CALIFORNIA
Oregon Road Trip - Day 3 (California Section)
Today was my Redwoods National Park hiking day. Planning this is kind of challenging because the park is actually a bunch of state parks bundled together and some of the hikes are about an hour apart from each other. For instance, I was actually already camping in Redwoods National Park by camping at Prairie Creek.
To start, I packed up camp and drove back up the 5 mile dirt road from the night before. Trillium Falls is actually right at the top there, where I had seen all the elk before. There are two options for this hike – just walk to the waterfalls and back, or do a loop that is about 3 miles. I had reception at my campsite but I didn’t think to check the map for the trail so I forgot how long the loop was. For that reason, I ended up turning back early to be safe on time.
That all said, I agree with the NPS website that this hike is great bang for your buck! It’s not too hard but it has an okay waterfall and of course awesome redwoods.
There’s a small diner near the trail called Log Cabin Diner where I got some breakfast and coffee. It hit the spot so perfectly! My waitress was also the owner of the place so that was cool.
For some reason they also had emu here. I heard the owner giving some kids some bread to give them.
From there it was off to Boyscout Tree Trail at Jebediah Redwoods State Park. This is about an hour from Trillium Falls so it was mid-day by the time I got there. It also requires driving down a windy, one way, dirt road. It was raining on and off throughout the day so it was also pretty muddy. The hike is about 6 miles long so it’s also a bit longer of a commitment.
That all said, it was INCREDIBLE. Really amazing views of the redwoods and a highly variable, interesting hike. I could’ve and should’ve spent twice as long on this and just marvelled a bit more. It was also really muddy and some of the steps were pretty waterlogged. The waterfall is bigger here though.
Me trying to get any kind of photo of the scale of the redwoods:
The waterfall:
The trail texture from all the tree roots underfoot:
It was pretty funny hiking this one alone because there was a huge group of school children here on some kind of trip. So I got to eavesdrop a bit on the youth as they were hiking. I also encountered a family at the falls that I helped take a photo of since I saw them struggling to take a good selfie with their DSLR. They were asking me how far back the kids were from the falls so they’d know when to turn back hahaha.
Since I still had 3 hours to drive, I hustled my way the 2.8 miles back from the falls. This is where I really wish I hadn’t felt so rushed.
After this I crossed over to Oregon so you can continue reading here.