Redwood Road Trip

As readers of my blog may know, I am a fan of redwoods, specifically coastal redwoods. So this year when I planned my grand tour to the west coast to visit relatives in southern California, then head up to the Bay area, we of course took the opportunity to go up the coast to the Redwood National and State parks area, about 300+ miles north of San Francisco. This is a summary of my grand tour.

I started my road trip in San Diego, went from there to L.A. (Hollywood), took a detour inland to "Antelope Valley" region of California, let's just say somewhere between Sequoia National Forest and Death Valley, there were some interesting sights there too.

From there I mainly hit the coast on CA-1, the Pacific Highway from Cambria up to Monterrey, one of the more scenic roads I've ever driven. It was about a 9 hr drive all the way from where I started to San Jose. One cool stop was driving through Big Sur and seeing all the huge Redwoods on either side.

Long story short, after some time in the Bay area, we drove up 101 through Sonama / wine country and up the "Redwood Highway" past Humboldt Redwoods. Around that point, as you start to get close to Eureka, CA you begin to see stands of Coastal Redwoods along the highway, which lives up to it's name. The climate in general, visibly changes from the dry and gold colored hills you see from basically LA to Sonoma change to green conifer covered ridges, it was cool, even being July and mostly cloudy at least the first day we were up there.

It was a great few days in the parks with some amazing old growth trees you can read information on what hikes to take from some of these resources
http://www.redwoodhikes.com/RNP/RNP.html
http://www.turtlerocksinn.com/one-day-itinerary.html

Exploring the Redwood Parks - Day 1

We started our expedition from a B&B in Trinidad, CA, a great place, with an Ocean view overlooking some rocks where we could hear sea lions barking at night. Our first day itinerary was the following:

Redwood National Park:

Lady Bird Johnson Grove - First thing we did was stop at the National Park Kuchel visitor center. We got a map and directions from a helpful park ranger, we also found out that there was a ranger led walk through the LBJ Grove so we rushed off to make the start time. It was a cool and foggy day, perfect for seeing the redwoods. The park ranger was friendly and gave us a very informative tour where we would stop every few hundred feet to talk about some tree or plant species or the life cycle of redwood trees. It was my first time being around the really large Coastal Redwoods since I had been to Muir Woods 4-5 years ago. This was really impressive, and seeing the difference from the preserved old-growth grove and the second-growth areas that were 40-50 years old and much more like a forest you might see around New England. Interesting note. Most of Redwood National Park has been logged over already, this is what they say is a restoration park rather than a preservation park as every other National Park is. The hike was about 1 hour, including the tour, which ended about halfway around the 3/4 mi. loop and you just hiked your way back through more old-growth. One impressive thing is the fact that some of the Fir and Spruce trees look as large as some of the Redwoods, one difference is that the fir trees' trunks are covered in moss, lichen or ivies, the Redwood trunks are generally un-colonized due to their high acidity in the bark.



Trillium Falls Trail - A short 2.8 mi hike over some hilly terrain through some really beautiful forest. We parked at the Elk viewing area, and hiked to the trail head, the sign there is pretty misleading. According to the guides and trail description, you are supposed to head off from the dirt road to the right, getting to the falls pretty early in the hike then a loop around the forest. We missed the turn-off of course, which was a narrow foot path off of a dirt road angling away from the dirt road where the trail head is. So we ended up going through the hike "backwards" which actually was pretty nice, and seems better than the suggested in the guides. After walking along the dirt road for a bit you come to a trail heading off to the left marked "Trail" with no other information. We took a gamble and went down that path. It loops through these impressive old-growth Redwood groves. At this point the sun came out and lit up the forest as we hiked around, almost completely alone. After a while we figured out we went the wrong way as we never came across the falls after forty minutes (it also helped to realize that the traffic from the 101 was on our left which helped to give us a direction of where we were). But after just a little more hiking we met some other hikers coming from the other direction who were helpful enough to tell us that we were almost at the falls. The falls were nice, but nothing really impressive, a small mountain stream, felt like somewhere in the White Mountains of New Hampshire except for the enormous trunks of the Redwoods in every direction.

We had lunch in Orick, you take what you can get in that wilderness...

