Visiting Redwood National Park & State Parks was one of our favorite trips we’ve taken. Everyone from Grandma, mom, aunt, and all the way down to the 12 yr old boy enjoyed it.
This national park was one of the most confusing to me. I have been to several national parks and kinda know what to expect. While they are different there is many aspects that are the same.
This park, however is laid out differently. Nearly everything about it is different. There are several state parks within the national park. There is no entrance fee. The visitor centers are much smaller. One of the visitor centers surprised us by it’s existence. We stumbled upon it.
I did quite a bit of research before we went, but I still was not prepared for what to expect from the park(s). A park ranger explained to us that the majority of the areas that you visit are state parks and the area that connected them was national park. This helped understand how things worked. But there is also area that is not national park or state park.
We weren’t able to accomplish all I planned for our trip, but I often over plan. I will share what I had planned, what we actually did, and share our favorite parts.
I’m going to leave out the long travel days because we saw family and won’t really help you.
Let’s start with where we stayed.
We settled on a vacation rental house in Blue Lake. The drive from Blue Lake into Arcata and north to the parks wasn’t bad at all. The house was perfect for what we needed. It was very clean and spacious. I highly recommend this house.
We were a group of 7. Grandma, mom, aunt, and kids ages 18 yrs – 12 yrs.
After two houses falling through on us (one last minute), it was so nice to to have the communication that came with renting this house. Vascasa was so great to work with.
Now onto what we did and had planned for each day.
Day 1: this day we did what we had planned.
Jedediah Smith State Park was first on the list. There are several hikes in this park.
We headed up to Crescent City and then into the park. The views of the Pacific Ocean from the road were gorgeous.
The visitor center was small but the rangers were very helpful. There was a great picnic area there. Lunch was had and then we headed to the trails.
We drove the Howland Hill Road Scenic Drive. We were amazed by the size of the trees. Some spots along the road were very narrow.
Stout Grove Trail was a very easy hike. Actually I wouldn’t even it call it a hike. It was a great walk through so many large trees. This trail was a great one for the kids to climb on fallen trees.
After a great time stretching our legs and being mesmerized by the trees and critters, we headed further down the road to the Grove of the Titans.
Grove of the Titans was definitely a hike, but a beautiful one. Some areas were uphill and some areas were flat. It’s an up and back hike and I highly recommend going all the way to the end. One of the largest trees we saw on this trip was at the end of the trail. One area had a tunnel of ferns and plants. It was so cool.
Day 2: this was a day that we didn’t do what we had planned.
Plan: Bald Hills Road Scenic Drive, Lady Bird Johnson Grove Trail, and Kuchel Visitor Center.
The reason that we didn’t do what was planned was we needed a little bit of time to down time.
Reality: We headed back east and went to the Willow Creek China Flat Museum (aka The Bigfoot Museum). While it is a bigfoot museum, it also has a lot of historic artifacts. It was very interesting and we enjoyed taking pics.
After the museum, we headed to the disc golf course in Willow Creek. While laid out well, it was about 20 degrees hotter in Willow Creek than in Blue Lake. So it was very dry and hot.
We gave up on the course after about 5 holes and headed back to the coast to play disc golf at the Redwood Curtain course in Arcata. It was a great course. One of the tee boxes is on top of a redwood tree stump. We really enjoyed that course. Even I enjoyed the course and I’m a TERRIBLE disc golfer.
If you plan to play this course make sure you read about getting a parking pass. It was a bit confusing and we were never sure we got the right pass. But the parking monitor did not give us a ticket.
Day 3: This day we did most of what was planned.
Plan: Newton B Drury Scenic Parkway, Elk Prairie, Coastal Drive Loop, Fern Canyon trail, and the Davison Road Scenic Drive.
Reality: You had to get a permit to hike the Fern Canyon Trail and we didn’t manage to do that in time. So we skipped it but we had enough to do this day and didn’t miss it at all.
Our first scenic drive of the day was the Coastal Drive Loop. This one way drive is along a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. It was beautiful. We walked a few trails along here. There is a public restroom along this trail. It was clean and in just the right spot.
The Newton B Drury Scenic Parkway in the Prairie Creek State Park is a two way paved road. It a great scenic drive. There are a LOT of trails off this road. We stopped at The Big Tree and picked a trail from there. To be honest, I have no idea what trail we took. We hiked much further than we thought we were going to but it wasn’t too bad. There was some up and down but this trail system makes it easy to start on one trail and end up on another.
Thankfully the Google map on my phone marked where we parked, had the trails, and showed where we were even without cell service. This is a great area if you like to hike.
The Prairie Creek Visitor Center was a little larger than the one in the Jedediah Smith State Park. It has more to offer for purchasing souvenirs. However, this wasn’t the best visitor center we visited.
We ended this day by going to the beach. It was cold and windy, but the kids enjoyed the water. They haven’t experienced a warm ocean yet, and so this is all they know. Cold, cold, Pacific Ocean water.
Day 4: this day went as planned.
This day was our last day in the Redwoods and we headed south to see family. But along the way we drove through the Avenue of the Giants. It made the drive a little longer but was so enjoyable we didn’t care.
We didn’t make a lot of stops on this day because we needed to get to Sacramento to see family. Mostly the Avenue of the Giants (for us) was driving by large trees. This road also takes you through small towns.
Our first stop was the Humboldt Redwoods State Park Visitors Center. This visitors center was the large by far of all the visitors centers we went to. They had a ton of interactive things and information. They also had a gift shop. We spent a considerable amount of time here. They also have a spot that is easy to get a group picture.
Our next stop was the Chandelier Drive Through Tree. Our car was too big to drive through so we got some pictures of the kids in the tree instead and pictures of other cars driving through. They had a visitors center here as well, but we did not go in. We had a time schedule to keep and it was a bit crowded.
After the Chandelier Tree, we headed south to Sacramento.
The weather:
At the time we went most of Northern California was very hot. We visited family in Grass Valley, Redding and Sacramento. It was close to 100 in those places. But once we got closer to the coast, it was much cooler. Most days were in the 70’s.
The temperature did not affect what we did any of the days we were close to the coast. We hiked and weren’t uncomfortable. The day we planned to swim in the ocean was rather windy and only the kids got in the water.
If you have been to ocean in the southern part of the US, please be aware that the water is very cold in Northern California and north. The kids don’t seem to mind though.
Redwood National Park and State Parks was one of our favorite trips. And we would go again.
Why not join us on Pinterest: Coffee With Us 3 or hangout with us on Facebook:
Don’t forget to pin!
