Humboldt Coast Range

Bigleaf maple (Acer macrophyllum) were Just Starting at 3,700′ as we drove highway 36 west from the Central Valley to a reunion at Liebforth Ranch, the family’s 102-year-old homestead in the Charles Mountain drainage.

There’s sporadic color and little of it along the route. Yellow maple leaves are few between, and then with curled, orange-brown edges. They seem healthier the farther you drive west toward moisture.

Forest Glen is a sad relic of what it once was. The town of ten inhabitants used to be surrounded by lush forest. Now it is a graveyard of grey-black skeletons where in August 2020 the Complex Fire raged across more than a million acres of forest and woodland.

The putrid perfume of a pot farm insulted our senses as we neared  Humboldt County. Word among local ranchers is that cultivating marijuana is on hard times due to competition, now that growing is legal in the Emerald Triangle.

It was maddening near Mad River where almost no fall color could be seen in the forest, except orange-red brush which glowed like embers in the woods.

As we rose and dipped along the twisting road we moved over to the Van Duzen River, which was more promising as Dinsmore approached. Patchy color filled a mixed riparian woodland  of orange-brown black cottonwood (Populus balsamifera), white alder (Alnus rhombiflia) and black oak (Quercus kelloggii) in mid afternoon, glowingly backlit with gold, green and buff. Then, the color ended on the way to Bridgeville and down Alderpoint Road to the family homestead. 

I concluded, I wouldn’t recommend CA-36 for fall color. There isn’t much of it in return for the effort.

The land south of Bridgeville along Alderpoint Road is cowboy country. There, honest ranchers tend grass-fed organic beef for Whole Foods and neighbors, miles apart, know each other and what they’re doing just by the sound of dogs barking, cows mooing or a chain saw’s insistent brrrr. Every sound tells a story of what’s happening, as if it were telegraphed.

On our departure from Leibforth Ranch, we returned to Bridgeville and 36, now heading west through Grizzly Creek Redwoods State Park where iridescent poison oak vines climb redwood trunks to dizzying heights and glow hot orange-pink in a foggy forest that is speckled with yellow maple leaves.

South of Scotia on U.S. 101, the Avenue of the Giants (CA-254) is Patchy with bigleaf maple at 20% and poison oak near peak at 70%.

It will be a week or two more before the Redwood Highway (US 101) and Humboldt Redwoods State Park are at Peak.

Leaving the redwoods and entering Mendocino wine country, some varieties of grapes (likely white) were peaking bright yellow, though the vineyards were Just Starting with most vineyards green. Just Starting color was also seen at Clear Lake where old walnut orchards are carrying golden color.

• Forest Glen (2,700′) – Past Peak, You missed it.
• Mad River (4,845′) – Past Peak, You missed it.
• Van Duzen River, Dinsmore (2,415′) – 10-50% Patchy
• Grizzly Creek Redwoods State Park (935) – Poison Oak only – 75-100% – Peak, GO NOW! 
• Avenue of the Giants (CA-254) – 0 – 10% Just Starting
• Laytonville (1,670′) – 10-50% Patchy
• Redwood Valley vineyards – 0-10% Just Starting
• Upper Lake (1,345′) – 0-10% Just Starting
• CA-20, Clear Lake – 0-10% Just Starting