I adore trees. One of my favorite things about living in the PNW are the nursing trees. I’m sure they exist elsewhere but I first became aware of them while hiking in Washington. I’m absolutely getting a tattoo of one at some point but I’ve yet to find the right artist.

Regardless, trees are awesome! Which means that when it was my turn to plan a car camping trip post move to Portland, OR, I obviously selected a trip to the Redwoods State & National Parks. It’s only a 5 & half hour drive now that we’ve moved so it’s the perfect distance for a long weekend.

Mill Creek Campground

Timing is everything and mine wasn’t terribly good. This was a relatively last-minute trip. Most popular parks are fully booked 3-6 months if not a year in advance. I booked this trip on July 30. I had a few other things working for me tho as I was booking for the end of September when many kids/adults have returned back to school. Also, it’s the time of year where the weather may not cooperate for camping as rain becomes more frequent and the temperature drops.

All but 1 campsite was booked for the weekend I wanted which is how we ended up at Mill Creek Campground in the state park of Del Norte Coast Redwood. I was really interested in a campsite at Gold Bluffs Beach because beach. Mill Creek being the only option worked out really well for us as it is extremely close to Crescent City for restaurants and shopping.

I loved our campsite. There were so many redwoods and this super cool hollowed-out tree stump was right in our campsite!

We set up hammocks and got to enjoy the views and wildlife. It was so peaceful.

Day 1

It absolutely poured the night of our arrival. I’m still in awe that our tent kept us dry and we were so much luckier with our campsite then one of our fellow campers. Their site became the drain for several other sites. Their stuff was soaked and they ended up heading home early as a result.

The rain caused us to cancel our morning hike. We didn’t trust the trail to be in safe hiking conditions with the volume of rain and the steepness of the trail so we ad libbed. Quite literally just got in the car and drove around exploring.

Trees of Mystery

First up, Trees of Mystery. I was driving and I when I saw Paul Bunyan and Babe coming up on the side of the road, it was an insta stop for me. I swear my family visited this same tourist trap when I was a child, and I have similar photos of us in front of Paul & Babe…

We didn’t pay the $30 a person to explore the mysteries but we did peruse the insanely large gift store and take some photos before continuing down the road.

Scenic Drive

At some point during our drive, I handed Chris my phone to review the list of hikes I had noted as options for this trip. He selected the shortest option from the list “Big tree wayside super short (1 mile?) and about 40 minutes south of campground. Can be combined with the Cathedral tree trail loop”

We plugged Wayside tree into our navigation app and ended up at the trailhead for 2 random hikes: the Rhododendron trail and the Karl Knapp Memorial trail. Neither of them was the big tree wayside but that didn’t stop us from exploring the Rhododendron trail for a little bit.

Thankfully, there were a lot of maps at these trailheads and so we eventually did make it to the Big Tree.

But this isn’t it. This one is still from the Rhododendron trail but I think it’s big.

Big Tree

It’s big. There were literally busloads of people. I snapped this picture and then we went down the Cathedral trail to get away from the people.

Cathedral Trail

Throughout this hike, I told Chris that the trail was named for a cluster of trees that resembled a cathedral in some way. I still very much have a clear memory of what this looks like. However, we didn’t see it on our hike, nor can I find any evidence of it when looking up the trail now that I have internet again. My brain is obviously glitching but at least the hike was lovely!

Plus, there was a banana slug! This was the only banana slug we saw for the entire trip so we did not take too many pictures of him. This is only about half of the photos too!

Visitor Centers & the Beach

We wrapped up our day with a smidgeon of commercialism (banana slug sticker!!!) and some time at the beach. A great start to our trip.

Day 2

We sold our sleeping bags 2 moves ago. We’d given up on backpacking because of bad backs and car camping wasn’t our thing. I didn’t want to spend money on new ones because 1) what if this is a one-off thing and we never go camping again and 2) my mom is a quilter – we have a bajillion quilts. It’ll be fine! Famous last words from a cold-blooded fool.

I brought every quilt and blanket we own (okay, not the quilt that was on our bed but still) on this trip and we used every last one of them. We were still cold.

Ergo, day 2 began with a warm breakfast at a nearby restaurant followed by a run to a box store for sleeping bags. Turns out cheap sleeping bags are still expensive so we bought warmer sleeping clothes and Hot Hands instead. Total win and solved the problem.

Another Tourist Trap

Another memory I have from my family’s trip to the Redwoods many, many moons ago, is of a drive-through tree. I thought it would be fun to recreate the experience.

It was not. It was a horrible waste of $20 for this silly photo of the tree I refused to drive the car through.

Chris did get a video he delighted in watching on repeat for quite some time of me noping out of it.

Coastal Drive Loop

We did another scenic drive. It was billed as coastal, but it was mostly higher up on the cliff with minimal views of the coast. Very meh.

That said, at the very beginning of it was the High Bluff Overlook. It was gorgeous! Drive here and then drive to your next destination. Skip the Coastal Drive Loop.

