Alder Creek Hike

Lu Vickery introduced me to this fabulous hike. Since then I’ve done this walk many times, and never get tired of it. Friends I’ve introduced it to feel similarly. The hike is a loop, starting just past the Alder Creek bridge going south from Irish Beach, taking you down an abandoned paved road that formerly delivered you to Manchester State Beach where Alder Creek runs into the ocean.

What I do is take off from the old road above the Fraser Ranch to the west. (See photo of gate.)

The landmark is a gate and a sign about keeping your pet on leash. The gate previous to this one has a “no trespassing” posting and some imposing bulls in the pasture. So walk through the passage to the left of the appropriate gate with your animal on leash if you have one, and head down the dirt road toward the ocean. Follow the road/trail south. You will shortly come to an abandoned beach house that obviously burned down.










It is posted as a dangerous site and you are warned not to explore. But you can see from the remains that someone at some point had an ocean side treasure.










Continue down the trail. You will pass an abandoned outhouse and then a functioning one that indicates you’re on the border of the Manchester State Beach campground.

Ahead is a grove of large cypress, and under the sheltering branches are the campsites. (These are reserved through the State Park website and accessed from a parking lot at the end of the road leading to the KOA campground from Hwy One near Manchester. It’s about a quarter mile to transport your camp equipment from the parking lot to a campsite. No easy task.) These campsites are a little known asset of the State Park system. ( I met a family who comes up every summer from Petaluma and lives at one of the sites for several weeks. The two boys gather firewood, explore and build forts.)

To complete the loop, walk up to the spot where Alder Creek meets the ocean.

On the south side is the trail, roughly, that takes you back up to the abandoned paved road. Return to your car. The views of the hills to the east, especially in the afternoon light, is truly lovely. Your total trip is about 5 miles according to friends of mine who I took on this walk telling them it was only about 2 to 3 miles. I didn’t know they wore pedometers. But it was good to find out the true nature of things to properly set the expectations of future companions.

Next up: Exploring the Garcia River and Point Arena Lighthouse trails.

Thoughts on "The Purpose Driven Life"

August 17, 2008

The news of the day centers on a mega church icon’s interviews with Obama and McCain about their leadership principles and moral character, not to mention their religious views. They agreed to these interviews in pursuit of the evangelical vote. What I’m interested in is the icon’s book, The Purpose Driven Life, because I’ve developed an aversion to this kind of “driven life,” believing that it leads to an ends justifying the means kind of thinking and the consequences thereof, seldom pleasant.

Here’s an example. Enter some Planning Department staffers who tend to have purpose driven lives around the ideal of “preserving coastal resources ,” an ideal we can all get behind. For one property owner, it worked out this way though. First, believe that Irish Beachers, including me and of course the Concerned Citizens mentioned previously, are dedicated environmentalists. This is not about that, exactly.

In May, I made an appointment to meet with a lead planner in Ukiah to review permits and projects we wanted to implement at Irish Beach. To make a point, he told the following story about a couple who had bought a lot at Irish Beach. It was a bluff lot directly above the ocean, about a half acre, that descended from Navarro Way all the way to the rocks below. There were two lovely rather substantial homes on either side of it. I did not tell this gentleman, whose politics usually line up with mine, as he launched into his tale, that I was the one who had sold the couple the lot in question.

It had been a complicated sale, because we have a little critter at Irish Beach that is on the endangered species list called the Point Arena Mountain Beaver (PAMB). This is a kind of gopher that enjoys the vegetation growing on the bluffs above the ocean and along drainage easements, particularly in the Point Arena area. John Hunter from The US Department of Fish and Wildlife headquartered in Humboldt came down two or three times to survey the lot and other areas of Irish Beach for the PAMB, and he staked their habitat on the lot accordingly. The area was surveyed and mapped, and submitted to the Planning Department office in Fort Bragg for approval prior to the close of escrow. The Planning staff indicated they were satisfied. We all were. Balance had been achieved. The PAMB habitat was preserved and a building envelope established. Escrow closed, and $475,000 changed hands. Then the buyers submitted their building plans to the Planning Department. You can guess what happened next.

