72. Ecological Staircase Nature Trail

Length:	5.4 miles round trip
Hiking time:	3 hours
High point:	450 feet
Total elevation gain:	500 feet
Difficulty:	easy
Season:	year-round
Water:	bring your own
Maps:	USGS 7.5' Fort Bragg, USGS 7.5' Mendocino
Information:	Jug Handle State Reserve

Enjoy spectacular views of seastacks attacked by the pulsing waves of the Pacific Ocean, then climb past a series of different ecological communities, each with a diverse array of plants. Be sure to invest in the immensely informative brochure for this self-guided nature trail. It explains the 500,000-year interaction of land, ocean, and biological processes that created the five different terraces and the plant communities that now grow upon them. It's available from a machine by the parking lot.

To reach the trailhead, turn into the signed Jug Handle State Reserve, which is on Highway 1's west side 5 miles south of Fort Bragg.

The trail begins by an interpretive signboard near the parking lot. Follow it due west, where you'll find the first of thirty-two numbered posts corresponding to natural history descriptions in the nature trail brochure. Out near the cliff edge beyond post 2, you'll have an excellent view of beach, seastacks, Jug Handle Bay, and the coastline stretching to the north and south.

The trail then heads toward Highway 1, eventually passing underneath it. In this section you'll see first a small path heading downhill to the beach at Jug Handle Bay and then, just after crossing Jug Handle Creek on a wooden bridge, another small path traveling along the creek to the same destination. Both paths make excellent side trips.

From here, the main trail begins a gentle northward climb, initially passing under the native two-needled Bishop pine and then the introduced three-needled Monterey pine, which is native to the central California coast. Grand fir and Sitka spruce eventually join the forest.

About 2.4 miles from the trailhead, the trail meets a dirt road just before encountering post 23. Turn left on the dirt road, follow it for 200 yards, then look for the continuation of the trail on the right. You now enter the pygmy forest, which is an association of bolander pine, manzanita, and other plants that can tolerate the highly acidic hardpan soil, though just barely, as their small stature indicates.

From post 32, the nature trail's last post, go right and follow the ditch to a dirt road. Go west for about 200 feet on this road, then turn left onto another dirt road. Follow this previously encountered road for 200 yards south, then turn right onto the actual trail and return to the trailhead.