Meet Corby Hines: The New Ranger Leading Adventures at Jenner Headlands Preserve

Corby Hines, ready to lead your next adventure at Jenner Headlands Preserve.

Corby has always been intrigued by the idea of wild animals and the undisturbed places they live. After exploring every fallow field and wood lot near his childhood home of Western New York, he heard the mountains calling, and moved west to study wildlife biology at the University of Montana. The northern Rockies were even more wild and rugged than he imagined and his free time was spent backpacking the spectacular parks and public lands, fly fishing the wild and scenic rivers and skiing the high snowy peaks. Although reluctant to leave Montana having never seen a grizzly bear, he continued west after graduating to work on the North Coast of California doing salmon research and habitat restoration with the Department of Fish and Wildlife, all the while getting to explore the remote and isolated watersheds of Humboldt and Mendocino Counties.

With a growing interest in teaching and interpretation, he reluctantly left the Lost Coast having never seen Sasquatch, to move to beautiful Sonoma County where he has made his home for the past twenty years working as a naturalist, videographer, photographer, and now ranger at the Jenner Headlands Preserve. Corby is continually in awe and deeply grateful to live and work on the edge of the world's greatest wilderness — the Pacific Ocean. While not working, he can be found in the ocean surfing, although not particularly needing to see a great white shark.

Q: What inspired you to become a ranger, and what excites you most about working at the Jenner Headlands Preserve?

A: My personal mission is to connect people to the land - so becoming a Ranger and leading public hikes and restoration projects affords me the opportunity to do just that. And since the Jenner Headlands Preserve is especially beautiful and awe inspiring, people naturally develop a connection to the land here, making my job that much easier.

Q: Can you share a memorable experience you've had in the outdoors that influenced your passion for conservation?

A: In my twenties I worked as a backcountry trail worker in Yosemite, where I lived with my trail crew at 9,000' elevation beside a remote alpine lake. For five months I lived and worked outside, witnessing every sunrise and sunset, bathing in the cold mountain streams and observing wildlife everywhere I looked. I learned that it doesn't take long to feel completely at home in the wilderness, because nature is our natural habitat. I am profoundly grateful to the conservationists that had the foresight to protect and care for wild places so that people can still have experiences like these. That is why I work in the conservation field.

Q: What’s one of your favorite spots within the Jenner Headlands Preserve, and why?

A: My favorite spot changes with the seasons. Right now it is along the Russian Gulch trail, where it comes out of the coastal prairie and drops into the riparian area, where there is a beautiful bigleaf maple tree that is starting to show its autumn colors.

Q: What wildlife or plant species are you most excited for visitors to encounter at the Preserve?

A: Well I get very excited when I find one of the handful of old-growth redwood trees that somehow escaped the era of clearcut logging that took place here in the past century. There is an enormous and ancient tree, with unique reiterating trunks that we call the "Cathedral Tree," which is a short distance off of the Sea to Sky Trail. We recently built a spur trail that is yet unmarked, that leads to this massive tree. I would be most excited for a slow moving and observant visitor to notice this trail and be curious enough to discover what lies at the end.

Q: What advice would you give to first-time visitors looking to explore the Preserve and connect with nature?

A: I would recommend coming in the morning and climbing up the hill a ways, and then find a rock to sit on while you watch the sun slowly evaporate away the fog, revealing the mountains and the trees and the endless expanse of the Pacific.