Redwood National and State Parks, California, July, 2023

National Park Count: 38 I bet you expected a super tall tree picture above here!

Hey there Adventurers! After I left Lassen Volcanic National Park, I made a beeline for the Northern California coast to visit the Redwood National and State Parks! This was part of my second July California trip which also saw stops at Lassen Volcanic National Park, as well as Whiskeytown National Recreation Area and Lake Tahoe. 

July was not only the month of California, but also the month of VERY LARGE trees! This trip was my first time visiting Northern California and that area is definitely an experience for a midwesterner transplanted to Florida! Leaving the Redding, CA area there are only 2 options to reach the Giant Redwoods. The route due west out of town, the one I took, leads through a canyon following the Trinity River and then an offshoot following a creek that eventually found me driving through a wildfire (wtf), before reaching the coast. This route starts at a higher elevation and temperature before getting to sea level and the very cool southern end of the redwood coast. If you were looking to reach the northern part of the park you would have to depart Redding due north, drive pretty far up into Oregon and then drop south down to the redwoods. The Oregon route is a about an hour longer and probably is a better route if you want to make stops. The western route I took is remote with limited options for stops and services, and there is very little cell signal. Three hours later I reached the coast at Arcata, CA. Just a wee south of there is Eureka, CA which is the home of Lost Coast Brewery. Their beers actually make it to Florida, so I made the diversion there for some brews and a delicious cup of chowder. The weather on the coast here is drastically different than where I was a few hours earlier, so a warm cup of chowder was perfect in the now foggy, 60 degree weather! Lost Coast is a pretty solid brewery! The chowder was great and so was the beer. In Florida, we mainly get their Tangerine Ale. That one is ok, but the other beers at their home site were much better!

The Redwood National and State Parks has an interesting history. You might notice from the name that it is a mix of different parks. There is a complicated history in this area. When gold miners descended on California they also found the giant redwood trees. The trees each produced a tremendous amount of wood and the wood itself is very durable and easy to work with. As you might imagine, the humans around that time over-logged and conservation groups eventually got the state to set aside groves of Redwoods for protection in the 1910s. These parks are the ones named as State Parks in the area. As logging technology improved, the rate of logging only increased, to the point that only 10 percent of the forest remained by the 1960s, when the U.S. government started to get interested and created Redwood National Park in 1968. The government did not acquire all of the land containing the trees at this point and the creation of the park was met with some concerns from locals since logging was their livelihood. However, other public pressure eventually led to the government buying up a large portion of the remaining land from logging companies. Today only FIVE PERCENT of the original forest remains and most of that land is protected now. Five. Percent. All that being said, the remaining 5 percent of the forest is spectacular!

I had arranged to camp in someone’s open garage in a town called Klamath for the next two evenings. The drive from Arcata to Klamath is actually the Pacific Coast Highway (as an interesting aside I was on this same highway in SoCal just a few weeks prior!) and runs along the coast for a while before turning in through the entrance of the park. There are some views of the Pacific and some large lagoons along this stretch. Right around here is the obligatory sign picture op! After getting my sign picture I entered the park and was greeted by some wildlife in a couple herds of elk! Continuing down the road you find a fork and I was prepared, but you need to be aware that the right side of the fork goes to the same place, but misses the redwoods entirely. The left side is where you want to go. This is the Newton B. Drury scenic parkway. This is an awesome drive though this part of the redwood forest and gives access to many trails. (I actually drove this road 4 times during my brief visit!) I stopped at the visitor center, (discovered that I actually missed the *first* visitor center near the sign), and then was off on my adventure!

I first stopped at a spot called Big Tree, a very apt name! The tree is accessed by a very short trail that is very accessible and close to a parking lot with a restroom, and the first place you get to see the redwoods up close. If you want to extend the trial, you can. Most of the trails throughout the section of the park off of this road connect. Now a brief comparison and contrast to sequoias. First of all the two trees are very closely related. Sequoias are larger by volume. Redwoods are taller and more slender. Oddly enough redwood bark is more brown colored while sequoia bark is more red colored. Go figure. Sequoias grow more spread out and at high elevation, while redwoods are clustered in a continuous belt of nearly 450 miles long but only 15 miles wide, along the Pacific coast. Both trees have exceptionally small cones, like hilariously small for their size, but the redwood is tiny, about a third the size of a sequoia cone. Redwood trees have the ability to basically create clones of themselves from roots, cut stumps, and even from branches up high. Big Tree actually has one such close growing downward from way up high. I spoke to a park ranger in the area for a while about the trees and the differences between the two. This ranger also threw a bit of shade at Sequoia National Park, which was amusing. I mentioned casually about how they find the tallest trees like Hyperion (this is the tallest known tree in the world at nearly 400 feet but its location in Redwood National park is guarded to protect it). This particular ranger was a bit coy but also mentioned that they do not name trees like “other parks” do because they are trees and don’t need names! Anyway, Big Tree (Which is a name, I might add!) is 286 feet tall, 24 feet around as an average, 74.5 feet around at the base, and is 1500 years old! The other thing I noticed about the redwood area is that these trees are everywhere! In sequoia they were spaced out and only in certain areas, but here the redwoods are everywhere!

