There are so many redwoods protected state parks along the coast, it's hard to pick just one. Humboldt State Park is one of the more favorite ones of visitors, but we are a little further north of that one, so we picked the Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park to hike Fern Canyon today...this is a .5 of a mile hike, and very doable in our book so off we went...The road into the area where Fern Creek Canyon is is a VERY twisty, tight, narrow road, so tight we had to pull off to a very narrow sideout to let another car go by. On the way in on the road to the canyon, you pass through a primeval forest...this area is where they filmed parts of Jurassic Park 2, and boy, does it look like you are back in the dinosaur era! Heavy moss covering the upper tree branches, huge ferns of different species covering the forest floor...
Of course, the Roosevelt elk are mentioned as being all along the coast and you see signs everywhere for them--"DO NOT APPROACH WILD ELK"....and usually, when I see a sign like that, the little kid in me naturally wants to do the opposite, get out of the car and get closer to take better photos. With Eldy pulling my shirt tail to hold me back inside the car, I'm learning to obey the signs..Especially, when they get really close to the car naturally, such as this elk who was at the side of the road leading to Fern Creek Canyon, a very narrow road. He was eating grasses LESS THAN 15 feet from Eldy's car door. I did pop out of the sunroof to take photos and he could have cared less what we were doing. A second elk, a younger one, was following right behind him chompin' away on grass.....very, very cool! These elk are HUGE! What's amazing is we saw them on BOTH sides of the road as we were coming in, and on the beach side, not far from a campground, too! You wouldn't think they'd be so close to the seashore, but they were. You can see all the purple lupines blooming where the elk are grazing too. Beautiful!
This guy on the left is hiding...
Here they are together....the purple lupines are all over the place, but hard to see in this bottom photo.
Here's a better one of the lupines--Amazing!
We'll show you the very wet hike in Fern Canyon tomorrow.....until then, Sparky and Eldo say, see you later!
There are so many redwoods protected state parks along the coast, it's hard to pick just one. Humboldt State Park is one of the more favorite ones of visitors, but we are a little further north of that one, so we picked the Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park to hike Fern Canyon today...this is a .5 of a mile hike, and very doable in our book so off we went...The road into the area where Fern Creek Canyon is is a VERY twisty, tight, narrow road, so tight we had to pull off to a very narrow sideout to let another car go by. On the way in on the road to the canyon, you pass through a primeval forest...this area is where they filmed parts of Jurassic Park 2, and boy, does it look like you are back in the dinosaur era! Heavy moss covering the upper tree branches, huge ferns of different species covering the forest floor...
Lot bigger than the deer we have here in our road way.
ReplyDeleteI'd hate to hit one of those with a car..
I'll be there in September. Amazing. I hope to see some Elk and big trees too.
ReplyDeleteLove the elk. They are a lot bigger than most people imagine. When I lived in Oregon years ago, we lived off elk meat for a long time.
ReplyDeleteGreat pictures of the elk!
ReplyDeleteNice shots of the elk, and the lupines look gorgeous. :)
ReplyDelete