Humboldt County Coastal Redwoods 💜

 Day 46: July 8, 2021

We explore the redwood forest and see a whole herd of elk!

It was a day of hiking, an aborted bike ride, and just reveling in the magnificence of the redwood forest here in Humboldt County. Walking among these giants was like being in one of the great cathedrals. It was hard to take it all in; my heart is full.

Speaking of cathedrals, we begin our day on the 

Cathedral Trees Trail

Lots of BIG TREES

This one has a name: BIG TREE. It’s BIG—and over 1500 years old!

Beautiful trail

Redwood root systems from toppled BIG TREES. Look at Dan’s face. We both went around in awe on this trail. The same feeling that you get in a great cathedral, decades in the making.

I know this is a weird photo. I tried something new on this one. I used the panoramic feature on the photos app but went from the bottom of this grouping to the top.

The base of the big trees reminds me of the foot of an elephant, only this foot is planted and spreads out. It’s amazing that trees this big and tall can stand for so long.

Traditional panoramic shot

Mossy trees arch. My favorite shot for today.

The Trillium Falls Trail

My second favorite photo from today—and neither of them had a redwood tree featured!

Trillium Falls

The Lady Bird Johnson Grove Trail

Backlit

It’s July and there were still random rhodies in bloom!

Plants and fungi

Blackberries from the Trillium Falls Trail

Redwood, beginning to rot, supports a black fungus

Turkey tail fungus surrounded by redwood sorrel plants (their leaves are a gorgeous purple on the bottoms).

Wild cucumber

Wild cucumber baby

Elk!

I call this the BOYS’ BREAKFAST CLUB. These guys were munching on the lawns of some cottages!
Taken on our way into the park in the morning.

We passed this herd (there were more than what you see in the photos) on our way home and then had to figure out how to turn around on Hwy 101 and go back to get the photos. This cow noticed me as I was slowly walking by. I wasn’t as close as this crop makes it look.

She REALLY noticed—head and ears at attention!

I wonder if this buck was one of the BOYS’ BREAKFAST CLUB boys? He looks good in a patch of pale yellow July wildflowers.

She finally settled in, in spite of my presence;
but is it my imagination or is she still keeping an eye on me?

The REST of the story!

See these campers under the redwoods? Doesn’t that look like a nice place to stay? We had booked two nights at the Emerald Forest Cabins/RV Park in Trinidad, in the midst of the Redwood National and State Parks. Somehow, in the booking, there was a miscommunication. We were booked on a TENT ONLY site. We were tired from driving and waiting for construction traffic to pass and when we checked in, we neglected to notice that we were headed to a TENT ONLY site—those little triangles on the map? They don’t mean RV, they represent TENTS! Not only that, but there was a hairpin turn that was made in heaven for my Fiat 500 (may she Rest In Peace) but was impossible for us with the BAT with the trailer attached! We were halfway through that turn, on a relatively steep downhill, when thankfully one of the trailer tires hit the redwood tree root and that stopped us!

Dan went back to the office and they started calling around to see if anyone had an opening for two nights. In the meantime, I was not at all sure that we (let’s face it, it’s NOT ME, it’s Dan!!) could back out of our predicament, given the tight turn, the downhill, the big trees and the other RVs in close proximity. Obviously he was smarter than the predicament we were in, I exhausted my Good Karma Points, and the Office was able to hook us up with a site at a park in Eureka (it’s hard to not put an exclamation point at the end of that word! Eureka!), about another half hour south.

Remember the beautiful setting in the preceding photo? The tall trees for shade, the smell of the forest? This was where we ended up. And, honestly, we’re not (so far at least) “camp sitters”; we park, get set up, plan our adventures, and leave. We come back for dinner—or sometimes even eat out! Note the lack of shade trees. At least there is grass interspersed with the concrete. Hwy 101 is close by so we hear the motors passing by. We drove 40 minutes to get back to where we wanted to camp originally and then we got to see the redwoods and the elk and everything else. We’re so lucky to be here. I don’t want to leave!

I especially don’t want to leave since this is where we’re headed. I did my best to try to talk Dan into staying here another night but I was unsuccessful. I won’t lie. When SMOKE is your forecast for the weekend, I would much rather go in the opposite direction. Especially when we will be in triple digits for the daytime the whole time. YUCK.

Tomorrow: we head out to Redding. Stay tuned!