Cheatham Grove

Grizzly Creek Redwoods State Park

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I decided it was time for another Redwood Edventure quest and generally walk every trail of tiny Grizzly Creek Redwoods State Park. There is a day use fee of $8, but it appears to only apply if one parks in the eastern section of the park by the visitor center. All of that parking was closed as a pandemic precaution. This first hike is the western part of the park, so not subject to a fee. I arrived to find a few cars in the small lot and one group leaving the grove as I entered, then had the grove to myself.

Signs at the trailhead. The bump at the end of the pavement and the hole in the dirt beside it had me a little worried for the little car.

The redwood sorrel is still blooming a little. These pink ones didn't have the nice red backed leaves. I am suspicious it might be some other sorrel.

The grove is a particularly open one. The trees range in size dramatically with a few particularly large ones. Birds were twittering in an incidental way as they tend to do in the middle of the day. And if that's your thing, you should be able to find a few of the trees storm troopers crashed into on the forested moon of Endor. The scooter chase was filmed here.

Walking into the rather open forest. Most the trees aren't so big (for redwoods) but there's a few in there that are huge.

There's not too much poison oak, but it sure is impressive where it climbs high into the redwoods.

The quest points out the ferns hanging off the log of a fallen tree and I looked around the ground for what other ferns I could find. At first the majority looked similar, but then I noticed that they were not. The ferns gripping to the height are not the same as the ones stretching up from the ground. But that makes a bit of sense since the nutrients available should be quite different.

Leathery ferns hang up high and sword ferns dominate the ground.

Lady ferns, which are mildly more frilly, also occupy the ground.

There's little trails that head off the main trail. Some seem to be at least partly official because they wander through a cut in a tree. I also saw tree cuts that seemed totally unrelated to a trail, so maybe the spurs are all just happenstance, some attracted by those cuts. I found one that wandered through the broken trunk of a fallen giant, then up on the smaller top.

This spur trail travels along the left side of a fallen, broken tree.

Pondering the way the light plays through the trees.

Taking in the levels of forest with ferns and short trees before the high reaching tops of the coastal redwoods.

Reiterations as big as normal trees happily growing out of the sides of giants, pointed out by the quest.

I found the parking lot more full than when I started. For one last exploration, the quest directed me out the other side of the lot to have a look at the Van Duzen River. It was distinctly hot as I walked out from under the cool trees and onto the sand bar. That was where everyone was, sitting on the shore or playing in the knee deep river.

The Van Duzen River as it flows to the sea.

A collection of invasive sweet peas and daisies by the river.

And a intriguing little native.

After the easy little flat walk, it was off to the bulk of the walking in the eastern and older portion of the park.

©2020 Valerie Norton
Written 23 Jun 2020