Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park

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.

The paintings featured here were painted by my mother, who embarked on this road trip with me. She painted Elk Prairie and some of the lupine growing in the meadow.

Elk Prairie

We stayed in Elk Prairie Campground, right next to this beautiful meadow where the Roosevelt elk like to gather to graze. While we were there, the lupine and the foxglove were blooming in stunning colors.

Miners' Ridge and James Irvine Loop to Fern Canyon

Map courtesy of redwoodhikes.com

 Although Dave Baselt--the author of the wonderful blog, redwoodhikes.com--clocks this hike at 11.6 miles, my GPS recorded 16.92 miles during this hike, adding the distance to and from the campground to Visitor's Center. I'm not exactly sure how to account for the discrepancy between the two estimates because the distance between the Visitor's Center and the campground does not make up the difference. Perhaps I wandered around for too long on the beach near Gold Bluffs.

In any case, the distance was worth it. This was an amazing hike--one of the best that I have ever taken. It boasts some seriously impressive redwoods close to the Visitor's Center, the awe-inspiring Fern Canyon, and the wild beaches near Gold Bluffs. On top of all that, the wildflowers were gorgeous in mid-June. White Douglas Irises were blooming along the James Irvine Trail and vivid leopard lilies (aka California tiger lilies) were blooming in abundance on the Miners' Ridge Trail.

The Visitor's Center is a great place to stop in for information both factual and "aspirational." We affectionately dubbed this center the "California Department of Tall Trees and Tall Tales" after hearing one park ranger insist that the coastal redwoods of Prairie Creek are bigger by volume than the Giant Sequoia further to the southeast.