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By Karin Thomas & Zoe Sweet It turned out to be a beautiful day at the North Spit, our final hike of the year. We were met by our hiking guides, Bob Golden and Dave Wash, at the BLM boat ramp parking lot off the Transpacific Parkway. We could see the McCullough Bridge in the distance. Before we started out, Dave had a huge area map and gave us an excellent overview of the land. He was very helpful answering questions about the North Spit. We talked about the old railroad and the military bunker ruins. Because of the possibility of bears, cougars, and human hunters, we were given excellent advice to “stay together”! Our guides let us pick the length of hike we wanted to take. We had a choice between a 2 or a 5 mile hike. We decided to go on the short hike and had about 15 hikers with Bob leading the group. It was gorgeous walking around in the rolling sand dunes. We could hear the ocean in the distance. There were several different types of mushrooms growing under the bushes and trees. Some of the hikers had a tasty snack of huckleberries. As we approached the beach, we could see the wreckage of the freighter New Carrisa which had run aground in 1999. Down on the beach, and all through the area, there were various types of animal tracks. We saw a lot of skeleton pieces that were from creatures of the past. Bob reminded us to put back everything we picked up so that other people could discover and enjoy the same things we looked at!
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