A walk through the Redwoods

This morning was sunny and a little cold out.  I was so glad the fog had lifted early.  We were on our way at 8:00 am and were hiking by 9.  I was disappointed there there were no elk in the meadow this morning.  I really enjoy seeing them in the wild.

The trail starts right at the visitor center, it is 4.8 miles to Fern Canyon.  This is through the one of the old growth areas of the redwoods.  The three big trees on this starting bridge are a small example of what we would see today.

The trail is a nice wide trail carpeted with pine needles.  The forest smell hits you right away, that piney, musty woodsy smell.  I wish I could bottle this smell so I could smell it whenever I wanted to.  There is something about it that instantly relaxes me.  We take a long time to reach Fern Canyon because we stop every 5 minutes to take pictures.  The following pictures show the hike through the redwoods.  I don't feel words can do this awe inspiring mystical area justice, you just need to come here and hike it to understand.

 This is a downed redwood that has become what is called a nurse mate tree.  You can see all the other plants growing on top of it.  They use this downed tree like fertilizer and grow big and healthy.  Sometimes you can see where the tree has decayed away and it leaves the tree feeding on it standing in the air so to speak.  The nursing trees roots grow around the nurse tree and into the ground, so when the nurse is no longer there it leaves the shape of the tree in the roots of the new tree, kind of like a hole in the middle of the root.

I walked a log!!!!

 
In the above picture you can see the root system of three big trees growing together, the eventually become one tree.  The pic next to it is a close up of the roots.
The pic to the left shows you how thick their bark is. The green area is the tree the thick brown area is the bark.  These trees have extremely thick bark, which keeps them from harm during fires.  You see many that have been burned and are still living.

 I am 5'3 can you guess how
tall this big boy is?

Banana slug

We have finally arrived at Fern Canyon.  The following pictures will show you why it is called Fern Canyon.  You walk down a long curvy  flight of steps to get into the canyon then you have to climb, crawl and maneuver yourself through a maze of down trees to reach the canyon.

Once through Fern Canyon we work our way over to the coastal trail. This is only about 0.6 miles. Winding our way through a very sandy trail over to the coastal trail this is what we almost walked into.










We had a hard time finding the coastal trail and the sand was very hard to walk through.

We decide walk the Gold Bluffs Beach Rd to the Miners Ridge Trail back to the visitor center. Another 2 miles to the trail head then another 4.3 miles to the James Irvine trail and about another 0.3 to the visitor center.

This is one gnarly tree

This trail starts out up hill as we have to climb back up to the height we were on before descending into Fern Canyon.  The Miners Ridge trail is on the other side of the canyon from the James Irvine trail that we hiked in on and will eventually join back into close to the visitor center. I didn't think that this side was a spectacular as the James Irvine trial, but still very enjoyable.  We only took a few pictures on this trail, because there wasn't much more to add than we saw on the James Irvine Trail.

Happy Birthday Joe!!!!!
(June 5)

Newton Drury Scenic Hwy

Today we spent most of our time sight seeing.  It was really foggy this morning so a nice drive up the coast sounded good idea.  We left around 10 am and headed to the Klamath river area, where there was suppose to be a great coastal drive.  We finally found the turn off and were having a great time looking at the beautiful scenery when we see a "road closed ahead" sign.  We were hoping this was a mistake but it wasn't.  It did however end at a nice overlook at the ocean.  It was really quite a view.  Then we noticed there was a cemetery right on the side of the hill.  It looked like a family plot.  What a beautiful place for you final resting place.

We drove back down the same road and then went down another road that was suppose to also take you to a drive along the coast.  This also has been closed to vehicles, only bikes and hikers can use the coastal road. As you are driving in you feel like you are in a tunnel of trees. The trees have grown up over the road making for a very pleasant drive.

Again it ended at a high bluff lookout that was spectacular.

 






Once back out on the 101 we found the Newton Drury Scenic Hwy through the redwoods.  You have to be here to understand the beauty of what you are seeing.  Some of these trees are extremely old and so awe inspiring.  I will let my pictures do the talking.

 There were fens everywhere of all different kinds.  There is also a ground cover that looks a lot like clover but it is called Redwood Sorrel.  They are eatable, I was told they taste a little like lemon grass.

At the end of this scenic drive is the visitor center.  When we got out of the truck and I saw a field with many Elk in it, I was mesmerized.  There were several males that you could only see their antlers sticking above the grass and ferns.

 













We also saw the beautiful Blue Jay, not sure if it is a Stellar Jay or not, but it was very blue with a great crown on it's head.

This is our trail sign for tomorrow, we are doing the James Irvine Trail to Fern Canyon then the Beach Campground to the Miners RidgeTrail, back to the Jame's Irvine Trail.  The ranger said the whole loop is about 11 miles.