Redwood National and State Park on the northern Pacific coast of California is home to thick enchanting forests that provide a suitable habitat for the tallest lifeforms found on Earth. The coastal redwood trees soar to more than 350’ in height, with Hyperion, the tallest, scraping the sky at a stunning 379’ above the forest floor.
Guide to Redwood
Redwood National Park
This park provides a network of protected state and nationally administered areas for these massive trees, containing more than 133,000 acres of land with some 39,000 acres of old-growth forest. While this may seem large, the acreage of forest the trees enjoy today is a mere fraction of what was here just a couple of centuries ago.
State & National Park?
Redwood is one of the more dissected parks in our collection. There are many plots of private land mixed throughout the protected area. Furthermore, Redwood is a strange mix of state and federal land. The park is co-managed by the California State Parks and the National Park Service. This seems a little strange at times, but it works.
Essentially, the state parks were formed early on to ensure the survival of the trees, and the federal government didn’t really get involved until the late 1960s. When it came time to make the Redwoods a national park, the Cal State Parks had been in operation for decades, so they just kinda stayed, and the two agencies combined forces.
Exploring Redwood
Most of the park is easily accessed from US Hwy 101, which essentially runs the distance of the park, from Trinidad in the south, to Cresent City in the north. Many of the popular highlights and a great number of scenic pullouts are right along the highway.
The park doesn’t have many remote areas that require extraordinary means to reach, but a few roads can get a bit tricky, especially with a trailer or low clearance vehicle, so be aware.
There are 3 visitor centers and 2 park information centers that are available to provide information and permits. The Crescent City Information Center and the Thomas H. Kuchel Visitor Center are the only facilities that are open year-round, while the Jedediah Smith Visitor Center, the Prairie Creek Visitor Center and the Hiouchi Information Center are open seasonally during the summer months.
South Side
The southern region of Redwood offers many easily-accessed short roadside walks drive offer incredible opportunities to stroll through the massive trees, and along the 11-mile Newton Drury Scenic Parkway, the hiker will find an array of longer hiking options that lead through the redwood forests.
A quick stop at the Kuchel Visitor Center can provide an opportunity to ask a few questions and get your bearings. This is the place to grab a backcountry permit, or to get a permit to hike the Tall Trees Trail, which is located just off of the Bald Hills Road, which runs to the southeast along Redwood Creek, leading into a region that contains the tallest trees on Earth.
The Lady Bird Johnson Grove is just to the east of the 101, and is a must do. This short trail is easily accessed just south of the Elk Meadow and Trillium Falls trailhead, which are cool too.
Prairie Creek
Traveling north brings the visitor to the Prairie Creek Visitor Center, and the Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, which for all intents and purposes, is part of the National Park. Here the Newton B. Drury Scenic Parkway leaves the 101 and travels northward for 11 miles before rejoining the main highway.
This is a must drive! It leads into the massive forest and provides a great number of pullouts and with trails that lead hikers past through groves of incredibly tall trees. This is a highlight of the park, and a curious traveler could spend days in just this area alone.
Once the Newton B. Drury Drive rejoins the 101, motorists make their way to the Klamath River, which offers a few overlooks known to provide good areas for whale watching.
To the south of the river, the Alder Camp Road leads to the High Bluff Overlook, and to the north of the river, the Klamath Overlook is just off the coast. Both places offer excellent views of the Pacific Ocean, and a resident population of grey whales ensures regular sightings.
North Side
The park’s northern region is not quite as disjointed as the south, and the two main sections are both state parks of their own right.
Del Norte Coast
Traveling to the north leads to the largely undeveloped Del Norte Coast Redwood State Park. The Mill Creek Camp can be a nice out-of-the-way place to stay. It’s the largest campground in the park, and its curve-riddled 2.5 mile entrance is gorgeous.
A few hiking options, such as Damnation Creek, the Trestle Loop and the Yurok Loop can provide some recreational pursuits if based here. The coastal region here is ripe with berries and Douglas iris, and the rough, rocky California Coast is simply magical. The Enderts Beach Trail enables a quick hike down to the coast for an excellent look at coastal tidepools.
Jedediah Smith
The Jedediah Smith Redwood State Park is situated a few miles inland from the coast and is densely forested. This 10,000 acre section of the Redwood Park contains 7% of all the old-growth redwoods that remain on Earth.
The 10-mile Howland Hill Road (unpaved) leads into a maze of redwoods and is a fabulous place to get some cool pics of your vehicle beneath the towering trees. Stout Grove and the Boy Scout Tree are a couple of points you’ll probably not want to miss when visiting the Jed.
Playtime
The park offers more than 200 miles of hiking trails. Some skirt the scenic coastline while others lead visitors through thick forests and canyons of lush vegetation that reminds the thoughtful adventurer that much of this land resides in a temperate rain forest, with year round temperatures remaining relatively mild. Many of these trails also welcome travel by horseback.
Overnight backpacking is possible here, although campsites are limited. Permits are required, and range from free to $5 per site, depending upon the area in which the sites are located. See the activities page for more information.
Many road cyclists enjoy the scenery afforded by pedaling along the Pacific Coast on US Hwy 101. For mountain bikers, the Little Bald Hills, Ossagon and Lost Man Creek Trails permit riders who don’t mind a little mud on their tires to ridehard on a few of the retired logging roads that wind through the park.
Kayaking along the coast, or on one of the park’s rivers or lagoons is another enjoyable way to pass the hours among the trees. There are nearly 40 miles of coast in the park along which are water-born sea stacks that rise from foggy waters, while rivers flowing from the lush forests wash massive trunks of deceased Redwood trees out to sea where waves return them to the sandy shores.
If you head out in these waters, beware, you don’t want to be in front of an angry Redwood that is being washed about by an angry sea…
Services in Redwood
There are numerous guide services in the area that offer kayak and bicycle rental as well as guided tours by horseback. See the activities page for links to such services.
Camping is available in the park, though expensive at $35 per night. Lodging can be found near the park to the north in Crescent City and to the south in Eureka.
Park Junkie Verdict
The Redwood forests of this park are awe-inspiring, even to a unemotional hard-ass like the park junkie. If you walk through these trees and do not feel a sense of their importance on this planet, you’re probably without a heartbeat… or you’re just an asshole.
This is a fantastic stop along the northern California coast… spend some time here… talk to a tree…
More importantly listen to a tree… you may just learn something.
See ya there…
Guide to Redwoods
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