

Marna Powell

Special to the Union

HUMBOLDT LAGOONS STATE PARK – Wow! The "First Day Hike or Paddle" at Humboldt Lagoons State Park was a resounding success! When we planned this event we had no idea what to expect. I think we would have been happy if anyone at all got outdoors on New Year's Day so we were ecstatic when 57 persons came out to paddle and 65 went on the hike. First Day Hikes is a nationwide state park event designed to get people out hiking in their local parks on New Year's Day with the intention of starting the year off doing healthy outdoorsy stuff with their families. All 50 states had parks participating.

Keven Harder is a State Park Ranger with the Patrick's Point Sector. When he isn't protecting the resources he can usually be found surfing or paddleboarding on our local waters. When the folks in Sacramento sent notices to all of California's State Parks to see if any were interested in sponsoring a First Day Hike Keven's response was "How about a "First Day Paddle?" The first I heard about it was when a wet, drippy surfer knocked at the back door to the Stone Lagoon Visitor Center where I work. It was Keven Harder on his day off. He ran the idea past me to see if Kayak Zak's would like to participate. Heck, yeah, oh, yeah! This is exactly the sort of event I live for!

Keven then brought it to his supervisors and the event was born. According to Dennis Weber with the Communications Unit in Sacramento," There were about 25 First Day Hikes in 20 State Parks last year. All 50 states participated in 2013. Typically, the hikes are relatively short, not overly strenuous and can be led by staff or – in many cases – volunteers." Mr. Webber also thought that Humboldt Lagoons would be the only State Park to offer a paddle for this event and he arranged with Boating and Waterways to send ten shiny new life jackets to give away at our event.

So here's how it worked: Ranger Keven Harder was the point person who coordinated the event and led the paddle and trivia contest. Park Interpretative Specialist (and super wonderful person), Nancy Jo Martin led the hike from Dry Lagoon to Ryan's Cove. Me? Let's see…I made the posters and wrote a press release and I came up with the superb idea that we could do a hike too which gave us Nancy Jo!

So…We launched from Stone Lagoon in thick fog and the hikers left from Dry Lagoon. We paddled over to the sand spit for a short interpretative discussion on how the lagoons were formed, why they are so unique in the geologic world and a bit about beach safety and sneaker waves. Then we relaunched to paddle over to Ryan's Cove and meet up with Nancy Jo's hiking party. Oh, this is so cool, there were several people who hiked while their loved ones paddled and everyone got to enjoy the event together this way and meet for lunch. Plus, Wow! The sun peeked out! We like warmth in water sports activities.

After a brief rest and food, Keven Harder had those ten life jackets to give away. All participants were eligible to win one. Ranger Harder passed out brochures on the history of California State Parks and then asked questions from the information he had handed out. It was so much fun! The first participant to give the correct answer won that jacket and then Keven would tell us more about that topic. Heck, i gave him those darned brochures and I learned a bunch of new stuff about state parks myself.

I need to add that the "Mad River Union" was well represented on the water. I wore a knitted hat made by Lauraine Leblanc. It keeps my ears really warm plus those kittycat ears stick up and people can spot me in the crowd as their safety boater. Bookkeeper Katherine Almy and her family were in their canoe. Both Katherine and her son, Slate won lifejackets in the State Park Trivia contest. Did you know that Katherine and Richard had their first date in that canoe and paddled Stone Lagoon to Ryan's Cove? Helen Wilson was there in one of her ultra light and super-sexy carbon fiber Greenland kayaks and it's a rare day I don't open an issue of the MRU that I don't find a picture of Arcata's all-around nice guy, Gene Joyce. Sure enough, Gene and his family joined us too!

Why I'm so happy: My company offered half-priced rentals for persons who did not have their own watercraft. Honestly, we had no idea how popular this would turn out to be! Most of the people who rented kayaks from Kayak Zak's had never kayaked before. The other three were people who had their own boats but not enough for their whole family or guests who were visiting (and had never paddled before). So I'm super thrilled that people got outdoors with their families and enjoyed our local State Park. I'm happy that people such as Arcata Chamber of Commerce Past President, Emily Davenport and her family could experience how cool it is to kayak at Stone Lagoon. I'm happy too that we ran out of boats to rent for this event.

The thing is, that as an employer, I think it is important to pay a fair wage. I do pay overtime for holidays (even though California does not require me to do this). I also offer profit sharing. Frankly, I expected to pay out of pocket for this event to cover wages so personally, I am happy that I actually got to bank anything at all. The real thing is that i am emotionally attached to this lagoon and this state park and I just think it is so very wonderful that so many families came out on a foggy New Year's Day to share this experience with us. Thanks to everyone who participated with us and to all the other nice people who got outdoors to other great places on our First Day of 2014.



"MORE FUN IS MORE GOOD!"