Tan Bark to Tin House Road (Big Sur)

Originally I planned to take Joanna on the Brazil Ranch Hike, but later thought the Tanbark Trail up to the Tin House would be better because it goes along the Partington Creek and it’s just dreamy with the Redwoods towering above and the sounds of the water rushing down to the ocean.

Joanna taking pictures.

Me taking pictures of Redwood Sorrel. I didn’t think they’d be in my wildflowers book, I was just amazed at these huge clovers. But turns out they do flower!

There were so many wildflowers! And some I didn’t see at the Brazil Trail hike. Unfortunately, I only had my iPhone with me, so some didn’t turn out so well. I only included the decent ones.

Lovely easy-going trail in the forest. That didn’t last.

Redwood seedlings growing in a burnt stump. Death surrenders to life.

This view is after we’d climbed some elevation. It was a really foggy day.

The trail was much more adventurous than we expected. I remember there being lots of fallen trees when I came down the Tanbark trail in Jan 2014, but this time was different. There were different fallen trees and it’s summer, so there was many more plants growing into the trail.

This was the most amazing thing we ran across. This huge Redwood had fallen over a large section of the trail. You can see a little bit of the trail at the bottom of the picture and then it continues to the left. So sad that it fell. But pretty amazing too. I have conflicting emotions. And here I am posing like a silly tourist.

Here’s an example of how overgrown some of the trail was. If you’re allergic to poison oak, you need to cover up! Joanna is allergic, but she managed to avoid getting any on her. Luckily it’s mostly on the ground and on one side at a time (versus coming at you on the left and right). Some actually did brush my arm, but I didn’t have a reaction, which confirms my suspicions that I’m not allergic. Hooray!

I stopped to pose at this fallen tree. We were really tired at this point and I was tired. But also, this was right about the time I felt some creepy crawlies on my hand. Turns out there were a million huge ants crawling all over it!

Another fallen tree! This hike is way more fun with some company to amaze over all the obstacles in the trail.

We finally made it to the Tin House! And can you believe I forgot to take a picture of it?! But I did get a shot of this lovely view that is even better in personHiker babes! We look better at 41 than we did when we did while in the midst of our baby-making phases.

This was on the way back down…

Redwoods are amazing trees and one of these days I’ll take the time to learn more about them. There are many of them still standing but with hollowed out trunks. Something about their bark being very thick (about 1 foot) and having lots of tannin, which helps them not to burn during a forest fire. This was wasn’t so lucky, but there is still a sort of tragic beauty to it.

We saw two of these in the middle of the trail. It’s the fruit from a California Man-Root or Wild Cucumber, which is a vine. Even though this has obviously been eaten by something, everything I’ve read suggests that it’s bitter and not edible (by humans).

We came down the trail around 2:30pm, I was surprised the fog was still so heavy.

I can see the road! Almost done!

This was the last picture I took. This was the second time I did this trail. I also did it in 2014, but I started with the fire road and then went down on the Tanbark trail through the forest. I can’t really say one way is better than the other, but I will say I think it’s worth it to do this as a loop, versus going up and down through the forest. And I’m so glad I did this while the wildflowers were out! I definitely want to go again next year with my Nikon!