Redwood National Park, 9-Jul
This was the first day that everyone on the Redwood/Lassen trip were together. We hiked in Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park, which itself is part of Redwood National Park. We did a couple of hikes among the redwoods, and had a bit of excitement both going to the trails and after the hikes.
Boy Scout Trail to Fern Falls
After meeting up in the parking lot of the hotel next to ours, we separated into cars and headed towards the trailhead. Soon after we left, we got a call that one of the cars carrying people was having trouble getting people into the back seat, so they improvised with other cars and we continued on our way.
It didn't take us long to get to the trailhead, and before too long, most of the other cars arrived. Most of us headed out, with one or two people waiting for the last car to arrive. It has been a long time since we were hiking among redwoods, and it's amazing how much bigger they are than the trees that we have in the Pacific Northwest. We saw many trees that looked very large at the base, but looking up, we saw that it was actually two trees which had grown to merge together.
After hiking for a while, we took the cutoff to a spur trail which went up to the Boy Scout Tree. It was another pair of trees that had fused together, making the combined trunk diameter about 23 feet. It was no slouch in the height department, either, at over 230 feet. It's believed to be over 2,000 years old.
Going back to the main trail, we hiked the short trip to Fern Falls, where we took a break to admire the falls and wait for others to show up.
The hike back to the cars was quick, and we sat down to eat lunch in the parking lot. There was a chipmunk that loitered around us, hoping for some food to get dropped.
Grove of Titans
After lunch, instead of moving the cars, we walked about ¾ mile further down the road to the trailhead for Grove of Titans. This grove has some of the world's largest and tallest redwoods, many of which are over 300 feet tall. While indigenous peoples knew of the grove, researchers first learned of it in 1998, but did not publish the location to help protect the area. The location got shared, however, so eventually a boardwalk was completed a few years ago, and people can now walk in the grove while the ground and roots are protected.
As it ends up, we were lucky to be able to hike the trail at all. A large tree recently fell across the trail, and it was cleared and the tail re-opened only this week. We did see the remains of the newly fallen tree.
There was another tree which had been down for a long time and looked like a huge wooden wall along the side of the trail. We also saw a lot of nurse logs and other downed logs with roots of other trees wrapped around them.
The boardwalk consisted of metal grating and seemed extremely sturdy. A lot of people were on the trail and they were really good about staying on the boardwalk, which was good to see.
We wandered back to the parking lot, and when all but three people in our car were back, we started driving towards the trailhead to pick up stragglers. We picked one person, who said that she didn't see anyone after her. After driving to a point where we got a cell signal, the driver (who is also our group leader) got a text saying that the couple had taken the wrong trail, and were at a different trailhead than we all started at. We drove back to that trailhead, but didn't see them. At that point, they had called saying someone was giving them a ride back to where the cars were originally parked. Fortunately, we had dropped one person off there, as well as another person at the Grove of Titans trailhead in case they showed up at either location.
After picking up the person waiting at Grove of Titans, we drove down to the Boy Scout Trail parking lot and as it ends up, they were in the car driving right in front of us. We picked up the couple and the person waiting at that trailhead, and drove back to the hotel.
The group was going to meet at a brewery, but we decided to just pick up something from the store and stay in for the night.
