The Trees of Mystery is a roadside attraction in Klamath, just north of the county line. It is a series of trails through a grove of unusual trees including Redwoods and Douglas Firs. Pictured here is the Cathedral Tree. Erzsebet and Sebastian visited the Trees of Mystery in February 1998, leading up to their harrowing encounter with the Mojave Payphone. In The Land of Giants, Erzsebet will return to the Trees of Mystery in pursuit of a stolen child. And at the Cathedral Tree, where weddings are known to take place, there will be a reckoning.
This fire lookout sits atop a mountain in far eastern Del Norte County above the wastes of Bear Mountain, offering views of the Siskiyous to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the West. These days, you can personally rent the cabin for a few nights, though it's not easy to get to. In our story, the lookout cabin is the home of one W.J. Garvin, an old man who takes a paternal interest in Erzsebet. But can she be sure his intentions are pure?
Just south of Crescent City is the Crescent Beach Overlook, a rocky outcropping with a bird's eye view of the bay. It also offers an outlet to a short northern spur of the Pacific Coast Trail. If you follow the trail down the cliff face to the shore, you will arrive at Enderts Beach. Rockier, colder, and gloomier than its neighbor, this is the only way to access it by land. Nevertheless it is a lovely stroll, and at the far end is a mountain of shells and smooth blue rocks battered by millennia of waves. About midway down the beach is a strange and foreboding sight - a large cube-shaped rock with a flat top. Its unique shape and location give it the appearance of an altar, and some (who knows who?) have erected a number of pebble cairns to commemorate . . . something.
And something happened here, on the night Guinevere Groves died.
If you cross over the Smith River from the 199 in Hiouchi and turn right, you eventually come to Stout Grove, a harmonious loop trail with access to the river. At the shore, you can walk along the rocks to a flimsy bridge to the other side. The quiet trickling of the river is hypnotic as it slips through the gorge toward the sea. In our story, two teenagers have an illicit rendezvous here under the cold Northwestern Stars. For those who haven't seen it, we documented one of our trips to the area a few years ago in the film Latitude Forty-Two.