Day 5 - Humboldt Redwoods State Park

Day 5 - I woke up with the worst cold and congestion ever.  We had to go out and buy a box of Kleenex to keep up with my snotty cold!  Ewwww.  But it was a good day for a drive to see more redwoods!  We knew we wanted to take a 2-day trip to see more big trees.  We considered driving to see the giant sequoias, but they were more inland and at higher elevation, so we knew snow (and driving) could be a problem, especially with our rental Chrysler 200.  A few of the parks we looked at had already closed a lot of their roads for the season.  So we decided to go up north to see more coastal redwoods and avoid the chance of closed roads.  It was a great choice!

The tunnel right past the Golden Gate Bridge - loved it!

The drive to Humboldt Redwoods State Park's Avenue of the Giants was about 3.5 hours north of San Francisco.  We drove through wine country and lots of mountains, but the rain didn't make for many good pics on the drive.  We did hit a few snow squalls in the mountains - but fortunately it was too warm to really stick to the road or affect our drive.

Our first stop was a drive-through tree:

We both took turns driving through the tree, there wasn't a big lineup of cars on a cold, rainy weekday afternoon. It was a tight fit, but so cool!

Then we hit the beginning of the Avenue of the Giants - a 30 mile stretch of twisty turny road along the Eel River, where huge redwoods are RIGHT on the edge of the road the whole way! 

There were lots of turnoffs, picnic areas, parks, etc.  We stopped at several.

Two story cabin for reference

For size perspective, note our car at the bottom of the picture.  That is NOT a toy car!

At another pulloff:

Where's Waldo?  (Chris)

The whole drive was this amazing!  It made Muir Woods look like a itty bitty city park!

Another view of the road, and how close and huge the redwoods are!

Pano!

Super clear little creek winding through the woods

We found the Eel River on one of our short hikes

View outside the Visitor's Center...the road was lined with redwoods!

We only made it halfway up the Avenue of the Giants, to the Visitor's Center, where we looked around and learned a lot about the history and conservation of the area.  After the Visitor's Center, we drove south to Myers Flat to check into our bed and breakfast, which was kind of sketchy.  But we got a great night of sleep and had a yummy breakfast, so we can't complain too much.

We had dinner at the Avenue Café in Miranda, a few miles south of Myers Flat.  It was really one of the only options on the whole route, but it was GOOD!  Especially for being a little hole-in-the-wall place!

It was an awesome day, a perfect slow pace after a long day of hard hiking the day before.  It was cool but not cold, there was no wind, and only a light drizzle of rain.  Perfect hiking weather!  And the trails were nice and short and flat, and right off the road, which was perfect for my tired, sick self.  The trees were amazing and made everything we had seen the previous day look like saplings!  We just oohed and ahhed the whole drive! 

We saw the northern half of the park the following day...to be continued!

San Francisco - Day 4 - Mt. Tamalpais State Park

After a leisurely walk in Muir Woods, we drove up scenic Hwy 1 for a few miles to the little town of Stinson Beach.  It was a gorgeous day for a drive on the coast!

After miles of rocky shoreline, we reached a beach!  Stinson Beach!

It was a really tiny town, and we stopped for an early-ish lunch before hiking.  Before our trip, I had searched for good hikes near Muir Woods, and had mapped out a plan for a moderate 5 mile hike.  Little did we know what we were getting into!!

Gorgeous gardens at a house near where we parked at the trailhead

We went up via the Matt Davis trail, starting at sea level.  It was lush and jungle-like at the beginning, with lots of ivy, moss, and gurgling streams.

And then, it started going up.  And up.  And up!  Switchback after switchback!

Pretty view of the ocean from a clearing.

There were tons of bridges over little streams/ravines.

Look how many rows of fences for switchbacks there are behind me!!  They seemed endless!

We saw a few banana slugs!

Really, really pretty scenery

More going up!  We cursed Matt Davis and his freaking trail the whole way up!  We almost gave up and went back down this trail because sunset was so early (4:30pm) and this trail turned out to be nearly 2 miles longer than the map claimed.  Chris was worried about being on the other trail in the dark, especially if it was longer, too.  We're sooooo glad that we picked up our pace and stuck with it, though!

The first stand of big trees we came across were Douglas firs.  This one was really cool!

The ocean again!  We were above the tree line!  (aka too dry for trees, not too high.  The highest elevation we hit was about 1500ft.)

A bit of the hike was out in the open, near the top of the hill/mountain.  We didn't see any other hikers the whole way up!  But there was a road just over the hill, and we saw a few cars stop, and people get out and look.  Here's what they were looking at...

San Francisco!!  We could see the city from this clearing!

We finally made it to the trail junction, where several trails crossed near a small campground.  There's kind of a cool story that goes along with this park...the prior Sunday, Father Strain's mentioned in his homily that he climbed Mt. Tamalpais and was amazed by the view of the ocean, city, and mountains.  We didn't make it to the summit, but we got to see the amazing view he was talking about!

After wandering through the campground, we found our next trail.  Now on our way down!  Via the Steep Ravine Trail.

I found a redwood - can you find me????  We saw two hikers at this point, and they said, "you've never been on this trail before, have you?"  No.  "Well, there are lots more redwoods as you go down!"  They thought it was funny that we tourists were amazed by a single big tree!

And the guy was right.  There were TONS of redwoods!  It was such a spectacular hike!!  I'm so glad we didn't turn around and go back down the Matt Davis trail!

This downed tree crossed the stream, there were tons all over.  We knew that if the girls were with us, it would have taken forever to hike this trail because they would have had to stop and cross every single tree bridge!

So many redwoods!

Twins!

Chris in a redwood family

I think this is my prettiest picture from the trip!

Just magical!

I mean, really, can you imagine a more beautiful place??

Pano of a hollowed out redwood

This was a fun part of the hike - a ladder!

Chris on the ladder

Lots more bridges to cross

This was the only other hiker on the trail, the lady in blue on the bridge...helps to give some scale to the trees

At last we found our next trail - Dipsea!  And the mileage was pretty close for this half of the trip, thankfully!

Coming down, back towards the beach.  The last bit was in scrubby brush, but we didn't mind, with this view!

Down by the shore it got wetter/mossier again

By adding up the distances on the trail signs, Chris thinks we hiked over 7 miles on this little jaunt!  Plus the 1500 ft elevation change up AND down!  We were really tired by the end, but it was soooo worth it...this has to be the very best hike I've ever been on!!  And I didn't think anything could top our RMNP hike from a few years ago!

We made it back to the trailhead with lots of time to spare.  Our drive back to San Fran was so pretty.  Can you see the twisty turny road along the coast?

View from my car window!

We stopped at a roadside park for a better look

Driving back over the Golden Gate bridge

Anniversary dinner - crab-stuffed salmon for me, and beef tenderloin for Chris! We went to McCormick and Kulota's, right on the bay in Ghiradelli Square

It's hard to tell, but we had a lovely view of the bay and Alcatraz.  Happy 19th Anniversary to us!

On the drive back, and at dinner, I started to feel a cold coming on...and unfortunately, I was right.  How lucky that we got our big hiking day in BEFORE the cold hit me like a truck!