Retro Chronicles: Camping in California

You haven’t lived until you’ve camped amongst the California redwoods in November.

Simon and I drove up from San Diego, through Sonoma Valley and into the Armstrong Redwoods during early November 2007. We came equipped with our three person tent, down sleeping bags, fruit, water, eggs, hotdogs, and a bottle of whiskey, all stuffed nicely into my rucksack. The weather was misty and overcast, but it stayed at a comfortable 60 degrees Fahrenheit. The drive up the mountain was beautiful as we left cell phone reception behind and curled slowly around massive trees.

We arrived at the state run campsite around 3 in the afternoon. The campsites were abandoned and we were able to choose the plot that we felt gave us the best view. There were no rangers in the stations and we paid our fees by leaving money in the appointed box in a damp envelope. I was surprised that we were able to pull my car straight into a space next to our site, as I’ve always had to hike into small campgrounds like this one before. I was also happy to see bathrooms with running water toilets and sinks. We had our camp pitched in about twenty minutes. The camp had a raccoon locker for the food, but no signs of bears. I hid the food away, but wondered if there were also going to be bears in the night, if they hadn’t started their hibernations.

As we put the finishing touches on Casa Getchell-Dearn, a forest ranger pulled up in a truck. “Are you going to camp tonight?” he asked, unable to hide the incredulity.

“Yes,” Simon replied. “It looks like we are the only ones, though.”

“Yeah, it’s not a busy time of year. We get a lot of people during the summer, but not in November. Just so you know, tomorrow morning at around 8 a.m., we’re going to start chipping these piles of wood.” The ranger pointed at piles around the campground of gathered debris from the forest. “It’s going to be an awful noise.”

“That’s OK. We need to get up early, anyway.”

The ranger headed back down the mountain road and we decided to hike up to a clearing, to watch the sun set. The place was silent except for our footfalls and conversation and the occasional bird twittering. After a short hike, we sat along a grassy, craggy clearing above the canopy of trees and swilled whiskey from the bottle. The sun set over the mountains, but was largely obscured by mist around the various peaks. The shadows around the mountains turned the air into deeper and deeper shades of blue and the air grew crisp. We decided to head back to camp and make fire.

On our way back into camp, I noticed a sign that asked that we not gather firewood from the forest, but rather purchase it from the rangers. We had not seen any rangers at the stations, however, and we needed to eat. Conveniently, the rangers had gathered wood up for us and left them in piles for the wood chippers. “We ought to help them out,” I suggested and we used a pile of chipping wood for fire. The fire quickly roared to life while we whittled sticks into points for hotdog roasting and fried some eggs.

Our peace and contentedness was supreme up in the mountains, miles away from anyone else. We shattered the silence by playing David Gray in my car stereo, loudly enough to hear while we stared at the fire and talked about random things, smug in the knowledge that the music could echo off the trees without anyone else hearing it. Falling back into silence, we sashayed off to an early bed.

Our deep, peaceful sleep in the mountain air was punctured only by the frisky chittering of raccoons, who were unable to get our food, despite their best efforts. That is, until the wood-chipper roared to life. Simon and I prefer our mornings to start late and with coffee. We grumbled at each other about the noise and buried our heads deep into our bags. Shockingly, despite the industrial screech of the chippers, which went on for two hours, we both fell back to sleep and did not rise again until after 10. Well rested, we broke camp and headed back down the mountain and into San Francisco. The last 24 hours had been sublime.