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Elk Meadow Day Use Area
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California
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Elk Meadow Day Use Area
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This is a great hub for some hiking, biking, wildlife viewing AND it has plenty of parking! This combination is rare in the redwoods.<br /> <br /> Walkers and hikers love this place because it leads to the gentle Trillium Falls Trail with its old-growth redwoods, and also to the steep Berry Glen Trail. <br /> <br /> Seeing old-growth redwood trees - by bike - is an easy adventure from this location. Several designated bike trails cross through here. You can bike east towards the <a href="https://www.nps.gov/places/lostmancreektrail.htm">Lost Man Creek Trail </a>and the Bald Hills, north to the Elk Prairie Campground, the <a href="https://www.nps.gov/places/nbd.htm">Newton B. Drury Scenic Parkway</a>, and the eastern side of Ossagon Trail, or you can bike west along bike trails and dirt roads to Gold Bluffs Beach - and eventually to the western side of Ossagon Trail.<br /> <br /> The site is currently a habitat restoration area and it has many stories to tell. For several decades in the 20th century there was a redwood logging mill right where the parking lot and meadow now is. Some of the forests next to this site were logged right up to the day before the national park was established in 1968. Interpretive panels show what the site looked like in the early 1990s and they explain the on-going ecosystem restoration efforts in the redwood parks.<br /> <br /> Some large pieces of logging equipment is still sitting in the meadows nearby, and second-growth forests surround almost the whole site.<br /> <br /> Prairie Creek runs close by, and salmon and other fish are benefiting from years of river restoration - though more restoration is to come. In autumn, large salmon can be seen here. It is common to see bears and elk in this area so keep smart and safe around these wild animals. <br /> <br /> Visitor coming here in the next years will see and hear ecosystem restoration efforts happening across HWY 101. This is part of "<a href="https://www.nps.gov/redw/learn/nature/restoration-main.htm">Redwoods Rising</a>" and we are working in once-logged forests and putting them on a course to grow into thousands of acres of healthier redwood forests.
Trillium Falls Trail
~0 min drive
<strong>A Highly Recommended Walk </strong><br /> <br /> This is a family-friendly, short hike passing old-growth redwoods, maples, trillium flowers, ferns, and huge fir trees... with a small waterfall too! There are some switchbacks and an elevation gain of 200-feet to reach…
Davison Trail: South Access
~0 min drive
A short trail that is part of a of "Hike and Bike" hub in the southern end of the redwood parks. You will see first-hand the legacy of 20th century redwood logging practices.<br /> <br /> This 2.5 mile trail follows an old logging road from the Elk Meadow Day Use area to the E…
Coastal Trail: Skunk Cabbage (South)
~2 min drive
Located off HWY 101 on Robinson Road, this is the southern trailhead for the 7.5 long Skunk Cabbage Trail. The northern trailhead is on Gold Bluffs Beach - just north of the entrance kiosk. The Skunk Cabbage Trail is part of the California Coastal Trail system.<br /> <br /> Th…
Lady Bird Johnson Nature Trail Stop #8
~2 min drive
<b>Redwood Resurrection</b><br /> <br /> Commercial logging of redwoods reached into northern Humboldt and Del Norte Counties by the early 1870s. The logging industry dominated the economy of this region for three decades following World War II. The absence of tall trees in th…
Lady Bird Johnson Nature Trail Stop #9
~2 min drive
<b>Life after Death</b><br /> <br /> Redwoods do not die easily. The dense heartwood of a living tree resists most forms of insect damage and fungal growth, thus its value in commercial uses. The ability of a redwood to regenerate from burls ensures its longevity. More often t…
Lady Bird Johnson Nature Trail Stop #10
~2 min drive
<b>Forest from Ferns</b><br /> <br /> Many years ago, fire swept through this corner of the forest, opening large areas under the canopy to colonization by small, yet beneficial plants. Ferns, like the dominant sword fern, thrive in the all-pervading damp of the redwood unders…
Lady Bird Johnson Nature Trail Stop #11
~3 min drive
<b>Lifeblood</b><br /> <br /> Colonial seafarers and early American adventurers cursed the omnipresent rain and fog of northern California. A discomfort to some perhaps, but the mild, wet climate of the North Coast ensures the survival of redwood forests. Wet winters soak the…
Lady Bird Johnson Nature Trail Stop #7
~3 min drive
<b>A Forest Protected</b><br /> <br /> By the 1960s, aboriginal redwood forests that had stood for millennia vanished in less than a century. Logged, milled, and shipped elsewhere, the redwoods of northern California built the homes and infrastructure of an expanding nation. T…
Lost Man Creek: Hike and Bike Trail
~3 min drive
An Opportunity To Ride (Or Stroll) Through A Landscape In Recovery.<br /> <br /> Lost Man Creek flows through a landscape greatly changed from the 1960s when much of this area was clearcut logged. What used to be a logging road has been converted into a hike and bike trail. Lo…
Lady Bird Johnson Nature Trail Stop #6
~3 min drive
<b>Towering Patriarchs</b><br /> <br /> Gazing up the immense trunk to the highest reaches of a redwood tree gives us a powerful sense of our own smallness. Capable of ascending to heights over 360 feet, coast redwoods tower over all living things on the planet. Most of its so…
