Van Life on the Redwood Coast, May 2021
The Camper Van Experiment
Rob and I have talked about getting a trailer or van for years (in addition to visiting the Redwood Parks in Northern California). When Rob's foot injury sidelined our backpacking trip for May, we opted for a car camping trip but when we learned that all campgrounds were full, the idea to rent a camper van materialized. We ended up with luxury accommodations: 4-wheel drive, a larger than queen size bed and a built-in hot shower!
NOTE: There’s a map of our trip in the last slide.
Nature is the Best Artist
One of our first beach stops was Van Damme State Park near Mendocino and we found these beautiful seaweed leaves – I’ve never seen such inspiring colors and compositions. We also hiked through the Pygmy Forest in the mountains east of the beach.
Redwood Kitsch at Confusion Hill
Highway 101 is full of kitschy roadside attractions, the Grandfather Tree, the One Log House, the Chandelier drive-through tree (our van was too tall), the Legend of Bigfoot and Confusion Hill with its world famous Gravity House. These carved trees are at Confusion Hill.
Panorama of Giant Trees
It’s hard to describe the awe I felt hiking amongst these giant trees. This photo is from the popular Founders Grove trail in Humboldt Redwoods State Park.
Fallen Giant
Although they can live for thousands of years, the redwoods do eventually fall over and reveal their beautiful bases – it’s amazing to think how these shallow roots can support massive 300–foot tall trees.
Burn Scars
Redwood trees are adapted to fire; their thick bark protects them and even if the fire penetrates the bark, they are able to continue to survive. The photo of the left shows the largest fire scar I’ve ever seen on a living tree – I’m guessing the scar was about 100 feet tall. Sometimes the fire burns all the way through the tree as in the photo on the right.
Lupine Super Bloom
Through sheer luck, our trip aligned with the peak wildflower season and we were lucky to see this lupine super bloom along the Bald Hills Road in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park.
Mattole Beach on The Lost Coast
We camped at the BLM campground at Mattole Beach, the same place where we began our backpack of the Lost Coast in 2012. At least this time we didn’t have to cook our dinner and set up tents in a thunderstorm. We also didn’t remember how rough the Mattole road is.
Fern Canyon
This was a totally fun hike in Prairie Creek Redwoods in the Gold Bluffs Beach area. If you saw the movie Jurassic Park 2: The Lost World, it might look familiar. The trail follows Home Creek through vertical canyon walls 50-80 feet high covered in ferns. LEFT: Because the seasonal bridges weren’t up yet, we had to do over 20 log crossings of the creek during the hike. RIGHT: View of Fern Canyon from above. It was adventurous and magical – I highly recommend it.
Fern Patterns
Speaking of ferns, we saw so many different varieties and I was mesmerized by the patterns.
Scotia
This was the most fascinating town we drove through on our trip. For more than a century it was a true company town for the Pacific Lumber Company. They built everything out of redwood including the Winema Theater (left) and this former First National Bank of Scotia building, in an unusual Greek Revival style with redwood columns (right).
Lumber yard in Scotia
The Pacific Lumber Company ceased to exist in 2008 and the Humboldt Redwood Company took over their sawmill and timberlands. It was a site to see this mile of lumber and logged trees. Also, kind of amusing to see some trees growing in the middle of the sawmill grounds – talk about easy pickins’!
Wildflowers
Some of the beautiful wildflowers we saw on our walks
Favorite Camper Van Moments
Every state campground was full so we got creative about where to camp. LEFT: We stayed twice in casino parking lots (very quiet) CENTER: and twice in a rest area near Trinidad (by law you may stay up to 8 hours) - we nicknamed it the 5-star rest area because of the old growth redwoods and clean heated bathrooms with hot water. RIGHT: North of Eureka, Hwy 101 is a 2-lane highway so road construction shut down the highway in both directions for hours at a time. No problem! I was able to take that long awaited hot shower to wash my hair while Rob took a nap
Meditation of the Waves
Enjoy this meditative video of waves crashing against the rocks at Patrick’s Point State Park.
Map
Here’s all the details of our trip in case you’re interested!