Del Norte County

Tuesday, June 24, 2025

After my previous trip, I learned that there was an area called “Fern Canyon”, it is where they filmed scenes from Jurassic Park II in it. It was on my list of places I wanted to see.  Unfortunately, I should have done my homework.  I learned that you needed a special parking permit and when I checked the website, there were no passes available for months.  The only other way of seeing the area was to hike to it, an 8-mile hike.

However, I read that they released additional parking passes the day before.   The morning before, I checked the website right at 9:00 AM and sure enough, I scored a parking pass for the following day.  I lucked out!

I finally did a bit of homework, and I began to get concerned.  There were various message boards that talked about how the rough drive and how you had to pass through two streams.   Was it worth risking my car?

They also talked about having water shoes and I wondered, what exactly are water shoes?  I debated if we should go or not and finally decided that at any point, if I felt like I was putting my car at risk, we could always turn back.

It was a long bumpy drive and there were a few streams but it wasn’t a raging river.  I have seen more rain rushing down the street than I did in those streams.  We arrived and headed to Fern Valley.  It was worth the trip. This was a highlight and you don’t have to be a Jurassic Park fan to appreciate the gully lined with ferns.

And no, we were able to walk across the streams on planks and my shoes got a little wet but not soaked.

It was gorgeous and it was the highlight of the day.  As we left the park, we saw elk!

For dinner we at the Irish pub close to the hotel.  We really like that place.

Tuesday, June 24th, 2025

It wouldn’t be a trip to the redwoods without seeing the redwoods.  After breakfast we headed to the CA redwoods and my first thought was, it doesn’t matter if the last hike looked just like the hike I was on, there is something about the redwoods which takes your breath away.    These trees were around when Caeser was ruling Rome.  There is a woodsy smell, a dampness to the coastal air and the size of the trees are amazing.

We didn’t have the Guide Along app on our last trip to the redwoods, a lot of the places we were headed to we saw before but we enjoyed seeing it all again.   Along the way we learned a lot about the area and the conservation of the redwoods.  It is sad that only a small percentage of the original redwood forests still exist.  The area that the Ewok village along with the area where the final shots of ET were filmed are gone, the areas were logged.

The last time I was here, knowing that the trees date back to biblical times, I felt as if I was in an area that was timeless.  If my grandparents had driven through the park, they would have seen the same trees and it wouldn’t have looked much different.

At one stop, after we parked, two classic 50s cars pulled up and I thought, yes, we are in an area that is timeless! Not too long after that, we saw a car that was even older. Continue reading →