Monthly Archives: April 2011

My Earth Day Hike

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Friday was my day off, and also just happened to be Earth Day — a perfect excuse to revisit one of my favorite hikes: the bluffs along the ocean in Wilder Ranch State Park.

The bluffs at Wilder Ranch State Park

We’ve had a lot of rain this winter, and it was interesting to see the extent of the erosion along the trail. Here’s a good example. That roped-off cliff edge used to be the trail.

Erosion at Wilder Ranch State Park

I wasn’t the only one out and about. I stopped for a while to watch a hawk hunting. I believe it is a Sharp-Shinned Hawk; any confirmations out there?

A hawk hunting

After a few miles, you come to Strawberry Beach. There’s a long loop around the beach and marshland behind it, or you can take a shortcut down and across the beach.

Strawberry Beach

This shortcut is best taken at low tide, since high water and marsh runoff can block the narrow ledge that leads back up to the bluffs. I only take this shortcut on the way out; somehow I feel better with a drop on my right side instead of my left, and it’s definitely easier to negotiate the narrow path while going uphill.

The narrow trail back up

Yes, it does get a bit difficult to navigate.

Narrow and uneven trail

Most of my pictures look out towards the ocean. The other side of the trail is also interesting, mostly agricultural. Here’s a good crop of artichokes. The mid-coast produces something crazy like 99.9% of the US artichoke supply.

Artichokes

Do I need to mention it’s a gorgeous day?

Splash

There’s been a lot of rain lately, so the grasses have been growing like crazy, and fewer people have been out on the trails. Still, I’m surprised at how grown-over the trail out here has become. It’s usually more like a dirt road than a single track path.

Grown up trail

I paused for lunch on a bluff. Here come some surfers, climbing down to the narrow rocky beach. If you look closely, you can see some other surfers already out in the water where the wave is breaking.

Surfers descending to the beach

The now-overcast sky doesn’t dim the brightness of these asters. This is my destination: Four Mile Beach.

Flowers above Four Mile Beach

I love the bluffs. So interesting to see the layered rock. The gulls love them too, for the updrafts along their edge.

Gulls and sky

Diagonal vein

Cliff with cypress

My round trip was approximately 10.5 miles. Here’s one last picture from the day: some calla lilies in a sheltered cove.

Calla lilies

Saint Bee

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St Bega, aka St Bee

St. Bega, otherwise known as St. Bee of Egremont, was an Irish princess who, from an early age, had pledged her life to God. In return for her religious devotion, she received, from an angel, a miraculous bracelet decorated with an image of the cross. Her father arranged her marriage to the king of Norway, and laughed scornfully when Bee pointed out her bracelet, sign of her religious consecration. But when her father and the Norwegian king were passed out in a drunken stupor following a night of pre-nuptial revelry, Bega escaped by sailing across the sea on a turf clod, fed along the way by the murres and guillemots.

Bee landed on the coast of Cumberland, at a promontory that is known as Bee’s Head. She lived there for many years as a hermit, until increased Viking raids caused her to move inland for her safety and join a nunnery. She later formed her own nunnery, in Copeland, and led an exemplary life.

In the Middle Ages, she was especially appealed to against oppressors of the poor, to whom she had been devoted.

As is the case with many saints who purportedly lived in the 7th and 8th centuries, there is little historical record to corroborate the stories that have grown around St. Bee. In fact, there is some discussion as to whether she actually existed at all. It was the custom in the area to swear oaths on St. Bega’s bracelet, and it has been suggested that St. Bega was the personification of a Cumbrian cult centred on her bracelet, especially considering that Old English for bracelet is ‘beag.’

As the web page for the town of St. Bee’s says,

On the other hand, if we say that Sancta Bega simply means “holy bracelet” then we must regard the bracelet as a “ring of power” brought to the area by pagan Saxon or Scandinavian settlers, used for oath-taking, and attributed to a mythical saint at some later date.

Here comes St. Bee, sailing out of the mists of myth, on her clod of turf.