I left the Big Tree area, and at this point it was actually getting later into the afternoon, so I started in the the direction I needed to go. I found a short trail called Ah Pah. This is a short out and back, only about a half mile. There isn’t much parking and, really, it’s not much of a trail, but I met a ranger on the trail, the only person I saw, and he and I chatted a bit about some other trails to check out. Always talk to the rangers – his suggestions helped me plan the next day!

After returning to the vehicle I decided it was time to go check in at my garage “bnb” in Klamath, just a ways up the road. Leaving the park road you rejoin the Pacific Coast Highway and Klamath is just a short way north. It is a pretty small town, but essentially the only one, along the highway through the park. The park is long and thin running along this highway. That being said, the entire northwest nook of California here is essentially one large swath of protected park land. In the midst of the natural scenery are a only a handful or roadside structures, other than the small town of Klamath. Located along the banks of the river with the same name, the town is quite small and is a part of the Yurok Reservation. There really is not much here, and again cell service is very spotty. However, the Klamath area is about 45 minutes to each end of the park, so it was the place I picked to spen d my nights! After setting up my tent in the garage I went out exploring. Klamath is basically on the border of the park and right across the river is access to a cool spot to check out: Klamath Beach. There are a lot of cool things to check out here! The scenery here is great. This beach is located where the Klamath River meets the Pacific. Within the beach is a Yurok Ceremonial Grounds with some old structures remaining. If you continue up the road you find a nice overlook of the ocean. The road here turns one way coming out to this spot so I turned around to find the route to get back to that spot from the one way road. The road travels through the forest for a bit before reaching the bluffs high above the Pacific shore. I found myself at the High Bluff Overlook, a really scenic spot with a restroom and picnic area. There is also a short and easy trail leading down to a clear spot directly over the ocean. It is very windy here, so hold on to your hats! From this spot I saw whales out in the ocean! Super neat! I have to be honest, seeing whales in Redwood National Park was not something I realized was a possibility! I hung out here watching the whales and taking in the views for a bit before heading back. I finished my evening with a stop at the local Klamath bar, where I had a nice talk with the Yurok bartender about her people. Neat!

The next morning I arose very early and headed north through the dense fog toward Crescent City. This is more of a proper town and just outside the northern border of the park. There is a lighthouse to visit here but I think the hours did not align with my timeframe and the fog meant there would be no view anyway, so I stopped to take a peek and then proceeded on my way. My objective was to check out Jedediah Smith Redwood State Park, a section of the park highly recommended to me by the park ranger from the day before. After stopping by the visitor center for a stamp and to talk Bark Ranger (the park does have a Bark Ranger program!), I went into the forest. This section of the redwood forest is situated along the Smith River. Many of the roads in this area are gravel, and one of the more popular ones is Howland Hill Road. Off of this road are some highlights of the park that I visited: Stout Grove and the Grove of Titans. 

Stout Grove is rumored to be the site of filming the speeder chase scene in Star Wars: The Return of the Jedi. Cool story, but sadly, probably not correct (a park ranger told me that the place filming took place on a private logging company’s land and that forest has since been logged, ugh). Anyway, this grove differs from the groves I had seen the previous day. This section of the forest was much more open and cleared out. The trail is easy and mostly flat. There is access to the Smith River and there is even a crossing over the river that leads to the campground on the other side. This is a really pretty and serene spot!

