I entered the northern areas of Redwood National Park from Crescent City. The short drive from there took me over this Klamath River seen above and through some brief mossy coastal rainforest. I had always thought that the redwoods lived along the coast as well and didn’t realize they only lived above a certain elevation.
One of the best places to visit in the Redwood National Park is Elk Meadows. Elk Meadows is a known for its large herds of Roosevelt Elk that are nearly always present. They are completely wild animals and possibly dangerous as the sign on the upper left warns. Although they frequently go into the woods they are often graze in the meadows where you can get some great views!
After a short drive I found some parking and tried doing a short trail that was only a few miles long. I loved the reddish ground against the dark green leaves in this forest. Even without the giant trees in view this place was unique and beautiful. Below you can see some more of the redwoods. It’s hard to tell how gigantic these are with any perspective, so at the bottom of this page I have a photo of me standing in front of one. The two on the left were both some of the larger ones I had seen. On the lower right photo you can see how big the roots are for one of the trees that has fallen over.
On a longer trail I did later, I came across this giant redwood that it’s entire inside burnt out. It’s hard to get perspective from these photos, but you could easily stand more than half a dozen people inside the this tree. It seemed that the only thing holding the tree up was the outside walls and some bark. What was even more amazing to me is that when I looked up, the very top of the tree was green and looked completely healthy.
As I hiked higher in elevation I began to see new species of plants. the dark green ferns on the left were found immediately on the beginning parts of the trail while this weird fungus plant on the right was higher up in elevation. I saw several of these things in the area that ranged from this light orange color to white.
I hiked high enough into the mountains that the redwoods no longer existed. Instead of the tall giants, the forest changed to small skinny trees. The area was still damp with humidity and I crossed several small streams. On the left is one of the small creeks I passed by and on the right is one of the larger high altitude trees that was covered in moss and lichen.
One of the most common birds of pray in the park is the Red Tailed Hawk. I feel that I rarely get any half decent shots of large birds so I was happy with what I got on the left. Red Hawks live all over the continent and primarily prey on squirrels and rodents, although they’ve known to each things from insects to small dogs! The bird tolerated me taking his photo for about a minute before he finally took off.
The longer trail I did at the end wasn’t a loop, so I had to descend back down into the redwoods again. For my final two pictures I thought I’d show one of the tallest trees photographed here on the left. One of the largest ones I came is here on the right with myself standing in front of it for perspective. Almost all of the large redwoods I saw where this size at the bottom, including the tree I had photographed earlier with the burnt out trunk. I was especially interested in seeing the trees that you can drive you car through, but it turns out those are hours south in the same park. I had no idea it was so big!
One of the best places to visit in the Redwood National Park is Elk Meadows. Elk Meadows is a known for its large herds of Roosevelt Elk that are nearly always present. They are completely wild animals and possibly dangerous as the sign on the upper left warns. Although they frequently go into the woods they are often graze in the meadows where you can get some great views!