My staffer friend began his story by profiling the couple who had bought the lot. First he described the husband’s hairdo, which is a rather long ponytail. He mentioned that he and his wife came from Silicon Valley. Computer “nerd” with money was heavily implied, and so was a certain prejudice. He proudly told me that in the name of “preserving coastal resources,” in this case the Point Arena Mountain Beaver, (never mind US Department of Fish and Wildlife findings), the new owners were not allowed to build their house on the designated and mapped building envelope, but instead would have to build higher on the lot, thereby blocking views from the lots across the street, something the CC&R’s would prevent. There were also geotechnical issues which had been dispelled by a reputable engineer prior to the close of escrow but which were also now in dispute. The houses on either side of the newly purchased lot by the way are exactly parallel to the building envelope for this lot. Not to prolong the story, I’ll just say that the new lot owners were forced to hire an attorney and appeal the Planning Department’s negative permit decision to the County Board of Supervisors, where they won. The Planning Department then appealed to the Coastal Commission. Irish Beach was an approved subdivision before the Coastal Commission Act was passed, so in order to deny permits, they pretty much have to rely on health and safety issues. That excluded the PAMB habitat debate but not the geotechnical issues. You’d have to see the slope of the lot to be convinced that when I tell you that it is not steep and is easy to build on you’d believe me. Into the PAMB habitat and beyond, the lot drops off more steeply, but not above it. When I asked the Planner about the possibility of the owners losing their $475,000, he shrugged it off as someone else’s problem. Indeed. Presently matters are still with the Coastal Commission pending further geotechnical studies, but the person I was meeting with was satisfied that he had successfully preserved a coastal resource, defined by what at this point I didn’t know.

So that’s one of my local “higher purpose” stories. There are more of course, and in the wider world there are thousands, (my brother, about whom you’ll hear more coming up), religious ideologues, politically conservative ideologues and secular crusaders of one kind or another, often misogynist in nature. (No birth control for you young lady, and no information about it either, etc. etc.) All crazy making stuff.

Until next time, be well, and watch your step out there. Meanness abounds, especially when sourced in a purpose driven life.

We are where we are

The story of Irish Beach is a long one, full of beauty, great people and well, the absurd. The cast of characters includes myself, naturally, all the family and siblings, deceased parents, dear friends, and outside forces represented by the Planning Department, the Concerned Citizens, and my pals the topo, environmental, and septic engineers.

In 2000, my husband and I returned from two years of cruising on our sailboat, Joyride, to find that the family enterprise at Irish Beach, (my father developed the Acquistapace sheep ranch for second homes back in 1964), was complicated by intrafamily disputes. Alas, the family had fallen into the trap of so many others where there are siblings, property and competing interests. It continues to be fraught. My purpose in writing the chronicles is to hopefully amuse. I want to be funny, and I want to create interest in our little part of the world. Despite the beauty of Irish Beach, there have been a few detractions. But with a sense of humor, the negative is substantially diminished, and hopefully, this accidental real estate developer can tell a reasonably good story. Since I keep a journal of sorts, some writings will be lifted from there, and some will be updates, like a serial, on the latest developments. My goal is that in five years or less, this will all be over, but for now, the saga continues on its merry way.

Entry from Journal, March 11, 2007

I’m on the beach with wine, novel (The Windup Bird Chronicles which I’m enjoying very much), and pen and paper. The ocean has reshaped the beach, and I am sitting on what has become a sand shelf about 6’ above the flat open playa. The shelf has all the driftwood on it, ripe for forts. Where Irish Creek connects to the beach, the stream has carved a new path all the way to the ocean itself, although there are some still ponds to my left. Cirrus clouds above.

Jim is up at the house, resting. He as a bad hernia and spends a percentage of his time pressing it. When he is distracted by any kind of physical development, it’s best to leave him alone. Surgery scheduled soon, his first, so he’s anxious.

I’ve returned from a brief walk down the beach communing with the memory of my father. Perhaps the wine has made me a little maudlin. It’s very beautiful now. The sun is still high and soligment (light rays) settle on the water. (We learned this word when we stayed at a bed and breakfast last summer in Duluth. Swedish I think.) I looked up at the Kraft and Natwick houses on the bluffs directly above me and watched a pickup with perhaps a refrigerator in the back creep toward the Natwick’s. The house looks great. It was a little prefab my father had built to show customers what could be done on a lot at Irish Beach. He has just opened his sales office, little fluorescent colored flags flapping in front. The Natwick lot is singularly spectacular, tucked under the Cypress on the rock above the beach. If you had it for sale now, it would be worth hundreds of thousands, quite a jump from the $2,000 to say $7,000 price range my father was operating in. Did my father grasp the value and grandeur of what he was marketing? And the Kraft house, Dr. Kraft, the doctor waiting for what was left of my father’s body to arrive at the hospital after his plane crash. I think it must have been shattering to bear witness to the remains of a dear and close friend. (I am reminded of our people at war in Iraq when they are faced with the remains of a “buddy” just blown to bit by an IED.) But the Krafts, now in their eighties or thereabouts, have a fine house on one of the most coveted coastal pieces of property imaginable. I am lucky to be here to continue to see it all, and remember its history. It’s a good space to be in, and I hope to remain in it for awhile.