Ahh! We had a destination planned. I found a campsite on the way down on National Forest Land that looked good online and we didn’t even make it to the actual campground. There was a lovely pull-off on a tiny road that seemed to lead to nowhere – a bluff across the road a babbling brook next to our campsite. It was so lovely and we had been missing nice campsites for a while, so we spent a couple of nights here, soaking up the sun when we had it, listening to the brook and doing a little bit of planning (as much as we could with very little cell signal).
We had to get a permit to hike the Tall Trees Trail (one of the most popular in the park), so did that ahead of time and then headed down. We again didn’t have a plan for camping and were back on the coast, so our options were limited, but we decided to wait on figuring that out. We dropped Scarlet at a visitor center and headed to our first hike in California.
The hike was a pretty short one and luckily, by this time, Mike’s back was finally starting to feel better, so we could start moving again. (Between the roller and my standing on his back and using my elbows, we finally figured out how to get him some relief.) We descended on the trail, seeing more and more of the coastal redwoods as we went along. It was another awe-inspiring place; we just kept stopping to behold the crazy big trees that we came upon. The whole area was quite surreal as we walked through tunnels cut in tree trucks, saw ferns and smaller trees growing out of fallen trees, and admired crazy textures of bark and roots.
When we got back to the parking lot, an older gentleman engaged us, asking about wherein Wisconsin we were from. He had lived in Madison for seven years, eons ago, and had fond memories. He now lived in Eureka and was happy to tell us about some favorite activities in the area, shared with lots of air quotes for some reason. Nevertheless, we appreciate the input. On our way back to the trailer, we stopped at the Ladybird Johnson Grove and wandered in a much more maintained, but also beautiful grove.
After picking up the trailer, we headed a little south to a county park for a campsite and we hit the jackpot. We got a site under baby redwoods, backing up onto a lagoon with the ocean just out of sight.
The view from my window
We headed back into Redwoods the next day. Our air quotes friend recommended Fern Canyon as a place to explore and we saw that we could do a nice loop hike from there. We drove in on a narrow, crazy dark road to get to the trailhead. The trees were so think and so tall that, combined with the hills that rose around us, it was quite dark as we drove in and out. At the end of the road we came to the parking lot for the trail head and headed in.
Fern Canyon ended up being another surreal and breath-taking place. We wandered through and across Home Creek to make our way down the Canyon. Apparently there are bridges to traverse the creek in the summer, but they were taken off in the winter. We were prepared and just got a little cold in our Chacos.
Off we went on a 9 mile hike of peaceful awe. As Mike likes to say, “There was a lot of beholding.” We went over a ridge into a valley of coastal redwoods and it was so quiet that we really only heard our footsteps; there were very few birdcalls and even the wind disappeared while we were there. Pictures couldn’t really capture the scale and grandeur of the forest.
We looped back around to the coast and encountered a whole new world – grassy vistas toward the coast and bluffs with waterfalls toward the forest.
We ended the visit to this area by sitting on the beach for a while, listening to the waves.