Fern Canyon

This trail was so awesome! It was apparently used as a movie set for Jurassic Park, and you can see why Spielberg would pick it – the steep canyon walls draped in greenery and filled with moss-covered trees and a worn-rock bottomed creek lend themselves to feeling as if you have wandered into a land that time forgot.

It is in both the Redwood National Park and Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park at the same time. Getting to the trail-head was a bit of an adventure of it’s own. Adventure begins when the directions include “turn off the paved road…” In this instance, it was at Davison Road, passing a heard of elk as we slowed to a crawl to go up a winding, narrow road through dusty trees and ferns as we crossed over the bluffs towards the seashore. A few miles into our off-road adventure we came to the toll-house. Day rates are paid to the CA State Park, but they accept National Park Pass as well, so we kept our $8 and trundled on. The road runs between the Golden Bluffs and the Pacific Ocean, and we passed several more elk as we went. We passed through three creek shallow fords – we seriously questioned at the first if we were supposed to keep going, and I definitely held my breath to see if we would make it. Four wheeler was not necessary, but seemed like it would have been a BIG asset.

The trailhead was crowded and popular, as was the trail. The trail itself was very easy –  a quick tenth of a mile to the beginning of the canyon, then about a half mile or so of cool, shaded otherworldly walking and exploration.

This trail is great for families, and I highly recommend it.

Trail pictures:

We called this the Hungry Hungry Hippo tree – the downed tree looks like one of the hippos from the game, reaching out to the right to grab some marbles/creek rocks

There were dozens of these little wooden bridges to help navigate the canyon with minimal foot wetness. The kids (and Keith!) loved bouncing across them, causing the water to splash and the boards’ “SLAP!”ing noise to reverberate in the canyon.

Kat’s Closeups:

The purple thistle was in all stages of growth. We called them “purple dandelions”, because we weren’t sure what they were, but they fluff out like a dandelion.

I just love this springy moss growing on a wall of the canyon

Dohls Cutting Up:

These kids crack me up!

Fern Canyon “us-ie”!

My kids! I came around a corner and she had her hair clutched like this and was deeply intoning advice to her sister. “Come on, Abraham Lincoln. Let’s go.” Still in her deep voice she marveled “How did yoooou know I was Abraham Lincoln, 16th president?”

I won’t lie – I love selfies. And my husband loves photo-bombing.

13 Aug This entry was written by KateD and published on August 13, 2016 at 9:43 pm. It’s filed under Mission: North America and tagged California, Fern Canyon, Hikes, Jurassic Park, NPS, Prairie Creek Redwoods, Redwoods National Park. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.