Each month we share an adventure recommendation from MLT staff. This month's is written by MLT's Executive Director, Conrad Kramer:
Visitors who drive around the forested curve to Caspar Beach are immediately immersed in the energy of fun almost year-round. A few dozen vehicles will have squeezed into almost all the roadside parking. They are laden with surfboards, kayaks, kids and canines.
People of all ages are struggling into or out of wetsuits while they gaze toward the surf, wishing they were already riding those waves or didn’t have to come out. Others play on the beach with their children and dogs or comb through the rocks seeking gorgeous abalone fragments. Across the road is the Caspar Beach RV Park where even more people are setting up camp.
The Mendocino Land Trust protected this nexus of fun for people today and for all future generations to enjoy. The beach is now owned and managed by California State Parks, but MLT still manages the Caspar Uplands Trail.
Almost overlooked by beachgoers, this narrow trail climbs into the trees. It winds south 1.3 miles through fir and riparian forests near Doyle Creek, around and up and away from the campground where children play, and the fragrance is of woodsmoke and morning bacon or evening hamburgers.
Uphill and into a stand of Sitka spruce the trail climbs. In this place of frolicking fun, a new wilderness has its southernmost root. The vast and wild Sitka forests start here in Caspar Uplands and extend all the way into Alaska. The imagination turns north and wonders about what other fun can be found in that direction.
