf maple, vine maple and poison oak painting the redwood forests in yellow, gold and crimson.

  • Bigleaf maple, Drury Parkway, Prairie Creek Redwoods SP (10/22/19) Max Forster
  • Bigleaf maple, Drury Parkway, Prairie Creek Redwoods SP (10/22/19) Max Forster
  • Bigleaf maple, Mill Creek, Jedediah Smith Redwood SP (10/22/19) Max Forster
  • Poison oak, Howland Hill Rd., Jedediah Smith Redwoods SP, Del Norte County (10/22/19) Max Forster

North Coast color spotter Max Forster sends this beautifully detailed report of where to see the best of it:

Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park (75%-100%) GO NOW! – Bigleaf maple are at peak and most of the vine maple are quickly approaching peak, as well.  Many fine bigleaf maple can be seen from the roadside of Drury Parkway, particularly around the Big Tree area.  Though, you can find pockets of color along the entire 9 mile drive.  While the drive is great, visitors who are able to walk a few miles of the Prairie Creek Trail will be treated to the best show.  

Redwood National Park – Patchy to Peak (10-100%) GO NOW! – There’s considerable variance in the park between the Lost Man Creek vs. Redwood Creek.  Bigleaf maple along Lost Man Creek, specifically near Little Lost Man Creek, are at peak, with some are already past.  While most the bigleaf along the Redwood Creek Trail are just starting to turn.

Jedidiah Smith Redwoods State Park Near Peak to Peak (50%-100%) GO NOW! – Much of the bigleaf maple along Mill Creek are approaching or are at peak.  Poison oak is at peak.  Great examples of the creeping vine climbing up redwood trees can be found along the northern section of Howland Hill Road.  Other ground cover species are a bit further behind and will likely begin peaking next week.  JSRSP has a prolific amount of ground cover vegetation and there are large sections of the the forest can be found carpeted in gold when you time your visit right in the autumn.  Potential visitors should note that Howland Hill Road will be closed until Friday evening.

South Fork Smith River – Peak (75%-100%) GO NOW! – Pockets of golden bigleaf can be found along the entire 14 mile drive on South Fork Road from the town of Hiouchi to Big Flat Campground at the confluence of the South Fork Smith River and Hurdygurdy Creek.  Visitors can also find Dogwood approaching peak sprinkled throughout the forest the further east you travel along the South Fork Road and along French Hill Road.

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Hopland Starts To Hop

Mendocino County color spotter Walt Gabler found white grape vines near Hopland and Ukiah showing Patchy to Near Peak color, last week.

  • Mendocino County white grape vines – Patchy to Near Peak (10-75%) GO NOW!

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Harvest Ends, Color Begins

Durell Vineyard / Three Sticks Winery, Sonoma (10/12/19) Risa Wyatt

“Grape harvest is mostly done—but fall color is just beginning in Sonoma Wine Country,” reports Sonoma County color spotter Risa Wyatt.

“The PG&E power outage that pulled the plug on nearly 800,000 customers in Northern California in early October—including the state’s esteemed wineries—didn’t stop the 2019 grape harvest. Wineries and hard-working crews resorted to Plan B, using generators and nitty-gritty hand labor to bring in the crop. The pick should finish well before Halloween,” she reports.

“Meanwhile, the vines are just coloring up for their big fall foliage flaunt,” Lisa concludes.

California’s vines peak by variety at Durell Vineyard in Sonoma County, Pinot Noir, Syrah and Chardonnay vines will be peaking across the vineyards’ 610 acres of undulating hillsides.

  • Pinot Noir, Durell Vineyard / Three Sticks Winery, Sonoma, CA
  • Pinot Noir, Durell Vineyard / Three Sticks Winery, Sonoma, CA
  • Pinot Noir, Durell Vineyard / Three Sticks Winery, Sonoma, CA
  • Destination Durell, Durell Vineyard / Three Sticks Winery, Sonoma (10/12/19) Risa Wyatt
  • Durell Vineyard / Three Sticks Winery, Sonoma, CA – Patchy (10-50%)
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Power Out, Campus Closed, Fall Color Continues

  • Maple and clock tower, HSU, Arcata (10/9/19) Michelle Pontoni
  • Maple, HSU, Arcata (10/9/19) Michelle Pontoni

PG&E’s power shutdown has closed businesses and institutions across Northern California, but it hasn’t stopped fall color.

Michelle Pontoni walked a deserted campus at Humboldt State University to find the wind that had shut down Northern California’s energy generators was also generating “delightful leaf showers.”

Maples that hadn’t dropped leaves were glowing with a “brilliant lime,” while others were “full green with tips just beginning to turn.”

She’s hopeful that Humboldt County, at the northernmost end of the storm, will be one of the first counties to have its power restored. 

