One day we hiked out across the dunes to the beach in Arcata, CA. Ma-le’l Dunes includes 937 acres cooperatively managed by the BLM and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Humboldt Bay National Wildlife Refuge. It’s a diverse place where sand dunes, forestland & wetlands meet – just a few miles from Arcata. The name came from a place name of the ancestral Wiyot tribe.
We did a short hike through the forest , then across the dunes and down to the beach. It’s a a great quiet place with few visitors during the week. Along the beach we saw sandcrabs, shorebirds, seagulls, and some washed up salps. I had to look these up. They are big transparent barrel-shaped zooplankton that move by contracting their bodies to pump water through them for jet propulsion. Cool.
After our hike we hit up Redwood Curtains Brewery for some tasty beers.
