12 June 2016 – Today we visited a location we’ve always wanted to visit, Redwood National Park. Home of the largest trees in the world. It is a park 50 miles. long along the Pacific coast.
On our way from Grants Pass we couldn’t help ourselves but to stop and picnic at the beach. The kids put on their sandles and had an opportunity to play in the sand – unfortunately nothing interesting in the tide pools.
Thirty more minutes and we were in the midst of the giant Redwood trees. Having only a few hours we chose the Trillium Falls trail. It is a beautiful 2.8 mile loop through the forest, along streams, a small waterfall, skunk cabbage, banana slugs, and of course trees bigger than you imagine.
Aurelia standing next to half a fallen redwood trunk
The forest was cool with dappled sun filtering through the canopy. We had several opportunities to walk over, under, and through the kings of this forest. Some were so large it was easy to imagine a whole family camping comfortably within a single hollow trunk. It was hard to keep your eyes on the path with such a cathedral ceiling above you.
While we didn’t see much in terms of fauna (only banana slugs and Elk – hoping for a glimpse of the giant pacific salamander) the flora was amazing: Redwood trees, pine, aspen, red huckleberry, blackberry, coastal man root, iris, beautiful nursury logs, an amazing a variety of fern, moss, and lichens. We saw the remnants of trillium, but too late for blooms. There were also fragile white flowering vines called coastal manroot which had tendrils hanging along the path.
The park is also home to a several large herds of Roosevelt Elk. Coming back from the hike we saw a herd close up with several small calves with their spots. We were only 30 feet away from several of them.
Driving south we also spotted another herd lounging in the lawn of an RV park, so we stopped to admire this herd as well.
From Redwood we drove to Redding, CA for an overnight before heading East into the mountains.