So, what to do with the extra time not spent in class or the library? Out enjoying fall color which hasn’t been turned off.

  • Humboldt State University, Arcata – Peak (75-100%) GO NOW!
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Humboldt State Changes Colors

  • Red Maple, College Creek Dorms, HSU (10/5/19) Michelle Pontoni
  • Maple, HSU Police Bldg (10/5/19) Michelle Pontoni

Humboldt State University’s school colors are green and gold, Michelle Pontoni tells us, but in autumn the Arcata campus looks more like USC with all the red and gold.

Near the University Police building, one of the tallest evergreens on campus towers over maples that hang with golden leaves. The change has happened so rapidly, that Michelle expects returning students to be surprised by the color change when they resume class today.

She writes, “One vibrant red maple stands among others still green lining both sides of Harpst Street outside the College Creek dorms, with a quarter moon hovering low in the southern sky.”

  • Ivy, Harry Griffith Hall, HSU (10/5/19) Michelle Pontoni
  • Ivy, Harry Griffith Hall, HSU (10/5/19) Michelle Pontoni

Usually, the busy intersection of Harpst and B streets resounds with hundreds of students passing each hour, but all that could be heard this past weekend was the “tiny rustle of leaves and just a whisper of wind near empty tables outside ivy-covered Harry Griffith Hall. There, the ivy seems almost animated, crawling up the wall in varying shades of green to red.  Nearby, hydrangeas in blue, pink, and white join the spectacle.  While, beyond lively crimson maple leaves are glimpsed between the greens and golds.

Pontoni recommends walking the Humboldt State campus in Arcata to appreciate the show, though the school is nicknamed Hills and Stairs University (HSU) for all the ascents and descents that students make during their matriculation.

One thing’s certain, color awaits around every building and up every staircase at HSU, and Michelle Pontoni scores a First Report for her colorful description of autumn in Arcata.

  • Humboldt State University, Arcata – Peak (75-100%) GO NOW!
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Rut Returns to the Redwoods

Roosevelt Elk bugling, Elk Meadow Cabins, Orick (10/4/19) Justin Legge

The elk rut has returned to Redwood National and State Parks. Rut is the annual mating ritual of Roosevelt Elk, North America’s largest breed of elk.

The elk rut is one of California’s most dramatic fall wildlife displays, as massive bull elk challenge one another for the right to mate with herds of female elk cows. Young suitors playfight one another while bloody battles occur between the existing bull of a herd and his rivals.

It’s elk-styled Match.com, but with bugling, violent challenges and fights to exhaustion, as the ladies watch indifferently from afar.

To stay amidst the rut, book one of the Elk Meadow Cabins, north of Orick (US 101). There are limited services in Orick, but Trinidad – a short drive south – has restaurants and stores.

Six of the cabins have three bedrooms and two baths, one has two bedrooms and bath. All come with kitchens and living space and rent from $169 to $255 during rut season ending on Oct. 31. More about the cabins is found at elkmeadowcabins.com.

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Walking Right Past Them

Amanita Muscaria, Patrick’s Point State Park, Trinidad (12/9/18) Gabriel Leete

If you’re not attentive, it’s easy to walk right past mushrooms.

However, as Gabriel Leete shows in this collection, when you do, you’re missing a beautiful aspect of late fall color, as their color and form are endlessly fascinating. 

Gabriel works at the California Welcome Center in Anderson (I-5, south of Redding). Just north of the Welcome Center is Anderson River Park where Gabriel often looks down to find mushrooms, though Gabriel also treks to the North Coast to discover them pushing up through the detritus.

Mushrooms appear on forest floors, soon after it rains. They grow quickly because rather than use cell division, as animals and most plants do, they employ cell enlargement, allowing mushrooms to grow as rapidly as they can take in water.

Within hours, a mushroom can grow from something the size of a pinhead to the Cortinarius that Gabriel is holding below.

Gabriel Leete admires a variety of Cortinarius, Patrick Point State Park, Trinidad (12/9/18) Self-portrait

Gabriel has been hunting mushrooms for nearly two decades and knows his fungi. He’s the first to say, that one person’s edible chanterelle might, upon closer inspection, be a poisonous variety of Cortinarius. So, expertise and caution are required when adding wild mushrooms to your diet.

However, he also believes mushrooms have gotten a bad rap. They’re full of B vitamins, gmushrooms.com writes, “especially niacin and riboflavin, and rank the highest among vegetables for protein content. But because they are low in fat and calories, Western nutritionists mistakenly considered them of no food value (a fresh pound has only about 125 calories). Yet in dried form, mushrooms have almost as much protein as veal and a significant amount of complex carbohydrates called polysaccharides. Shiitake mushrooms are among the most delicious & very nutritious.”

Because they grow from decaying matter, they’re all somewhat disgusting, but also things of beauty. And, of course, they can be deadly.

