Miners Ridge, Fern Canyon, and James Irvine Trail

Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park

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I was thinking I would go out and see the Dry Lagoon in Humboldt State Park, but that's quite short, so I needed something more for the day. I settled on a big loop that would include Fern Canyon since Prairie Creek Redwoods is just a little bit further. Then, because it's much longer, I decided to start there. It's a long dirt road and an $8 day use fee to start on the Fern Canyon end, so I went to park by the Visitor Center for free. Right next to the trailhead, parking is 30 minutes only, but just past it are a couple spaces with no limits except the general no parking in the State Park after 10 PM. Pulling out my gear and grabbing a brochure with map from outside the visitor center, I'm ready to ramble!

Plenty of signs at the start. No dogs as usual for the California State Parks. That's quite a tree behind the sign.

The big trees start instantly. They're particularly big ones. In a few feet, a bridge and boardwalk make the way over a creek and past three more. They are so close and big that the boardwalk is built with cutouts for them. The visitor center has various loops of short and long length for people to experience the trees and the rest of nature on display here. A bridge is out, so the short nature trail itself is not quite a loop today. Not a problem for me as I turn to follow James Irvine deeper into the forest.

Taking a moment to watch the water flow on the bridge.

The park highlights a long accessible trail loop going that way. There's a big tree that way, too, if these aren't big enough.

The skunk cabbage is coming into bloom under another bridge.

There's more junctions as I follow James Irvine to Miners Ridge. It's nearly a mile and already started to climb a little to finally turn off for Miners Ridge. The trees get a little smaller. They grow bigger faster down by water, so theese may be older. They are certainly still huge. Climbing away from the creek makes it really obvious how open this forest is. I can see quite a distance through the trees. The regrowing clear cuts have nothing like this look and feel, even after a century for those earliest cuts.

Looking down the slope to a tiny tributary of the creek. The trees are deceptively small because there's mostly other big trees to compare them to. The one in the middle slanting left is more like a normal sized tree.

Two trails diverge in a woods and I'll take both by the time the day is done.

There's flowers starting to come out. It's not a lone early trillium anymore. They're coming into their season. At first, there are just buds. Beautiful big buds.

Three trillium all in a row. The outer two are the closest to opening while the middle is just getting its leaves out.

Mushrooms still offer up some color too. I'm not sure I've seen pink gills.

As I reach the ridge top, I can hear a dull roar. Is it the ocean? It could be traffic, but the highway and parkway are not that consistent. A plane would eventually pass. It must be the waves. I am struck by how silent it is otherwise. I have heard birds, but not more than three in a minute and usually none at all. That seems wrong. Admittedly, it is the wrong time of day for lots of bird song, but none at all?

Looking far up a burl filled specimen. These trees grow over 300 feet tall.

The forest includes the spaces between the trees as well as the trees.

I come among dedicated groves as I come up to Clintonia Trail. This is a route that shortcuts my chosen loop, but I'm not feeling particularly in need of that.

Directions on this side, dedications on the other.

I follow the trail downward. That dull, constant roar has continued. It has to be the waves although it doesn't seem louder particularly.

I don't think I've seen you around before.

I spot a stump ahead. Not a splintered stump, sometimes still over 100 feet high, from a tree that found a natural end, but a squared off stump with clefts to allow for springboards. The trail turns to old road behind it and there are more. I don't think the area was clear cut. There's still a bit of space under the trees even if there is another stump. And another. Oh, and there. The trail comes to a bench and then turns down and away from the road which leaves the stumps behind for a time.

That was once a very large, living tree.

Just because it's yellow doesn't mean it's not a violet.

It's getting misty as I get closer to the ocean. Not much. Just enough for a little light magic.

Gaining a little mist and the light filtering through it and the forest is amazing.

There's more color here if you just know where to look. The underside of the redwood sorrel is red.

The trail finds another bit of old road and quite frequent stumps, but the redwoods and their remains quickly run out as it gets down into a creek area. They're not too keen on the salt air, so stay a certain distance from the sea. I must be within that distance as the old road turns to maintenance road and passes water tanks and the tsunami evacuation zone.

Among some younger and more salt tolerant trees.

The trail dumps me out on the main road. I have two choices to get the mile or so to James Irvine and my route back. This road will wiggle around just in the trees above the sand dunes to a parking area. There are two fords and the one just up ahead looks like a shallow and wet slog. A little closer to the beach is a bit of the California Coastal Trail. There's still two creeks to cross, but I'm thinking it will be a nicer walk. I follow the tsunami evacuation route in reverse back to the campground and through to the beach. Water is available in the camp, but I don't need any.

There's not much height to the sand dunes here, but the grasses look like tuft forming native ones.

It's still foggy on the beach. It's noon already, it should be burned away! That might be my southern California sensibilities. It is just thick enough to hide all but the barest form of the hills I just came out of. I see no sign of an actual trail along the edge of the dunes, where it is illustrated to be, but I was expecting it would really just be the beach. It's a very big beach.