The next stop was down the gravel road to the trail leading to the Grove of Titans. This area was known to the local indigenous people, but then “lost,” only to be rediscovered by researchers around the turn of 21st century. Soon thereafter visitors did a lot of damage to the forest trying to find the grove for themselves. It was only in 2022 that the trail I took was completed. This trail has a lot of up and downs and I did see some people struggling with it. Although the trail is basically at sea level and the overall elevation change is not much, it does go up and down, and up and down alot. Eventually you find the short route off of this trail to the actual Grove of Titans. The trail is mostly a boardwalk to protect the forest and to be honest…the area is very small. However, the trees here are ginormous. But the trees are not individual, they are huge because several huge trees have basically grown together at the base. Hence, Grove of Titans. The trail to the Titans is a little short of 2 miles out and back. Instead of driving from Stouts Grove to The Grove of Titans one can hike a trail that connects. If you are able to camp at the Jedediah Campground you can access all of these trails right from there. 

After departing Jedediah Smith, I noticed it was still pretty early, so I had many things left to do! To start, right near my BNB garage, I noticed there was a tourist trap looking place called Trees of Mystery. It was 25 bucks, and soooo worth it. Yes, it is more the same of large trees and what not, but this place has some good things going for it! In addition to a seeming reverence for these trees, they also have a legit canopy walk between the trees probably 50-75 feet off the ground. Pretty terrifying but a super awesome experience! There is also a tram up to the top of the area here, probably a couple hundred feet up, not really a mountain, but seemed more than a hill. Anyway, at the top there are supposedly awesome views of the ocean, but fog was a problem again! 

Next I headed all the way down to the south end of the park. After stopping by that first visitor center I missed the previous day I took a drive up Bald Hills road, an active logging road. The first stop on this road is the Lady Bird Johnson Grove. The one time first lady had a big interest in protecting the environment and her husband dedicated this grove to her when he was President. The grove here is actually quite a bit higher in elevation and is not the optimal environment for the redwoods. They are smaller and share space with a lot of different trees and shrubs. Continuing on a way up the road was my turn around spot, though one can certainly go on, where the road turns to gravel as you come up to an new section of the park, one of higher elevation, a lot more heat, and a very prairie-esque look. How bizarre! I had already run unexpectedly into cool beaches and whales, and now here we have section with a distinctly plains feel. Very surprising! Anyway, where I turned around was the trailhead for the historical Lyons Ranch which was in operation from the mid 1800s to mid 1900s. The trail is 4 miles round trip so I decided to not pursue the ranch. 

Upon returning to Klamath I discovered another really cool tourist spot, the Tour Through Tree! So, this makes two trees that I drove through this summer! This one cost me 5 bucks, but was worth it! This tree is alive and still standing, and the hole to drive through, was very tight. I had a medium size car and I had to put the mirrors in to make it! So of course I did it a couple times and had a blast doing it (video to come later!). Afterward I did one last trail, one that started at the Trees of Mystery place and went down to the shore of a secluded hidden beach. The trail starts basically on the side of the highway and is easy to miss. It also goes through some very thick vegetation and at times seemed a little suspect. I came across no one on the trail and the beach was pretty empty, just me and two others. It was definitely a beautiful spot, but it was foggy again, so I took in the grey and overcast beauty, rather than a sunny one.

The following morning was my departure from Redwood, but I had one more stop. At this point I should point out that there is one very huge draw in the park. I am slightly embarrassed to say that I was not aware of it ahead of time. The spot in question is called Fern Canyon. It is very popular and in fact so popular that one is not even allowed to drive to it without an online reservation. Of course, I did not have one. I hoped that getting up very early I would be able to get down to that spot and do a really quick in and out (the canyon itself is not very long) before the rangers showed up. I got about half way down the narrow, gravel road, which took me nearly 30 minutes and then I knew there was a creek crossing coming up. Being that I was in a rental car, and the time required to finish the drive and then drive back was longer than I was comfortable with, I decided to turn around. I had a back up though! The road to Fern Canyon provides access to a trail to Trillium Falls. The trail was fairly easy and took about 45 minutes. The waterfall in question…well, lets just say it is very pretty, but is actually pretty underwhelming from a size perspective. In fact, I almost thought this was not it and I needed to go further, but no, that was it. Pretty to be sure! But not jaw dropping. And with that, this National Park was done!

Overall Impressions: This is a beautiful park with a surprising variety of things to see! I think the fact that I had already been to Sequoia only a few weeks before diminished by admiration for the park, at the time. As I recounted the trip in this entry I think my opinion has improved! The only knock I can give to the park is access is not the easiest (not the park’s fault by any means) and there do not seem to be many activities to do other than driving and hikes. And, you can only be impressed by big trees so much!

The Adventurer’s Rating: 4.5 Arrowheads!