In 2012, The London Telegraph reported that 18 Italian mushroom hunters, “died in just a 10-day period. Many of them had forgone proper footwear, clothing and equipment and died after steep falls down Alpine slopes.” One of them was a 65-year-old woman who fell 40 feet to her death near the Swiss border.

My sordid attempt at humor aside, while there is the hazard of hunting them on wet, slippery slopes, there is also the possibility of eating a poisonous variety. Of one thing is certain, there’s no sitting on a fence when judging a mushroom, even though they often do. 

Here are some of the beauties and beasts, Gabriel has found on recent walks through the woods.

  • Stropharia amgigua, Patrick Point State Park, Trinidad (12/9/18) Gabriel Leete
  • Ramaria Stricta coral fungus, Patrick Point State Park, Trinidad (12/9/18) Gabriel Leete
  • Tricholoma, Patrick Point State Park, Trinidad (12/9/18) Gabriel Leete
  • Amanita muscaria, Patrick Point State Park, Trinidad (12/9/18) Gabriel Leete
  • Amanita muscaria, Patrick Point State Park, Trinidad (12/9/18) Gabriel Leete
  • Mycena purpureofusca, Patrick Point State Park, Trinidad (12/9/18) Gabriel Leete
  • Not identified, Patrick Point State Park, Trinidad (12/9/18) Gabriel Leete
  • Russula emetica, Patrick Point State Park, Trinidad (12/9/18) Gabriel Leete
  • Amanita muscaria, Patrick Point State Park, Trinidad (12/9/18) Gabriel Leete
  • Coprinus, Six Rivers National Forest, Burnt Ranch (12/9/18) Gabriel Leete
  • Russula rosea, Trinidad State Beach, Trinidad (12/9/18) Gabriel Leete
  • Psathyrella spp, Six Rivers National Forest, Burnt Ranch (12/9/18) Gabriel Leete
  • Rusula emetica, Trinidad (12/9/18) Gabriel Leete
  • Stropharia ambigua, Six Rivers National Forest, Burnt Ranch (12/9/18) Gabriel Leete
  • Stropharia ambigua, Six Rivers National Forest, Burnt Ranch (12/9/18) Gabriel Leete
  • Armillaria mellea, Anderson River Park, Anderson (12/4/18) Gabriel Leete
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Last Light

Pecan orchard, CA-20, Williams (12/4/18) Walt Gabler

The last light of fall color can still be seen in California’s orchards and woodlands.

Walt Gabler found it along CA-20 from Williams to Clear Lake, though noted “It is nearing its end.”

Black oak, CA-20, Upper Lake (12/4/18) Walt Gabler

The Lake County region (north of the Napa Valley) gets its fall color from its pear and walnut orchards, vineyards and California native trees (bigleaf maple, black oak, cottonwood).

This lovely area surrounds the largest natural freshwater lake wholly within California. It is also ancient. Samples of sedimentary levels date it as 480,000 years old.

Renowned as a bass fishing water, Clear Lake is also famed for watersports, including swimming, water skiing, wakeboarding, sailing, jet skiing and boat racing.

More recently, the area’s wineries have attracted attention.  The best-known Lake County wineries include: Guenoc, Langtry Estate Vineyards and Winery, Ployez Winery, Steele Wines, and Wildhurst Vineyards.

Christmas berry, Toyon, Colusa/Lake County Line (12/4/18) Walt Gabler

This late in autumn, snow has dusted the High Sierra and California holly (Toyon) are now dressing coastal and valley woodlands with bright red Christmas berries. 

Conway Summit, US 395 (12/3/18) Walt Gabler
  • CA-20, Williams to Upper Lake – Peak to Past Peak, You Almost Missed It.

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Happy Emoji, Sad Emoji

Gravenstein Hwy, CA-116, Molino (11/24/18) Todd Backman

Scenes such as this taken by Todd Backman along the Gravenstein Highway (CA-116) were seen in Sonoma County this weekend (happy emoji).

Todd drove from the coast, through Guerneville to Sebastopol and along the Russian river, seeing bright color as above, but cautions that rain and wind is stripping the color (sad emoji). 

  • Sonoma County – Peak to Past Peak, YOU ALMOST MISSED IT.
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November Peak

Trentadue Winery, Geyserville (11/12/18) David Sharp

North Sonoma County vines are “making their fall color move,” reports Sonoma County color spotter David Sharp.

He observes that most of the grape vines between Windsor and Cloverdale peak from early to late November, continuing, “In west Sonoma County, where most of the Pinot Noir and Chardonnay grow, most of the vines have gone past peak and are losing their leaves.”

Whereas, vines in northern Sonoma County ripen later and their fall colors are “just coming on and should be colorful through Thanksgiving.” 

  • Northern Sonoma County – Peak (75-100%) GO NOW!
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