If you drive north on California’s Highway 101, once you leave the San Francisco Bay you’ll be in only two watersheds before you see the Pacific again: the Russian River in Sonoma county, and the Eel River Mendocino and Humboldt counties. Those rivers empty into the ocean more than 200 miles apart, the Russian flowing generally south and west, the Eel mostly northward.

Separating them is the Laughlin range, and there are two spots in that rangeI just love hydrologically.