Jedediah Smith Redwood Park June 21st - 28th

 

Where to start?  Our family drove from Minden, NV through Medford, OR to Crescent City, CA to stay at the Jedediah Smith Redwood State Park.  Last year we did a week in Monterrey and this year when we tried to reserve (back in January) Monterrey was booked.  We decided we still wanted a beach vacation and booked a week in the Redwoods.  As we began doing research on the trip it became apparent that this trip would not be a beach trip as the focus, but a hiking and exploring trip with the beach on the side.  I remember visiting the Redwoods as a kid (6 years old) and I do not remember any of the trees.  I only remember some guy feeding squirrels a candy bar in the parking lot.  Our kids have been on a ton of hikes and enjoy it so we felt comfortable making hiking a major component of the trip.  We arrived at the campground on Saturday around 5:00 PM.  We set up camp then went into Crescent City to shop for the next few days food and to get dinner.  I wanted to try some local place, but Crescent City is unbelievable short on restaurants.  Only 1 local pizza place (bad reviews), no burger places, and just some run down seafood dinners.  We ate at Pizza Hut. Picture below of the camp site and the girls in their sleeping bags (Liv thinks its her bean bag).

The first day we headed south about an hour to Gold Bluffs Beach.  They have a hike there called “Fern Canyon.”  The hike was not very long, maybe a mile in each direction, but it was magnificent.  The canyon has a small stream running through it (yes I did see two small trout), but the sides go up about 30-50 feet and are just covered with ferns.  A portion of Jurassic Park was filmed in this canyon and you do feel like you have stepped back in time.  Large redwoods have fallen in the canyon causing you to have to maneuver around them. Waterfalls flowing down the steep canyon sides.  Kids had a blast, it felt like you were really in a unique environment and they were super excited to travel around every bend to see what was next, almost like an obstacle course.

We even let Soren touch the camera to take a picture and he is now old enough to to cut off our heads or crop one person out of the picture:

Obviously when you go to a new place you don’t know what the star new experience will be.  Lets say for our kids it was the discovery of banana slugs.  They are the 2nd largest slug in the world growing up to 10 inches.  There were lots of them and every time the kids were super interested.  They tried to tell me they were banana slugs because they were yellow and elongated like bananas.  I tried to tell the kids they were banana slugs because they tasted like bananas.  In a week, I could never convince they to eat one and find out.

They stick out their little antenna feelers and Liv screams “His ears come out!”

The beach is right at the entrance of the canyon.  After the days hike and some lunch we switched hiking boots for wetsuits and got in the water.  For the first time Soren and Svea played in the waves.  They were not scared.  They got knocked over, dragged down, but they played.  The water is cold (58 degrees).  Without wetsuits it would not have been possible.  The waves were not breaking right to bodyboard, but everyone still had fun.  The below picture sequence is Soren and Liv.  Liv runs down to the beach, gets knocked over, and then runs back to mom.

View up and down the beach – no one there

After a day of hiking and playing in the sand check out this picture of Svea.  How can anyone be so dirty?

The next morning we hiked “Lieffer Loop.”  It was pretty cool – we were in the middle of old growth redwoods and we saw no one else the entire hike (about 2 miles).  We ran into one Forest Service Ranger and that was it.  Can’t believe you can find solitude amidst so many tourists.  I would have like to have spent some time on a bench with my thoughts, but with 3 kids no way.  Many of the redwoods have hollow trunks.  The kids thought they were all caves to explore.

Some of the root systems had diameters of 30-50 feet.  What an amazing tree.

Could have been a nice photo, but Soren had to look like a dope.

 

That was a great morning.  After lunch we went to Battery Point Lighthouse in Crescent City.  Battery Point is only accessible during low tide.  The way how the tides hit last week is we could visit Monday or Tuesday, but the rest of the week they were closed.  Crescent City was just about whipped out by a Tsunami after the 1964 Alaskan Earthquake.  There is still a large portion of the city that remains undeveloped after homes were destroyed.  The 2011 Japan Earthquake hit Crescent City with an 8-foot storm surge which destroyed all boats in the harbor that were not taken out to sea.  Ever since Cape Cod, light houses have been interesting to me.  They even said that Battery Point was a “Cape Cod Style Light House.” They did take you all the way through the lighthouse and even take you all the way to the lantern room.  What a beautiful house – what a view while you do the dishes.  Soren ran across the channel fearing if he was slow the tide would raise and engulf him.

Next day at intermediate tide – no crossing, just to show the kids what the tides do. 

The rest of the day we walked out on the pier to watch people fishing for crabs and went through the marina to look at the large fishing boats.  Spent time around the water (lighthouse in the background).

Did Liv eat a muscle shell?

That was a great question – Liv claimed that her stomach hurt and we could not figure out why.  Svea claimed that Liv had eaten a muscle shell “not the first one I gave her, but the second one she ate.” Liv would counter “I do not eat a muscle shell.”  We of course will never know the answer, Liv’s stomach stopped hurting, but anytime over the next few days when we would ask Liv if she had eaten a muscle shell it would spark lively debate between Svea and Liv.

