Days 20, 21, and 22: Redwood National Park

Wow.

So we left San Francisco with the intention of making it all the way to the Redwood National Park in one day.  However, we forgot to take into account that we’d be driving through Sonoma and Mendocino counties, which both have dozens of roadside wineries that offer free wine tastings all day.  Needless to say we stopped at 3 wineries (Alderbrook, Milano Family Winery, and Jaxon Keys), sampled some of their finest vino, and then promptly found an excellent campsite ON the beach that was recommended to us by the proprietor of Jaxon Keys.  

View from Navarro River campsite

Our campsite was about 100 yards from the Pacific Ocean, right at the base of steep cliffs, and it was VERY cool.  Our tent was actually pitched on the sand…this was one of our favorite campsites of the trip so far.

 

Pacific Coast Highway in Humboldt County

California 1

After our night on the beach at the Navarro River State Park we headed north along California 1, aka the Pacific Coast Highway, which was an impressive (and a little bit scary) drive right along the coast, up, over and around countless hills and mountains. 

That's a large tree

Oh yea.

 We finally arrived at the Redwood National Park with just enough daylight left to pitch camp and cook dinner.  Our campsite was set back in the woods a bit, and we had to hike about a quarter of a mile with all of our gear just to get to it.  We settled in for the night and planned a big hike through the Redwoods for the next day.  This night was also the first time we got rained on while sleeping outside, but fortunately our tent held up real well and we didn’t get even the tiniest bit wet. 

Fern Canyon

  

We woke up bright and early and after packing everything into the car we set out on a 12 mile hike through the Redwood Forest to the beach and a place called Fern Canyon.  After a small introductory hike telling us about the history and science of the forest, we headed out on the hike.  Along the 12 miles we hiked we saw a whole lot of incredibly HUGE trees and some other wild views that we couldn’t do justice describing here.  Just check out the pictures:

Yea those are wild elk.  Pretty sweet.

After our hike we left the Redwood National Park to put a dent in the 500 mile drive to Yosemite National Park.  We spent the night in Redding, CA at a Motel6 after a delicious dinner at Redding’s finest steakhouse.