Highway 101 can be a twisty road, in need of road work, from Oregon south. There are quite a few pullover spots along the way for pictures. This section has more twists and climbs in it. There are a few areas along the beach but the majority of this is through trees. We took the Newton B. Drury Scenic Parkway and then stopped at the Prairie Creek Visitor Center. This is one of the areas where the Roosevelt Elk are often seen, but none when we were there in the afternoon. This scenic parkway has a lot of big redwoods, larger than yesterday. It has “The Big Tree” which is 304 feet high, 21.6 feet in diameter, and 68 feet in circumference with an estimated age of 1500 years. It is one of the largest trees of the Coastal Redwoods. We couldn’t stop with the motorhome to go to this, but was able to park on side of the highway at the visitor center and go back with the jeep (or walk).
From there, on to Redwood National Park. We left the motorhome at the Thomas H. Kuchel Visitor Center and took Bald Hills Road north of Orick in. This road is 17 miles and is not advised for RVs. We agree with that. It has, they say, a 15% grade. (That would be up and back down.) Our GPS showed starting around 60 feet, up to 2100 feet. We didn’t go the whole 17 miles; we stopped at Redwood Creek Overlook. We weren’t as impressed driving through, but we did not go on the many hikes they have either. There are older trees that you can access by hiking. There is also a mixture of other kinds of trees.
The shorter growth you see in the center was logged in the 1950s and 60s, now second growth forest. It would be interesting to know how tall they are, for 50+ years growth.
There is logging going on somewhere in the area. This is the steep road we were on. I don’t know what kind of trees these are.
We did see some elk about 8 miles north of Trinidad.
Click here for pictures of the redwoods and our highway 101 drive.
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