May 31 – June 1, 2011 – Humboldt Redwoods State Park

We left Yuba City Tuesday morning, and yes it is raining again. Our original plans were to head north to Mt. Shasta but there is still a lot of snow in the Sierras and they are predicting more snow this week so we decided to head west to the coast.  We drove north to Redding and then over the Trinity Alps and followed the Trinity River.  This area is beautiful but it was raining hard and was pretty foggy so we didn’t get to see much of the scenery.  We were going to stop at the Bigfoot Museum but the parking lot was not big enough for our rig so we had to skip it. 
We are staying in Eureka at the Redwood Acres Fairgrounds Campground and it is raining here also.  The woman in the office who checked us in told us the weather forecast for the north coast is for rain for the next 10 days.  I guess our rain gear will get used a lot.

It rained all night and was still raining Wednesday morning.  We drove to Humboldt Redwoods State Park, which is southeast of Eureka.  The 31 mile scenic drive through the park is called “Avenue of the Giants”.   




It rained off and on all day but we were able to get out and do a little hiking among the trees.  These Coastal Redwoods really are giants – they can grow to over 320 ft tall with trunks more than 24 feet in diameter and live more than 2,000 years.  These trees are not as big around as the Giant Sequoias but they are much taller, Once again, we are reminded of how tiny and insignificant we are!


This log was cut down between 1850 and 1900 during the initial log harvest.  It measures 33 feet in circumference and is a good place for a rest.






Rex wanted to take this unusual chair home but we don’t think it will fit in the 5th wheel.







We came upon this downed tree with beautiful dark red wood.




This tree is aptly called “Giant Tree” and was recognized by the American Forestry Association as the National Champion Coast Redwood in 1991.  It is 363 feet high and its circumference at chest height is 53.2 feet.  Now that’s one big tree.



Rex pointed the camera straight up the trunk of the Giant Tree to try to show how tall it really is.







This is a truly beautiful park and has got us excited about visiting Redwood National Park.  We took a different route back to Eureka that wound through the coastal mountains and along the Lost Coast.  We stopped at this beach and watched the waves for a while.

This was a beautiful drive but was very tiring as the road was rough, narrow and very crooked with lots of hairpin curves and steep climbs.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

June 4-6, 2009

Image
June 4, 2009 We drove Northwest of Jasper along the Yellowhead Highway to Mount Robson Provincial Park. We saw a moose along the river in the distance but wasn’t close enough to get a picture. We saw Yellowhead Lake and Moose Lake, and had a picnic lunch at the Mt. Robson Visitors Center. The scenery is spectacular – a picture of Mt. Robson. Our site at Whistler campground. June 5 We left Jasper in the sunshine and warm but the further North we got, the colder, rainier and more grey it got. As we turned north on route 40 to Grand Paririe, we started to hit a little snow. Didn’t last long but really woke us up. It stayed rainy and grey until we got to Grand Cache then it started to clear. We also got our first real windshield chip today, but a trip to WalMart and a windshield repair kit later we were fixed. The land here is somewhat hilly, swampy and covered with trees. There are some really big oil and gas complexes and some large lumber mills such as the one we saw in Grand Paririe.
Read more

August 24-26, 2009

Image
We headed towards Flathead Lake Monday morning and stopped in Kalispell to get our air conditioner repaired. It had stopped working a couple of weeks ago and August is not the time to be without an air conditioner. The RV dealer we stopped at gave us the name of the guy who does their air conditioning work. He was able to fix the air conditioner (a switch had burned out) in a couple of hours and we were on our way. We drove to Polson, MT at the south end of Flathead Lake and are going to stay here for a few days. We are staying at Eagle Nest RV, which has a cherry orchard on one side, a golf course on one side and a horse pasture on another side. It is a really nice park with lots of grass and trees. Unfortunately, we are at the end of the cherry season and we might not be able to find any fresh cherries. Tuesday morning we decided to take a drive around Flathead Lake. This is a very scenic area with lots of fruit orchards. We found a fruit stand and bought cherries, peaches, tomatoes
Read more

July 28, 2009

Image
We left Valdez this morning in rain and fog and retraced our route back up the Richardson Highway. We ran out of the fog and rain after we went over Thompson Pass and thought we would be able to see more of the scenery. Not to be, shortly we ran into more smoke. We stopped at the visitor center at Wrangell-St. Elias National Park but it was really smoky so we didn’t stay very long. The ranger there (we think he was a ranger but he looked about 15 years old!) told us that there are currently 60 fires in Alaska and the smoke here is from the fires North of here around Fairbanks. Wrangell-St. Elias National Park is the largest national park in the US at 13.2 million acres. There are only 2 short gravel roads in the park so access is limited to backpacking, hiking and flight seeing. The park is mainly wilderness and has 4 major mountain ranges in it and includes 9 of the 16 highest peaks in the US. Unfortunately, because of the smoke we were not able to see any of them. We turned off the R
Read more