That night we had a scary moment.  We were cooking a dutch oven cobbler with hot coals on the top and bottom of the oven.  Svea (always our clumsiest) backed up to the fire pit and tripped over it.  I heard her scream (I was turned away from her and 1 foot away), she was sitting on the hot coals.  She got herself out, but had a nice burn.  As I peeled back her closes she only had one burn on her back just above her butt about the size of a silver dollar.  Could have been 6 burns (the number or coals) or the whole dutch over could have burned her.  Worse if the over pit had been hot it really could have done damage to her hands – or face first?  I fully expected 3 degree burns or worse and thought we needed to get to a hospital.  It didn’t blister, it wasn’t charred and she screamed for a total of 10 minutes and then was fine.  We dogged a what could have been a life altering event.  I point back to 4 or 5 experiences in my life (most when I was young – falling through the ice in Sweden, sticking a wire in an outlet in Texas, taking a 25 MPH curve at 70 in Eden when I was 16) when I could have died or had serious changes to my quality of life.  I believe Svea had that and she escaped with probably a minor scar in concealed location.

The next day – Tuesday we started the hike around Stout Grove.  The grove is home to very old growth redwoods.  It is magnificent and it is well traveled.  The place was packed, and it was a short, .6 mile hike.

Kids found one good redwood “tunnel”

After lunch back to the beach.  The kids were not interested in getting in, so Ashley and I went body boarding.  For the first time, the kids are old enough to play on the beach and Ashley and I can go in the water and feel they are safe.

And finally I got to shred some gnar!

After dinner I escaped to fish for about an hour – sadly that is all the fishing we got for the entire trip.  I worked a tributary of the Smith River and only caught one small fish.  I was starting to have success, but went back to the camp site because I didn’t want to leave Ashley alone with those 3.  Kind of a waste of bringing all the fly fishing gear, but oh well.  You learn for next time.

RAIN!!

That night it began to rain. When we left there was a 0% change of rain for all days except a 30% chance on Friday.  It was Wednesday and it started sometime after midnight and went for 24 hours.  We had one rainy day activity planned – a visit to a small aquarium called Ocean World.  The hope was we could kill a few hours, but the aquarium was a tour, so it did not take very long.  They had a tide pool to touch sea creatures, some tanks full of fish and sharks, a shark petting tank (Liv says “Sharks in a bathtub?”) that Soren was not into, but Svea loved, and then a sea lion show.  The kids liked that except I had to leave because Svea decided that was when she needed to go to the bathroom

They had funny sunglasses in their gift shop – I think Svea looks like Elton John,

They had a place where you could take a picture like you were getting eaten by a shark.  I love Liv’s expression

and a place to look like you were surfing – maybe some day?

The rest of the day was wet, windy, and cold (not to bad 50 degrees).  We bought some games and played in our tent.  The problem was the duration and intensity of the rain event.  All tents are sewn together cloth with zippers,  eventually the water finds its way through.  We could not cook outside or eat at the picnic table so we went out to eat at an awesome Hawaiian Barbeque place. Everything in the tent was damp – sleeping bags, pillows, clothes, the floor.  It was not good.

The next day the rain broke around 10:00.  We went to “trees of mystery” which was pretty cool.  They had a lot of interesting trees and a “sky trail” (gondola) that the kids wanted to ride 100 times.  It was a fun place.

Below the cathedral tree where a redwood died, but the young around it has formed a cathedral. They do book weddings there

The life tree – it has 7 trees growing off its branches

They also had the brotherhood tree (19 feet in diameter), elephant tree, upside down tree, lighting tree, burned tree.  It was a good hike and lots of interesting things to see.

We also had ice cream in the gift shop and I lost my sunglasses somewhere.

The last bit of the tour you pass a bunch of wood sculptures. Many of them dealing with Paul Bunyan tales.  Liv was feeding the wood worm rocks. Shoving them right into its mouth.

 

Unfortunately the next morning I was awoken by raindrops hitting the tent.  Even with one day break from the rain everything in the tent was still wet.  We drove down to Crescent City and checked out the forecast.  Rain all day.  Rather then deal with it an leave on Saturday morning, Ashley and I decided to break camp and leave Friday afternoon.  Break camp we did.  We packed it all up – soaking wet, but we got it all to fit.

So besides the unfortunate rain it was a great trip.  We lost a day and a half worth of activities.  We wanted to do one long (6 mile) hike on the “boy scout trail” which took you past some old trees to a water fall.  We also wanted to do some tide pooling at point St. George (another light house).

Of course we did not leave without getting the kids all banana slug T-Shirts

Ashley is already off to Utah for a family reunion and will be back on July 8th.  Since this weekend is a 3 day weekend I am going to go backpacking by myself to fish the Desolation wilderness.

We will have to see how things shake out!  I have had some friction at work and have lost some of the confidence or trust of those above me.  I have a coworker to takes any action that I do that they view as incorrect right to my boss and she eats it up without getting my side of the story.  The previous planning manager was fired/forced to resign last year after 2 years on the job.  The problems were very minor in my book – not to the point where she should have had to leave.  Now I have hit my 2 years and I worry I might suffer a similar fate.  I do not wish to leave Minden, I love it here and so does my family, so I will do what I can to restore trust and see what happens.

Crescent City really had a “fringe” feel to it.  Not a lot of teeth, lots of camouflage,a whole bunch of tattoos, I think a lot of GED (no high school diplomas).  Felt very impoverished – not like a beach community.  The people all looked like from the movie deliverance, a few chromosomes short.  A friend from the area says that since the state prison is up there you get a lot of jail families moving to the area.  You can get beach front homes for 250k and the area is beautiful.  Only 8,800 population, a far cry from Southern California, empty beaches.