![]() The road to the trailhead passes over private property, so it is restricted by a gate. She offered to give us a ride, but we followed her in our own car. A sign near the parking lot entrance lets you know you’re at the right place. The gathering point is at Newburg Park in Fortuna. The Salmon Pass Trail requires advance reservations. But if your goal is to see old-growth redwoods, you can find just-as-nice groves that are quicker to reach. The bottom line: this is a lovely 5 hour hike through typical North California terrain. Still, per my introductory remarks, it looks like other old-growth redwood groves. The trail’s big payoff is the old-growth loop. Until the old-growth loop, the forests are clearly second-growth–nice but unremarkable. We saw plenty of flowers in early August. We enjoyed snacking on trailside vine-ripened blackberries and other edible berries. The first three miles follow the riverbed. Everything about the trail is in great condition. The trail is nicely graded, well-maintained, and well-signed, making navigation a breeze. At our hiking speed, each landmark was roughly 30 minutes apart. The mile-apart spacing of the landmarks made it easy to track our progress. * Mile 5: the beginning of the old-growth loop. We think the mile 4 bridge is more like 4.25 miles from the start. * Mile 4 bridge (actually a small boarded crossing over a creek, and the map doesn’t depict a second boarded crossing soon after). The trail’s steepest and most overgrown parts start here. A short bypass is marked on the map the longer bypass isn’t. The first mile had educational signage and two bypass trails on the southside. There are some picnic tables around here if you want to lunch with the mosquitos. * Mile 1: the paved trail ends at the site of Falk, an abandoned company town. Along the way, check out the covered bridges at Zane’s Ranch and Bertas Ranch. The reserve’s heart, about 2,500 acres of unbroken old-growth redwoods, has no public access.Īccess to the Elk River Trailhead is via the paved Elk River Road, about 15 minutes from Eureka. On the south side is the Salmon Pass Trail, which can be accessed only via a ranger-led tour. On the north side is the Elk River Trail, which the public can access without restriction. This spurred Congress and California to purchase 7,472 acres of the Headwaters Forest for $380M. ![]() Activists pushed back and turned Headwaters Forest into a cause celebre. Charles Hurwitz of Maxxam did a hostile takeover of Pacific Lumber and initiated more old-growth clear-cutting. That made them a juicy target for a corporate raider. Although all logging of old-growth redwoods hurts the ecosystem, Pacific Lumber was regarded as a relatively gentle land steward. Headwaters Forest was the largest remaining old-growth redwood forest in private hands. The logging leads to second-growth groves, which are degraded both biologically and scenery-wise.īy the 1980s, few large areas of old-growth redwood groves hadn’t been logged and remained unprotected by the government. Loggers have logged old-growth redwood trees for 150+ years. Redwood forests thrive in central and northern California’s coastal area. If you agree, then the Headwaters Forest Reserve probably isn’t for you. A common sentiment: if you’ve seen one redwood grove, you’ve seen them all. Note: Not everyone shares my passion for redwood forests. Be prepared to look for a parking spot on the road if you don’t get there early. We got there about 10 minutes before they opened so we got one of the few parking spots in the lot across the street. The cafe food was fast, not too expensive and a much better variety than I expected. ![]() I enjoyed the chimp tribute with the pictures and info about the park history as well. The sky walk was great!!! It’s very sturdy which allowed us to focus on taking in the views rather than holding on for dear life. Be sure to check the feeding schedule when you get there, we enjoyed the otter feeding with all of the info the keeper shared. The bear exhibit isn’t open yet but we were able to catch glimpses of the baby bears playing behind the scenes! We loved watching the keepers put out enrichment activities for the animals, Franklin the pig was especially cute with his. The red pandas were cute and a keeper was training them and telling us about the. We thoroughly enjoyed seeing the animals. My daughter (21) and I spent about 3 hours at the zoo.
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