Redwood National Park California

Redwood National and State Parks: The Honest Version

The tallest living tree on earth, Hyperion, stands at 115.9 metres in Redwood National Park. Its location is deliberately not published to prevent visitor damage to the surrounding area. You will not find it. What you will find on the marked trails are trees routinely exceeding 100 metres, which is still extraordinary. The forest floor is dim even on bright days, the air smells of damp bark and soil, and the trunks have a reddish fibrous texture that looks almost painted. Coast redwoods are genuinely as impressive as advertised.

They are also genuinely remote. Most people flying into San Francisco think “quick day trip up the coast.” The main groves are 5 to 6 hours from San Francisco by car. This is worth knowing before planning.

Redwood National Park is technically four parks administered jointly: Redwood National Park (federal), and Prairie Creek, Del Norte Coast, and Jedediah Smith (California State Parks). They share infrastructure and most hiking trails. The nearest town of any size is Crescent City, near the Oregon border.

Where to Actually Go

Lady Bird Johnson Grove: a 1.5-mile loop through mature old-growth, accessible from the main highway. It’s good. It’s also what every tour bus stops at. A valid introduction, nothing more.

Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park is better. The Fern Canyon loop, where 50-foot fern-covered walls rise on both sides of a narrow gorge, is worth driving the rough Gold Bluffs Beach road to reach. High-clearance vehicles only for that road; standard cars park at the lower trailhead. The canyon is 20 minutes each way and looks unlike anything else in the park system.

Tall Trees Grove is the best old-growth in the entire system and is deliberately undervisited because the National Park Service issues only 50 permits per day (free, from the Kuchel Visitor Center in Orick). The trail is 4 miles return with a 1,000-foot descent and re-ascent. The grove contains some of the world’s largest trees and almost no other visitors. Get the permit the day before; pick it up first thing the next morning.

Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park, near Crescent City, contains Stout Grove, which most serious visitors rate as the single most beautiful stand of redwoods in the system. It sits on a gravel bar in a bend of the Smith River, the morning light is exceptional, and it takes about 30 minutes to walk through at the pace it deserves.

Roosevelt Elk

Prairie Creek has a resident herd of Roosevelt elk that can often be found in the meadows along the Newton B. Drury Scenic Parkway. Adult bulls reach 500 kilograms. They are not tame. The males are unpredictable during the September rutting season – maintain serious distance.

Where to Stay

Crescent City is the main service town and is not a destination in itself. Motels, a few restaurants, a harbour. Eureka, 80 kilometres south, has more options and a Victorian historic downtown that is genuinely worth seeing. The Benbow Inn near Garberville is a 1926 country inn worth considering for comfortable lodging in the southern part of the complex.

The best approach for food is self-catering. Crescent City has a supermarket. Cooking your own food at the campsite after a long day in the forest is not a compromise – it is the experience.

Gold Bluffs Beach campground at Prairie Creek – in the dunes above the beach, with elk occasionally wandering through and cold showers – is one of the better campground locations in the national park system despite or because of the conditions.

When to Go

October is the optimum: few visitors, stable weather, the maples in the river valleys turning gold. Spring (March to May) has wildflowers and low crowds. Summer is busiest. Fog is present year-round but burns off by mid-morning in summer. The parks look best in fog: the light filters through the canopy and the redwoods disappear into it at their tops. Do not be put off by it.