Final stop was on the way back to Trinidad, we went back to the Kuchel center and asked what kind of coastal hike we might try. We decided to go to the Patrick's Point State park which is not really a Redwood park, but it does have amazing overlooks over the Pacific from high up on rocks and cliffs. So we drove there, paid the $8.00 entrance fee (the National Park is free, California State Parks are $8.00 /per day, but if you pay once you can use the same pass at the other parks). Highlights were the Muscle Rocks, a hike down close to the "rocky" beach. The next thing was the Wedding Rock, a nice outcrop of rock a few hundred feet above the ocean with views up and down the coast. A truly beautiful place, and a nice walk back and forth from the parking lots in each case.

Video of Lady Bird Johnson grove hike

Exploring the Redwood Parks - Day 2

Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park

First stop on Day 2 was to the Fern Canyon hike in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park. You need drive down a narrow dirt road over a ridge through the park to get down to the coast. It's a state park which costs $8 a day to enter per car. Past the ranger post the road continues along low elevation near the ocean to a parking lot. This is apparently the Gold Bluffs Beach area. The paring lot leads to a short path to the actual Fern Canyon, a small creek through a good size gorge or ravine where the walls are covered completely in a green carpet of ferns and other plants. No redwoods, but everyone keeps mentioning that they filmed Jurassic Park: The Lost World there. It is a pretty area, about a 30 minute hike, depending on how fast you go (or how far, there didn't seem to be a clear "end", you have to jump over the stream in a few places or bring shoes that can get a little wet.


Back in the parking lot, we walked across a marshy meadow to the dunes and the beach. On the way we saw herd of Roosevelt Elk feeding. We were separated from by a small waterway in the marsh. It turned out there was not path to the actual beach from this parking lot or so it seemed.


Video of the elk

After the detour we drove up the highway to the Klamath area to the "Trees of Mystery". The Trees of Mystery is a tourist trap with a giant Paul Bunyan and Babe the blue ox in front. There is a fee to take the hike which includes seeing a few remaining old-growth redwoods, some oddly shaped trees of different species and a sculpture park. The highlight is the SkyTrail a ski lift type gondola ride that takes you through the canopy of the forest up to a lookout platform at the top of the hill. What they don't tell you in the brochures is that the whole area was previously logged so it is all second growth up there. Some of the trees in their hike like the Brotherhood Tree are pretty impressive (a worker said they didn't log it since they knew it was rotted inside). The place is kind of a novelty. What is pretty interesting is at the back of their extensive redwood gift shop, is a Native American museum of different artifacts from all over the west.


Day 2 was actually the 4th of July. So that night we drove from our hotel up to Crescent City to enjoy the fireworks show. Its a nice little coastal town, very low-key, we had pretty descent sushi (probably the only sushi for 100 miles). The fireworks were basically people setting off their own rockets all over the beach and the Battery Point Lighthouse area, not exactly the Boston Pops, but we had a good time and left after it got dark (which was well after 9pm). Even though it was July in California, you needed a sweater at least to be out there.

Leaving the Redwood Parks - Day 3

On Day 3 we had a flight to catch...in San Francisco. About 320 miles away to the south. We had a good breakfast at the hotel first, one of the guests pointed out a bear on the opposite bank of the Klamath river, it walked around for a while, maybe looking for food in the sand? We then took our leave and started the journey back down to civilization, we were sad to go from that beautiful place. I kind of wish we had more time to explore some of the various other hikes, although I have a feeling from their descriptions it would have been similar to what we already saw on the first day.

It took us about 6 hours to get back to San Francisco. Along the way, I wasn't driving this time and got to see quite a bit more redwoods all along the aptly named "Redwood Highway", its quite a sight to see these huge trees right by the side of the highway. We took a tip from one of our B&B hosts "stay in the right lane through the Golden Gate tolls" this exits the 101 into what used to be the Presidio military base. They are now turning this area into a park and you can walk over the old concrete bunkers and coastal fortifications, I doubt you will see better views of the Golden Gate bridge or the mouth of the bay than from there. Very windy. Some scenic drives and delicious chinese food later, we made it to SFO for our red eye flight back to the east coast. It was quite an adventure for me, and overall a peaceful relaxing vacation.