Unique Crescent City Forest and Beach Hikes

Redwood National Park is an interesting connection of both state and national parks. In fact the official name is Redwood National and State Parks. We traveled to the northern most section of the parks, Crescent City, and continued our exploration of the redwood area from there.

After a hearty breakfast on Tuesday, we were ready to hit the forest. Our first park was Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park. We were headed to a popular trail called the Boy Scout Trail. The trail goes through many redwood groves and ends at a small waterfall. To get to the trailhead, we drove on Howland Hill Road, a narrow dirt road, for about three miles right out of Crescent City. The road would become even more narrow as we needed to squeeze between the giant redwoods. There seemed to be no room to pass another car there. Fortunately traffic was very light, and we only passed a few vehicles. However, this is not a road to speed on; caution is warranted.

Parking was almost full at the trailhead, but we were able to get a spot. There are bathrooms at the trailhead if needed. We got our gear ready, including my trekking poles, and began our hike. We anticipated a 5.5 miles in and out trip.

The first part of the trail was very nice. The trail is dirt, and we were surrounded by the gigantic redwoods. It was pretty spectacular. We could see examples of many of the things that make redwoods so unique. We could see the burls in different places as well as charred spots on the sides of trees. As we walked along, the biggest challenge was the number of roots sticking out of the ground. At times I felt I needed to pay more attention to the trail than the scenery to keep from tripping. Fortunately my trekking poles helped me keep my balance.

One thing that always interests me is to see how life continues on, the circle of life. There were a number of fallen trees along the trail, and almost all of them had plants growing out of them. Some had trees growing out of them. Others had ferns or small bushes. At one point a fallen tree stuck out over the trail, and it was interesting to see the various plants growing on it.

Ferns were the major plants in the the underbrush and seemed to grow prolifically here. Surprisingly there were also areas of what looks like large three leafed clovers. However, these are apparently redwood sorrel that grows in this part of the country. With the carpet of sorrel, everything seemed so green.

Farther away from the trailhead the trees were not as big around and in places seemed more distant from each other. These redwoods are known as the coastal redwoods and are the largest of the three types of redwoods in the world. Of course not all the redwoods are large, but redwoods can reach about 380 feet in height and have a diameter of 26 feet. That’s an armful for anyone.

After a mile or so on the trail the terrain changed. Although it had rained the night before, we hadn’t encountered any problems to this point, but then we came to some stairs going down. The stairs were made from big wooden planks and filled with dirt. The dirt had changed to mud because of the rain. The mud continued beyond the stairs and seemed to become deeper. It really slowed us down. We had hiking shoes, but making sure we had good footing with the roots and the mud made for slow going.

As we continued on our way, the trail became more challenging. We thought we were nearing the end of the trail, but overhearing conversions with other hikers, we realized we were not as close as we thought. There is a large tree towards the end of the trail known as the Boy Scout Tree, but apparently it is not well marked and somewhat off the main trail so it is a bit of a challenge to find. While we thought we would at least make it to there, we became discouraged and decided not to finish the trail. We turned back before we reached the tree.

Coming back one sees the trees from a different angle so it is still interesting to observe the trees and the changes one sees along the way.

After hiking through the mud, we were looking for something different to do. Not finishing the hike had left us a bit discouraged. We decided to hike down to Enderts Beach from Crescent Beach Overlook. This area is part of the Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park. We drove south to Crescent Beach Overlook which had a great view of the coastline all the way to Crescent City. From here we began to walk down to the beach. It was a little less than a mile down, and the slope was fairly gradual so it wasn’t too difficult. There were some interesting trees along the way which I always enjoy.

Once at Enderts Beach we explored the secluded area. At that time we were the only ones on the beach. There were a number of sea stacks as well as other rock formations out in the water. The tide was fairly high and covered much of the coarse brown sand in places. We enjoyed watching the crashing waves before finally turning around and walking back up.

One last stop we made before returning to our hotel room was in Crescent City at a lighthouse. Unfortunately we arrived there when the tide was high and that created a water barrier between the shore and the small hill that the lighthouse sits on. We could see the back of the lighthouse but could not get closer. I think at low tide one could easily walk over to the lighthouse area. A jetty is also near here, but people are not allowed to walk out onto the jetty. The beach here consists of small and big rocks rather than sand.

It had been a busy day, and we definitely got our walking in for the day. We enjoyed a BBQ sandwich for dinner before settling in for the evening. Tomorrow we would begin to head back south.

Have you had a chance to experience the nature around Crescent City? Share your experiences in the comment section below. Your thoughts add to our understanding of travel in this area. Thanks for sharing with us.