16-May-2001 -- I thought it odd that a confluence so close to Arcata, California had not been visited before now. On May 9th I looked at the topographic maps for the area and noticed some old roads nearby. I drove from Eureka to Cannell, a small town indicated on the map. I found Crannell to be the remains of a old logging town, now a staging area for Simpson Timber Co. It was here that I happened to meet Mike Kennedy, Simpson's Forestry Superintendent for the area. He confirmed that the place I was looking for was on Simpson Co. land and, after I told him about the Degree Confluence Project, offered to assist me in going to the spot. On May 16, Nick d'Usseau, a Simpson Road Supervisor called me and we decided to go to the confluence that afternoon. Over the years many of the original railroad grades built for logging in the early twentieth century had been converted to open roads and Nick’s map showed one of these coming to within 300 meters of the confluence. We left Crannell at 2:15 PM and after a thirty minute drive and a twenty minute hike through heavy second growth redwood we reached the confluence of 41°N x 124°W. The spot is located in a small clearing amongst seventy to ninety year old redwood and fir trees. The great old growth redwood trees in this area had been logged off about one hundred years ago and now their huge stumps provided nourishment for the young trees, some up to a meter in diameter, covering the hillside around us. Small shafts of sunlight reach the forest floor through the fifty meter tall trees and I was able to find one sunlit spot to place the GPS for a photo. It was not exact but close enough. Traveling through the ferns and brush was at times quite difficult but we enjoyed our brief “walk” in the rainforest of northwest California.