There might be a hill covered in trees over there. The way the sand is shaped by the water of ocean and creek is interesting.

I see where the creek stretches out to the north before dumping into the sea, but I don't see the water. The sand drinks it all up when it is at the level it is today. That makes the crossings very easy. And it is getting brighter.

There's lots of footprints in the sand near the parking areas and plenty of wind blown ripples in between.

Crossing the beach back to the parking at the far end of the road. There's people walking this way on what trail exists.

Looking back down the beach where mist is still oozing inland.

There's lots of people in the parking lot for this end of the trail. Fern Canyon is quite popular. Things have been filmed here! A dinosaur ate someone in some Jurassic Park thing here! (I've never actually watched a Jurassic Park thing.) The trail wanders along a little way before actually getting to it.

Following a route at the very edge of the trees.

The creek seems to have formed a small lagoon. There's someone on the sand out there. There's lots of people on the beach as well as the trail.

At the canyon, the opening is signed for trail turning up the middle. The James Irvine Trail climbs up the other side to turn inland and keep feet dry. I'll miss a little bit of it, but I'm going up the canyon for that different sort of hike. The seasonal bridges, basically planks, are all gone so there are frequent crossings. People have arranged logs, often quite thin, to sort of have a dry footing across the frequent crossings. I know it would be smarter to just trudge through the shallow crossings, but I lean heavily on my poles and try to balance across the top as I go. I had the approach trail all to myself, but now there's something near a dozen people coming and going within the canyon.

Looking up Fern Canyon from the mouth. The sides are nearly vertical and the bottom horizontal.

The walls are getting higher. The trees above are getting taller.

The ferns are cleared off in the path of the tiny streams that come down the sides.

The view looking up. Even the roots are up above me.

Trail up the side at the far end of the Fern Canyon loop is obvious. I can also see where plenty of people have continued up the canyon. There actually is a visible beaten track in the canyon bottom that gets drastically less as most people leave it. (Or they might enter it from above.) One of my happenstance hiking companions is wondering if the waterfall is up this way. There was a waterfall I was thinking I might go visit, but it's a mile north along the beach. It was on the sign at the trailhead, so I direct them that way without much hope they'll find it. It looked rather scrawny as pictured. They'll have a good hike anyway? They turn to finish the loop along the high, shorter trail and I turn the other way to return to the visitor center.

Climbing out of the canyon. The trail contains no scramble.

Back among the big trees.

I pause at the junction for Friendship Ridge. I sort of want to try out that trail, but it's a lot longer. There's a seasonal bridge just ahead that I'm a bit worried about, although less now that I've seen the amount of water further down. Friendship Ridge does offer another route. There seems to have been quite a lot of recent usage if the bridge is a problem.

That is not a seasonal bridge no matter what the map says. The bench at the center is actually a pair of chairs facing each other.

The bridge isn't seasonal. Good thing too. The span it crosses has some rather tall vertical sides.

Now looking down the vertical sides of a canyon much like the one I was walking through earlier.

Purple flower hanging above my head.

Miniature worlds among the giants.

Trail and creek wandering wide and flat valley.

Ever more large trees.

I pass the other side of Clintonia Trail, the possible shortcut. This would be about the end of climbing along this route, but rather than continue to follow the creek like it did up, the trail starts climbing up toward the ridge. It's actually more climb after the climb might be done.

Another giant tree. They're everywhere.

All that girth and so tall they look long.

One massive log. Perhaps I shouldn't have waited for the fellow trying to reach the top to exit before taking the picture?

More little worlds tucked into the upturned roots of a fallen redwood.

A cluster of grand.

I find myself starting to treat the grand as common. It's actually a bit of work to maintain the proper reaction of aw for mile after mile of amazing trees. Somehow realizing that I have neglected the trees some helps me come back to appropriate appreciation.

An extravagance of extravagant trees.

Upward along the trunk of a tree that tells a story.

Bushes with purple flowers pop up near the creeks.

Rejoining with the trail from Miners Ridge, I still have almost a mile back down to the visitor center. I feel like I really missed out on trees when I visited here before and stopped by Trillium Falls, but I was looking for something a bit shorter that day. The patch of old growth redwoods is not so nice as the expanse of old growth redwoods.

Down to Godwood Creek again. Nearly to Prairie Creek.

I neglected this little white flowers on the way out.

I still have enough time to stop by somewhere else short while there is still light. I debate stopping at Trillium Falls again, but I think I'll go to Dry Lagoon as planned. It only looks like a mile or two on the map, so I'll have time. I'll have to come back here for the Rhododendron Trail some time when the namesake is in bloom. I hope it is fully open by then. Right now there is a note on the visitor center door that it is closed.




©2020 Valerie Norton
Written 20 Mar 2020