Chester my backpack companion

 

Lost Coast, California

This is the story of my relationship and travels with Chester. Just so you know, Chester had a life before this life that could be called the pre-existence. One might balk at the notion of a pre existence for logical reasons. By definition, it’s impossible to exist prior to existing. Nevertheless, all evidence suggested Chester existed prior to my knowing that Chester existed. It's also clear that Chester had relations with others prior to me. To care about previous relationships is petty and mean, especially since Chester is a backpack I purchased in a thrift shop for ten bucks in Chester, California. If I were being anthropomorphic and I am, Chester was male due to broad shoulders but you never know. Lots of women and non-binary people have broad shoulders. Chester’s namesake was the town.

Packed but resting in the parking lot in Shelter Cove,
the south terminus of the Lost Coast Trail

The day before going to thrift shop,  I flew to Medford, Oregon and rented a car. From thence, I drove south and east to pick up my daughter and son in law at the end of their 184 mile backpacking trip, which ended in Chester. They hiked several sections of the Pacific Crest Trail. 

We had a few days to kill before our flight home to Alaska and wanted to make the most of the time. They suggested we could go to the Lost Coast and backpack and I told them I didn’t bring a backpack. I brought a guitar but not a backpack.  Incorrectly, I suspected that after 184 miles, they might be done backpacking and car-camp.  After we finished our coffee, we decided to check out the thrift shop and that was when I met Chester the orange backpack. 

The Klamath River, Northern California

Chester, California is a small town in the northern Sierra Nevada an hour or so west of the Red Bluff on highway 36. It’s pretty there and it's on a big lake. Chester the town is hot and dry in the summer like much of interior parts of northern California. It’s far enough north that it might be in Cascades. It’s transition zone. Lassen Peak is just to the north of Chester and it’s a Cascade peak. 

Highway 36 most definitely not the quickest way to travel across CA east to west. The only way for highway 36 to be less remote is for it to not exist. There is a spot with no services for 98 miles. The thrift shop’s proceeds benefited The Humane Society. Resting against the wall of the thrift shop was an external frame-pack, a vintage from probably the seventies. I didn’t notice the waist belt was broken as was one of the zippers. Over the next week every zipper would break. I cobbled together a waist belt with the belt for my pants.

 After buying groceries in Red Bluff and eating really good Mexican food, we got back on 36 and headed west. We camped near the top of a mountain pass on National Forest Land. I don’t think you can have freedom without public land. The sunset impressed. In the morning we continued west along highway 36 in search of the Lost Coast. 

Sydney and David

For those of you that don’t know California, the Lost Coast is easy to find using any online map. It’s a stretch of beach and associated uplands stretching for about 35 miles in northern California. It’s called the Lost Coast because you can only access it by roads at the north and south termini. The Lost Coast itself is only accessed on foot or horseback. We drove to the small town of Shelter Cove at the south terminus and only backpacked one night. We hiked in a few miles, camped out, and hiked back to Shelter Cove again the next day. It’s also called the Lost Coast because it’s the least developed coastline in the United States outside of Alaska. We bought a rotisserie chicken prior to driving to Shelter Cove and carried that chicken in my faithful steed Chester. The weather was cloudy and cool which was a relief after being in the heat. It was 95 degrees in Red Bluff, the only large community on Highway 36. it's not that large.

 

Camping spot in Six Rivers National Forest off Highway 36

So there we were, Sydney, David, Chester and I, lost and found on the Lost Coast. We camped by a mouth of a creek that was full of trout and probably chinook salmon. It’s hard to differentiate juvenile salmonids while standing on the bank. You can’t see the shape of the spots and parr marks but you can see that there are spots and parr marks. Both rainbow trout (steelhead) and chinook salmon are classed as salmonids. Both have vertical lines called parr marks and dark spots but the shape of each is unique.  The creek provided fresh water and the beach provided copious driftwood for a fire. The following day we headed to Clam Beach campground in Mckinleyville, CA. I used to live in Mckinleyville. Clam Beach differs from the Lost Coast in many ways. There’s a freeway nearby, a parking lot, a fee to camp, and an outhouse that smells like an outhouse. The fee, I am told, was installed to keep homeless people out. That seems a shitty thing to do. The smell of the outhouse was honest about what it contains. Clam Beach’s best feature is that it’s public camping adjacent to the communities of Trinidad and Arcata. It also nice that once you get to the beach itself, you can’t hear the freeway or smell the outhouse. The beach is nice. We went on a short hike in Trinidad and ate some great food at one of my favorite restaurants. 

 

Lost Coast

The following day we hiked to the Arcata community forest and hiked in the redwoods in the morning and made a big fire on the beach near Trinidad in the afternoon. In the evening we went to a comedy show in Arcata that was laughable. Really. We laughed a lot. We stayed at Clam Beach again. Northern Humboldt needs more public land. 

The broken T was not intended. A comedian tripped and landed on it.
That was funny too. Nobody was hurt except a sign

The next morning we went to the Farmer’s Market on the plaza in Arcata. It’s an overwhelming display of agricultural products, freshly made food, and local crafts. There was a band playing Cuban music. It was much fun and it happens every Saturday in Arcata. In the afternoon, we went to Flint Ridge in Redwood National Park. There’s a free hike-in campground there and a view overlooking the mouth of the Klamath River. It’s spectacular.  The sunset was impressive again which was nice because the previous days sunsets were kind of underwhelming. Once again, I stuffed old Chester with all I needed to spend the night and packed in. Every day another zipper broke. I think ole Chester has seen many miles of trail and the vinyl is started to erode. Still, Chester was a faithful companion, and I had zero complaints.

Cooking brats over a fire in Humboldt County.
Luffenholz Beach

Sign along Highway 36

The second to final day of this venture was a short hike in Jedediah Smith State Park in huge redwood trees and swinging from a rope swing on the South Fork Smith River. The river was named after Jedediah Smith, not Joseph. That night we drove to the Illinois River, which is in Oregon, not Illinois. It’s a beauty of a river. There are unusual and endemic plants along the Illinois due to basic (high pH) soils. If you ever find yourself in the $8 Mountain area, it’s worth a stop. The following morning, we drove to the Ashland/Medford area. We ate Indian food and hung out in the park while waiting for our flight home.  The last thing I did before checking my luggage was to empty my gear from my faithful companion Chester and set him/her/them next to a trash can at the Medford airport.  Chester’s zippers were shot to hell and it seemed time to take a final trip to oblivion. We all get to oblivion sooner or later.   Chester’s adventure with me was a great time.

 

Sunset, Redwood National Park