Chris and I sat on a bench here and debated what D&D alignment Mother Nature is. We both agreed that she is neutral as can be but we couldn’t remember what the middle alignment was called. We could remember good, neutral, and evil. We could remember chaos and lawful but the middle one? We landed on the silly-sounding “neutral neutral”.

These are the fun conversations you have when you have no internet to perform research and/or fact-check yourself!

Tall Trees Trail

I was able to score another permit for the trail we skipped on day 1. We had a picnic lunch at the Redwood Creek Overlook and then took the 7-mile gravel road to the trailhead.

This trail was my absolute favorite experience of the weekend. The trail requires permits because it’s a bit remote and delicate. I think it’s limited to 50 per day? I’m not sure but I am sure that there are very few people on it at the end of September.

The first (and therefore last) mile and half go down (up!) 800 ish feet of elevation. You end up at an absolutely stunning river loop of approximately another mile.

There are numbered signs like this is or was an interpretive trail. We had no internet and none of the signs or maps indicated what they meant, so we made up our own interpretations.

Pictured below is Bob (the lying down tree). Bob escaped from a nursing home where he was being mistreated. We don’t know his full story but he was buried in these woods. Never mind the fact that he clearly isn’t buried…

Below is the scene of the gnome and fairy war. It was an extremely devastating war, as most are.

Not pictured but site 10 is where the war hospital was. The gnome and fairy war did have a bright side as they lead to great improvements in healthcare! Very specialized healthcare. There are specific hospitals for victims of the war. Another for car crash victims. Yet another for internal medicine, another for stubbed toes, and so on and so forth.

This tree used to be a woman. She got into a fight with a store manager and he turned her into a tree.

On our way back to the campground, we saw a black bear! We were in the car and s/he was crossing the road so there was no danger.

Day 3

I commandeered all of the activities on the first 2 days, so I asked Chris to plan day 3. He chose exploring one of the state parks we hadn’t yet visited, Jedediah Smith. He mentioned both the Boy Scout Tree and the Grove of Titans and said we could probably do both.

Boy Scout Tree Trail

We tackled the Boy Scout Tree trail first as it was longer and more strenuous. I think it’s just shy of 5 miles. It was nice but after the Tall Trees Trail? It just didn’t compare. It was a lot more crowded and a bit more overgrown.

At the time, we didn’t know why it was called the Boy Scout tree. There was a sign on the tree that clearly shows the Boy Scouts have claimed it. We’ve since done research (yay internet!) and learned that they used to camp here.

It doesn’t actually end at the Boy Scout Tree either. It ends at Fern Falls. There were ferns and falls so it wasn’t an inaccurate statement. But at the same time, they weren’t the highlight of the trip for me.

Grove of Titans vs Stout Memorial Grove

We failed at finding the Grove of Titans. We found a really crowded trailhead that seemed like a likely candidate for it but according to the map we read it was 6 miles round trip to the grove rather than the expected 1.7 so we kept driving. In retrospect, this was probably the right place but we didn’t have enough information to use the map or had the wrong map.

We eventually made our way to the quite lovely and still very accessible Stout Memorial Grove. Highly recommend this option if you have anyone in your party with minor mobility restrictions. It’s still a trail (not paved) but you could absolutely get a heavy-duty stroller or wheelchair around this area. I saw a woman with one of those walkers with the built-in chairs exploring.

Gold Bluffs Beach

We wrapped up our weekend with another trip to the beach specifically for a picnic dinner and hopefully a sunset.

I am so incredibly glad that we did not have the opportunity to stay at the Gold Bluffs Beach Campground! The main drag through all of the parks is Highway 101. Speed limits are generally 55 but sometimes 65 MPH. The road to get to the Gold Bluffs area is about 5 miles long. It’s bidirectional but feels like it should be a 1-lane road. There are blind curves. Lots of them. Lots of blind curves on a bidirectional road. I had a very nervous drive to the beach because of course it was my turn to drive.

We got to the entrance to the beach area and the road became wider but more potholed. Eventually we got to the campgrounds which had gorgeous views of the ocean. So much sunshine too! I loved the trees at our campsite but I can just imagine how much warmer it was at this campground.

Just past the campground was a set of gates that clearly indicated they would be closed and locked 30 minutes before sunset. We also observed another vehicle that was just past the gate turning around. We decided to park at the campground and then walk to the actual beach entrance.

We reached the place where the RV had turned around. There was a large stream that crossed the road. On our walk toward the beach, we saw a Jeep “ford” the river and a woman get out from the passenger side. The male driver backed up and then had her film him crossing it again. It’s totally a Jeep thing that we wouldn’t understand!

We kept walking and walking and walking. I have no idea how far the beach entrance is from the campground but we had already done a fair amount of walking that day and weren’t feeling it so we turned around.

We may or may not have snuck through the campground and had a picnic dinner on the beach.

Nursing Trees

I started this post by talking about nursing trees and I don’t think this post would be complete if I didn’t highlight some of my favorites from the trip.