Serpentine Soils: Craig's Creek, Myrtle Creek and the Elk Ridge Trail

The Smith River

Micro-climates are fascinating. One minute you are hiking along in a open forest and 90 degree heat, then you turn a bend and into the shade of small hillside waterfall. The temperature drops 10 degrees, the plants change to ferns, sorrel and thick pines.

Hiking in Northern California and Southern Oregon, in our continuing effort to prepare for serious backpacking,  we've discovered a whole other kind of micro-climate. One minute you'll be hiking along in the open forest and, without turning any corners, the trees will become stunted, or change entirely, the ground cover will thin, unusual plants will appear and the soil will turn a dusty red and the rocks, of which there are suddenly many, will be greenish black and shiny. This we've learned is Serpentine soil and it supports entirely different vegetation from other soils and rock types, thereby creating it's own soil-climate.

We first noticed the serpentine 'soil-climate' on the hike after the Devil's Punchbowl. Wanting a hike

Serpentine Soil

that was a little less strenuous, and hopefully cooler we'd selected the Craig's Creek Trail, a 8 mile, mostly level walk along and above the South Fork of the Smith River. The trail wound into small waterfall valleys hosting coastal redwoods and then out to sunnier hillside of Lodgepole and Sugar Pine. At one point however the trail briefly turned red, the trees and plants all thinned out, some changing entirely and we were walking in almost full sun. A few more feet and we were back in the shade. "That was weird" I said to S.D., and we walked on. On the way back it was S.D. who commented, "Here's that place that was so different". Hmmm.

The mystery about that spot was solved that very afternoon. Since the Craig's Creek hike had turned out a little too easy for our Phase Two training program we elected to take another small hike. The Myrtle Creek trail was listed as a two mile interpretive trail explaining both the natural and mining history of the area in 15 interpretive stops. We couldn't resist!

The Ridge

It was at stop #6, in an area with red dirt, and unusual plants that we learned about serpentine soils. Ah! That explained the 'wierd' spot on the Craig's Creek Trail.

Apparently however, these two encounters did not fulfill our need for serpentine soil. The following day we decided to hike the Elk Ridge Trail. The description promised a moderately strenuous hike with over 2500 ft of elevation gain over 5 miles, along with fantastic views of the Pacific Ocean (20 miles to the west), and the Siskiyou Mountains (to the east). And the description was correct. What it failed to spell out was that the hike was almost entirely in serpentine soils, leaving the ridge exposed with little tree cover...and probably not the best hike for a cloudless, 90+ degree day.

But the views were certainly worth it. Standing on the ridge huddled under a stunted bristlecone pine,

red dust completely covering us from the waist down, blazing sun overhead, we gazed east toward massive mountain peaks. Looking west, our gaze more covetous than awed, we looked down over the canopy of the redwoods, imagining the cool shade below, and then further east to the massive fogbank that hung cooly over the coast. Not only did we learn about serpentine soils, we also now had a good idea of when they would, and would not make for the best hiking trips.