Redwoods National Park - August 28, 2004

Big Tree, Redwoods National Park

Redwoods National Park is located on the coast in northern California, within comfortable driving distance from the California-Oregon border. It is combined with a state park; hard to know where one ends and the other begins. I can tell you that all camping facilities within the parks are under the auspices of the California State Park system. The one I camped at, Jedediah Smith State Park, was very well laid out and maintained.

As you might expect, there were quite a bit of trees in the Parks. Well, duh, it is, after all, a place named after a tree. These particular trees were very tall but not as big around as though as Sequoia National Park. The big advantage Sequoia trees have is that I can fit them in my camera lens; these trees were just too darn tall.

I'd only allotted part of a day for my visit; after all, eventually the trees start looking alike and, after all, how many trees do you need to look at before you can say you saw a Redwood?

The day I picked, however, was damp and overcast. You can probably tell that from the pictures. It never rained but there was a steady mist the entire day and night. Even having a fire at my campsite did not dispel the mist. (However, the next day dawned bright and sunny. Did not do me any good as I was off to Oregon.)

I drove over to Redwoods from Redding. It took longer to drive there than I thought it would but it was a pretty drive through the Whiskeytown-Shasta-Trinity National Recreation Area on state highway 299. Anyway, I arrived at Arcata and went north from there.

My first, and main, stop was at the Lady Bird Johnson Grove, named after the former first lady who dedicated the National Park in 1968. There is a one mile trail through the grove. On this day, it was a damp and dripping one mile trail. The mist, however, gave the place sort of an ethereal quality, kind of like a place where a fairy would be.

It was all very green. And it smelled really good.

I drove further up the coast, taking the Scenic Drive. I pulled off to see the "Big Tree", a picture of which is at the top of this page. After I crossed the mouth of the Klamath River, I went up to the top of the Klamath River Overlook and viewed both the Pacific Ocean and the Klamath River. Again, it was very overcast and foggy so the pictures are not the best. I did see some seals down in the ocean and you could hear them barking very clearly.

After that, I drove up to the campground and spent the rest of my time there. There was a grove of Redwoods nearby so I hiked over there and walked through the grove on the path.

Stout Grove, Jedediah Smith Campground, Redwoods State Park