Avenue of the Giants - More Redwoods

Avenue of the Giants is a 31-mile portion of old Highway 101, which parallels Freeway 101. There are 51,222 acres of redwood groves. There are many attractions to stop at on the way through, from immortal trees to drive-through trees to restaurants and gift shops. Some of the attractions are only open in the summer. Humboldt Redwoods State Park Visitor Center is about half way through and is an interesting place to stop. There is a lot of history information and also some films to see regarding the redwoods, the area and the 1964 flood that destroyed so much of the area.

    
     

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Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, Redwood National Park and Highway 101

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.

A Lighthouse and Amazing Redwood Trees

While at Crescent City we went to see the Battery Point Lighthouse. You can only go to the lighthouse during low tide, and we ended up just getting pictures. On the way there we stopped by the Brother Jonathan Cemetery, which is a memorial to people who died of the Brother Jonathon ship wreck at Point St. George Reef.  St. George Reef Lighthouse was built after that. It is six miles at sea on “Dragon Rocks”. and was in service from 1892 to 1975. It was the most expensive of the 19th century lighthouses at $700,000, and took 10 years to complete. Can you imagine that cost in 1892? I didn’t realize they’d have two lighthouses so close together.  I was able to get a distant picture of St. George Reef Lighthouse.

Battery Point Lighthouse

St. George Reef Lighthouse

Brother Jonathon Memorial

We were told that most of the older and larger trees are in the Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park and Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park. Today we’re doing Jedediah Smith, tomorrow Prairie Creek and the Redwoods National Park. We passed the North road to the State Park on our way to Crescent City, so we entered on Howland Hill Road from the southwest. RVs are not advised on this road. It is narrow, some low branches.  It is a 10-mile road which will take you to highway 199. There are pullouts along the way and hiking trails.

If you’ve never seen the giant redwoods, they are amazing. Pictures don’t do them justice. We took some pictures of ourselves or the jeep with a tree simply for perception of size.





There are three distinct redwood species: Dawn Redwood, Giant Sequoia and Coast Redwood. The Dawn Redwood are only found in central China. They are deciduous, not evergreen and smaller in size with height up to 140 feet and diameter to 6 feet. The Giant Sequoia are in the western slopes of Sierra Nevada Mountains in central California. They are evergreen, with a height to 314 feet and diameter up to 30 feet. The Coast Redwoods are in northern California coast and southernmost coastal Oregon. They are evergreen, with a height up to 390 feet and diameter up to 26 feet. Of course, not all of the trees we saw are this large. As some of the older trees die and fall down, new ones will grow from them - on top of them, inside them, wherever.  Some of the trees grow together. Some have holes near the base and we could go inside; they were hollow. You could see that there had been a fire. We were surprised how many of the trees are broken off on top.




Tomorrow - head south and see more.

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