Sequoia Park

Eureka City Trails

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Sequoia Park is mostly a park of redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens) with a faint whiff of old growth. Along one side is the one of the smallest accredited zoos in the country and the oldest in California. (It's $10 for adults, but you can "borrow" a pass for a family of four with a local library card. I thought it looked closed, but their web site says open.) I found parking near the slightly busy playground in the southeast corner of the park and crossed to be under the trees. It's a forest with a little different feel from the others I've been in.

First view down into the trees is Sequoia Park. The ferns are a little thin.

By the playground, the undergrowth is very thin. Stomped undergrowth seems pretty common near playgrounds, though. I chose a trail and started along it, but didn't get very far before finding a "road closed ahead" sign. There was also a sign explaining the construction of a "canopy walkway". It says finishing in mid-December and looks nearly done, so must have gone over schedule. I'm not sure they're quite high enough to give all that different a view, but they certainly do get one closer to the canopy.

A little bit of the platforms and suspension bridges that will be the Redwood Sky Walk.

So I turned back along a trail dropping down into the gulch. It climbed back up again to connect with the trail I had expected to leave for the return. It was a plan easily made and easily remade. The trail wound near an old road which most people seemed to be using instead.

The park is 67 acres and "some of the original 40 acres of old-growth forest is still standing in the gulch areas." This is just getting closer to the gulch area.

I found a big branch high in a large tree, a mark of old growth. A bit hard to see in the shadows, too.

The trees seem a little bit short to me and I see some indications that they tend toward 250 feet rather than the 350 feet that can be found in other places. Theses just don't seem to need to get as high up before they can start focusing on becoming large and strong. I spotted one looking a bit old with a mighty branch as big as the other trees and came around it to find a 100 year old plaque on it.

There is some old growth around.

There are a few spaces with some thick undergrowth.

Another singular very large tree hiding behind some small ones.

The trail started dropping quickly and crossed the road to drop some more. Both head down to the duck pond, a constructed pond beside a second playground.

Duck pond below the trail.

Wood ducks on the small island in the pond.

I walked around the pond to where there are a few more structures. One suspects the house was there before the land was donated, but nothing quite gets to saying so.

There's a pool of the sort that might have been a fountain.

There's a massive fireplace that seems just a bit too big for a house. Like the first big tree, this also has a dedication plaque.

I headed back past the pond to take the Sequoia Creek Trail by the playground. I initially tried to follow trail on the other side only to find it was long gone.

One of the wood ducks particularly showing off the iridescent colors in their feathers.

It's an awful lot like a lawn down in the gulch beside Sequoia Creek Trail.

Boardwalk for a spur trail.

I followed the various spur trails up to their ends at various roads around the park, then plunged back in under the trees for the next.

It is mushroom season and they are quite bright in many places.

Climbing up out of the forest to the road.

At the edge of the forest.

A return to the fields in the bottom of the gulch.

As the opportunity presented itself, I took different trails back. This meant through the trees on the other side of Sequoia Creek to get back to the playground and duck pond.

A bench on offer along the trail at a thin spot in the trees along the edge of the field.

Once there, it meant back along the duck pond and into the Rhododendron Glen. There were actually quite a few trails among the glen, some seeming slightly abandoned. I followed the main one past the waterfalls.

Of course the rhododendrons are not in bloom, but they are numerous.

Perhaps not much of a waterfall. There's an even smaller and darker one just past this one.

I found the trail that passes directly behind the zoo wasn't blocked as it passes under the new walkway. They have a roof built to block any debris that might fall during construction. I could have gone that way after all, I'd just not quite gotten far enough over for a through route. The park was much emptier as I got back to the parking.

©2021 Valerie Norton
Written 7 Jan 2021