Beith Creek Loop

Dogs Leashed

Features River/Creek · Waterfall

There's a map at the trailhead (and available here) that will give you better directions than I can, but I'll do my best...

Climb the steps from Margaret Lane next to the water tank. You can take either trail from the trailhead, as they meet up shortly after, but the right-hand trail gives you a nicer forest experience for that first bit. Once they meet up, you can take either the (gravel) road for a more direct path, or the trail to the left for a more pleasant, but more circuitous, segment (again, they meet up after a brief time apart).

If you take the road, you'll find the Beith Creek Loop marked on your right after a little while; if you take the trail, you'll T into the road and have to go right down the road for about 20 feet before you see the sign for the loop. After that, it's fairly straightforward: continue down the trail; ignore the side trail on the left around the time you turn east again—this is the Downhill Trail, a one-way trail in the other direction.

At one of the (minor) creek crossings, there's an unofficial side trail on the left, up to a really gorgeous little waterfall. Keep following the trail until you come to a fork at the Arcata Ridge Trail; take the left fork to stay on the loop. At the next intersection, you can really do anything you want: continue along the gravel road, take the left trail and stay on it, or take the left and then another left to go down that one-way trail and meet up with an early part of the loop.

If you take the road or the main loop trail, the two cross each other several more times, and it really doesn't matter which one you take (as long as you don't take the sharp right next to the water tank on top of the hill; that'll leave you on Panorama Court, which is nice, but not where you left your car). After several crossings, you'll be reunited with the beginning of the trail, then dumped back out at the trailhead.

Redwoods, ferns, mosses, banana slugs, and so many others whose names I don't know.