Wilderfolk · The Mendocino Coast
Learn to read the Mendocino Coast.
Most people drive this coast in July, look at the fog, and leave thinking they’ve seen it. The first real rains bring the mushrooms up out of the duff and the whole forest floor changes character in about a week. Candy caps come with them, and they really do smell like maple syrup, strongly enough that nobody believes it until they’ve got one in their hand. The lowest tides of the year come in winter and spring, which is when the rocky bench below camp opens right up. There’s a free calendar for all of it below, and then there’s coming out and learning it on the ground.
The free download
A free month-by-month calendar.
What’s up, what’s out, and when, month by month along the Mendocino coast. It’s just as useful three states away, because the shape of a season travels better than a map does.
One email with the calendar. We don’t send much else.
Why join
Come out and learn it on the ground.
Guided days run through the season, taught by local folks who know this country: tide pooling and foraging on the rocks below camp, mushroom forays with somebody who scouted the ground the week before, waterfalls, lighthouses and the old-growth redwoods. Nobody expects you to arrive knowing anything.
Come stay
Stay the night while you’re at it.
Camp Candy Cap is twelve acres of coastal forest with room to spread right out, and the water’s about five minutes’ walk from your tent. Bookings run through Hipcamp for now.
What you’d learn
What there is to learn
Tide pooling
At a negative low tide the rocky bench below camp opens right up, and there’s far more living in it than anybody expects.
Foraging the shoreline
Seaweed, shellfish and urchin, depending on the season and what the tide’s left us. You’ll learn to cut and gather so it grows back.
Mushroom forays
Chris walks the ground for days beforehand, which is why his forays come back full. November through March.
The forest
Waterfalls, fern canyons, and a staircase of marine terraces that walks you through half a million years of soil.
The redwoods
Long days out to Montgomery Woods, the Avenue of the Giants, and fifty thousand acres of Lost Coast forest behind a locked gate.
The coast road
Lighthouses you can climb, a beach covered in giant stone spheres, and the spot where the San Andreas leaves California.
The place
It’s all within reach of the camp.
Camp Candy Cap sits on twelve acres of coastal forest with the water five minutes’ walk away, so the shoreline classes start at the gate and the rest leave from it. There’s a communal fire in the meadow and a wood-fired sauna for when you come back cold.