Crescent City - Jedediah Smith Redwood State Park

On Wednesday May 24th, we head north From Patrick's Point State Park about 60 miles to Crescent City and then about 5 miles east out of town on Hwy 199 to Jedediah Smith Redwood State Park.























The Smith river runs thru the campground and the state park. It is the longest river system in California that runs freely its entire course. As you can see, it has beautiful crystal clear waters. Tank seemed especially eager to go for a quick dip.

We had a nice, quiet, shaded and relatively private feeling campsite. We didn't really notice the people next to us because there was quite a bit of foliage between us and our neighbors. Since this was a California state park and has no electrical hook ups, I'm always looking for sunlight and a place to put up our solar panels to charge our batteries. We do have an on board generator, but I prefer not to use it because it creates noise, burns gas and gives off exhaust. I much prefer our solar panels. Good news - I found a place where I could get at least a couple hours of good sunlight. Bad news - It was on top of the RV (to Wendy's chagrin).




We spent one day hiking and exploring. We took Howland Hill road, which is a ten mile stretch of mostly unpaved road that goes from the state park to Crescent City. We stopped several places along the way and did some hiking along the trails at Stout Grove (first picture at top, left and below) and the Boy Scout tree trail.

Taken just moments after Wendy knocked this tree down by mistake... Oops!

We learned that the coast redwoods found here (Sequoia sempervirens) are the tallest trees on earth. They are slightly taller - but not as massive as their cousin, the Giant Sequoias (Sequoiadendron giganteum), which are found in the western Sierra Nevada range. These trees may live over 2000 years, and fossil records show Coastal Redwoods were around during the late cretaceous - about the time of the last dinosaurs!