Malakoff Diggins State Historic Park is a fascinating park that offers visitors a peak back in time to the highs and lows of California's gold mining heyday. Here is a helpful blurb from the state park website:

Malakoff Diggins State Historic Park is the site of California's largest "hydraulic" mine. Visitors can see huge cliffs carved by mighty streams of water, results of the gold mining technique of washing away entire mountains to find the precious metal. Legal battles between mine owners and downstream farmers ended this method.

The Diggins themselves are really beautiful. They look like some of the red rock formations in Utah. It is weird to see such formations in Northern California, especially because some of the grounds near the foot of the Diggins are still boggy and marshy. The greatest environmental impact was further downstream from the Yuba River, particularly in Marysville where people died because of flooding. It is easy to forget how devastating the pollution from mining was when what remains of this mine is actually very beautiful.

The park also has what is more or less a ghost town. It is definitely worth it to take the ranger-led tour of North Bloomfield so that you can go inside some of the old buildings like the saloon, pharmacy, general store, and a residence. Plus, the park rangers here are the friendliest park rangers I have ever met!

See my mom's painting of Chute Campground and my photos of the Diggins after the jump.

Castle Crags State Park is a wonderful state park right off of Interstate-5 near the charming town of Dunsmuir. After embarking on this strenuous 5.4-mile hike (with a 2,200 ft elevation gain), you might want to drive into Dunsmuir to eat at Dunsmuir Brewry Works so that you can get a substantial meal like their salmon BLT.

See some gorgeous photos and one of my mom's paintings after the jump.

McArthur-Burney Falls Memorial State Park is in volcano country in California, in between Mount Shasta and Lassen National Park. The park features a stunning waterfall, which the parks service describes in the blurb below:

While my mom was painting the falls, I combined two loop trails, for a total of about 5.6 miles. See mom's painting and my trail descriptions after the jump!

Van Damme State Park--like Russian Gulch State Park--is one of Mendocino county's coastal parks along the Pacific Coast Highway. This post is only a teaser. One of the things that I really wanted to see on this trip was Van Damme's Pygmy Forest, "where mature, cone-bearing cypress and pine trees stand six inches to eight feet tall." However, when I stopped by here on my way home from Russian Gulch, I had already run out of time for the day! I guess that I had to leave something for a return visit.

More pictures of Van Damme Beach after the jump, including some nice shots of wild sweet peas on the headlands.

Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park is part of Redwood National and State Parks.

The thing that sets Jed Smith apart from all of the other parks is the beautiful Smith River; its unusual blue-green color lends beauty to the lands surrounding it.

Redwood National Park is managed cooperatively by the National Park Service and the California Department of Parks and Recreation, along with Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park, and Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park. 

The three state parks pre-date the formation of the national park. When National Geographic scientists discovered the tallest known tree in the world at the time in Tall Trees Grove, the federal government began to buy up interstitial land between the existing state parks and declared the area a national park in order to protect the land for the future. There is now, confusingly, a campus called Redwood National Park in that interstitial land, but the four parks lumped together are also called Redwood National and State Parks.

The 379-foot Hyperion Tree, currently the tallest known tree in the world, is in the  Redwood Creek basin located on the federally owned lands of Redwood National Park. Unfortunately, its exact location has to be kept a secret because even slight root damage from visitors would likely result in its top dying off.

 Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park is part of Redwood National and State Parks. 

The thing that makes Del Norte Coast stand out from the other redwood parks is its easy access to the Pacific Coast.

Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park is part of Redwood National and State Parks.

This is a fantastic state park that features some of the world's best old-growth redwoods, a herd of Roosevelt elk, and the gorgeous Fern Canyon.

Russian Gulch State Park is one of the Medocino Coast State Parks. I took two hikes in this park: one that went a bit inland into a mixed forest of coastal redwoods, rhododendrons, and cypress, leading to a gorgeous waterfall, and another that circled the exposed headlands, which were covered in wildflowers.

Hendy Woods State Park is a charming park that features two old-growth redwood groves and access to the popular Navaro River. The flat hike from the campground to the best of the two groves (i.e., Big Hendy) is about three miles round-trip.