9/12/2017 - Humboldt State Park Redwoods

Tuesday - Today was one of those days where everything seemed to be a little harder than it should be -- from finding the particular Redwood groves we targeted, dealing with awful road conditions as well as road construction on the same road, finding the trails once we found the Redwood grove, to finding something to eat.  But we persevered, saw what we intended to see, hiked the trails we intended to hike,  didn't run over or into anybody or anything, and didn't starve to death.  But this park could improve on their signage -- along the highway and for the trails, and more specific information in the brochures.  It is an impressive park, and the redwoods here are awesome:  ". . . Northern California's largest redwood park covers over 51,000 acres and stretches along Highway 101 for 40 miles. The Park has more than 17,000 acres of old growth redwoods and the largest remaining stand of ancient redwoods in the world. The oldest recorded redwood tree, more than 2,200 years old, was found in the Park."  But you have to work a little to find them!

We started out at the Visitor Center we intended to go to yesterday, so that worked ok.  We got maps, information, a redwoods cup, watched a film, and went on our way. 

 This tree is aged all the way back to 912 A.D.!!

Inside the Visitor's Center were some interesting exhibits, including a Travel Log, a camper made from one log.

 Until I walked around to the front of the camper a little later, I didn't realize a bear was driving it.

Couldn't find our first grove, the California Federation of Women's Club Grove, turned around and took a second attempt at it.  Talked to some people, and finally found it.  One of the problems is that some of their signs are parallel to the highway, instead of facing it, so they are hard to see.  "The Grove has a beautiful stone building with four fireplaces designed by renowned San Francisco architect Julia Morgan, who also designed Hearst Castle."   There was some interesting history here about the women saving the redwoods and collection donations to purchase this grove.

They have "seasonal bridges" here to cross the river, apparently they remove them during the winter.  But they appear pretty sturdy.  The river is really low right now, we could have forded it without the bridge, but we walked the bridge instead.

We found the next grove a little easier, "Founders Tree Grove."  And this one had a brochure, with numbered markings on the trail so we knew what we were seeing.

When these trees are uprooted, the root system is huge!  And it makes a pretty large divot in the ground.

The bark on these trees can be up to 12 inches thick, which protects these wonderful trees from fires and disease.  I had a tape measure with me, so we measured this one.  The tape wouldn't go AROUND the tree, Joe said we had to bring a bigger tape measure next trip.

I tried to Not take so many pictures of the trees, but some of the views were just too good to not.  I know the camera does not do justice to the magnitude of these giants.

Then we headed on to the Rockefeller Forest, but we missed the turn off due to the road construction vehicles, so we drove on to the loop trail of the Giant Tree, the Tall Tree, and the Flat Iron Tree."

 We found the Flat Iron Tree sign first, not exactly sure which of these were the one designated as flat iron so we chose this one.

We had a little trouble with this trail, not enough signage, but we dumbed onto the right one because we next came upon the Giant Tree.

You can see the color of the wood here in this one that was split open.

We came out of this loop trail at the parking lot, miracle of miracle, and were just going to skip the Tall Tree since we hadn't seen it anywhere, but Joe suddenly spotted the sign back another trail a few feet, so we did get to see that one too.  Why they can't put these signs out where you see them is beyond us.

 This one is taller than a football or soccer field at 359.3 feet.  Now that's impressive.

We found the Rockefeller Forest on our return trip, after 5 miles each way of highway in really bad shape, and two 20-30 minute stops for road construction. "Rockefeller Forest, the world's largest remaining contiguous old-growth forest of coast redwoods."  It has 13 of the 100 biggest trees in the world. We found the Rockefeller Loop Trail and headed out again.    They are not marked, but this hike was packed full of splendid, towering redwoods, as well as huge ones that had fallen over the years and became "nurse trees" for other plants, including new redwoods.

 We got the tape measure out again.  This bark measured 5 1/2".

Here's just another neat photo.

We were done with the redwoods when we finished this hike and thought we would drive north to the next little town (Redcrest) and get something to eat.  Well, there wasn't anything there, so we drove on to the next little town (Pepperwood), then on to Scotia and Rio Dell.  Couldn't find anything open that appealed to us -- mostly the bars were the only thing open.  These little towns are dying, and the businesses seem to be closing one after another.

So we got on the 101 and headed south, all the way to Garberville, which is supposed to be the "main hub" of the area.  Again, most restaurants were closed (some are only open for breakfast and lunch, I guess.)  A lot of homeless people hanging around on the streets.  We ended up going in the grocery store and getting dinner from the deli, then driving back to the RV to eat.  By then it was after 5:00, so that was lunch and dinner.

The good news of the day is that John made it safely back home with his family in Brandon, Florida, and apparently didn't have any damage from Irma.  His in-laws had a couple small trees from the neighbor blow over into their yard, but both houses had power, don't think they ever lost power.  I'm sure they were all very happy to be back home and find their houses in good shape.  And we are certainly glad they are safely back home.

Tomorrow we move again.  It was 91 here today, we are not acclimated to that heat yet, so we will be back near the coast and hopefully cooler temperatures.  But those days are just about over.  Once we head toward Grass Valley, I'm sure it will be in the 90s every day, at least.