Day 35 - Redwood National Park

Thursday, July 14, 2016

Posted from: Crescent City, CA - Village Camper Inn

Miles driven: 113

Total trip miles: 5,712

Today we plan to hike trails around Redwood National Park. The weather looked like it could be unpredictable and temperatures could vary based on elevation, so we told the kids to dress in layers....So Caleb put on three t-shirts. Not exactly what I meant, but he was happy with this choice.

As we were planning what to do today, we read that the world's tallest tree, the Hyperion was at an undisclosed location. The kids asked if there was at least a picture of it, so Matt went online to find one and found that someone had posted directions on how to find the tree. It requires going off the trails. We strictly adhere to the trails unless we have a backwoods permit and have talked to a ranger, which we already planned to obtain at this park because some of the trails we wanted to hike required this permit. We stopped at the visitor center in Crescent City, got the permit, talked to the ranger, and were on our way.

While we were at the visitor center, the boys found walking sticks just like Dad's that were a better height for them, and had compasses built into the top. They chose this as their souvenir for the trip. Good choice boys.

Matt stopped to stretch before we headed into the park, but it looked like he was striking a pose, so I snapped a picture. I actually snapped two, but the one after this one has him looking at me with an expression that may change some people's opinions about Matt's constant easy going attitude. (And now I am putting it on the blog...I guess we all make choices in life...Okay, he was actually just sticking his tongue out in the other picture.)

The ocean was covered in the morning fog. The breeze felt and smelled nice.

You knew this picture was coming...

It was cloudy, but as we drove higher along the coast, we were suddenly above the clouds and it was bright and sunny. The kids commented that it was just like when you are in an airplane.

Big redwoods were everywhere, but this one was especially big so we stopped to look. I believe it had the extremely inventive name of Tall Tree.

Lots of elk.

Here we are entering the back roads to get to the trails we wanted to hike. When you get the permit, they give you a code to unlock the gate.

The first part of the trail we walked was called the Tall Trees Trail (soooooo inventive!!!!) and was very well worn.

They try not to disturb trees when they fall, so in this case someone got inventive and carved a tunnel.

This is a great picture of Cameron walking between two redwoods. The redwoods are not as big around as the sequoias, but they can be much taller.

Our explorers are investigating a hole in this tree.

And finally, we came to the end of the trail and started off path to the tallest tree. We were prepared and had brought our water shoes along, so we switched shoes and started off across a shallow wide river called Redwood Creek (these inventive names! Mind=Blown).

We continued on down another smaller creek. This creek was very overgrown and cold. There was plenty of poison oak! We had to walk through the water most of the way to get where we needed to go. We saw a LOT of banana slugs which are almost like the park's unofficial mascot. Caleb led the pack (mostly) and let us know every time he saw one so we wouldn't step on them. The goal on a hike like this is to tread lightly and leave no trace (or as little as possible).

It got a little deep in parts, so Dad helped our fearless leader with a little boost.

Things got quite interesting. We really had to stop and think and work together to move forward.

We finally arrived. It was only approximately 1,400 feet along this stream, but it took us an hour. You had to leave the stream and climb up these fallen logs to arrive at the base of the tree. It was so overgrown that we did not go all the way because you wouldn't see anything once you got there other than the wide base. We could see it through the trees. Pictures didn't really turn out.

We were happy to reach our destination! It was all about the adventure of getting there, and not as much about seeing yet another gigantic tree. We headed back to the trail.

Here we are back to the original trail changing out of water shoes and back into our hiking shoes. We would need them to hike up the very steep 1.5 miles to where the truck is parked. We know how to find the strenuous trails!

On the way down, Caleb found this little stream that made a nice trickling sound. He wanted to stay and listen. On the way up, he told us all to stop talking and listen. We stood there for quite awhile. This was the most silent Caleb has been on the entire trip while awake.

We named these trees Bugs and Bunny because we think together they look like Bug's ears.

After four hours, we arrived back at the truck tired but happy.

I wanted to get a picture of what the big redwoods look like next to other evergreen trees. The trees surrounding this redwood are HUGE trees, but the redwood is just that much bigger. When they stand alone like this, they can look really tall like a kindergarten teacher standing next to their class.

Thus was our BIG adventure in Redwood National Park. We had no doubt that our decision to spend a full day here was a good one. 

We arrived back at the campground around 7:00 pm. We ate and went to bed.