(Part one of this “introduction” can be found here.)

Heading North from Redwood National Park, Highway 101 passes through the town of Klamath and continues towards Del Norte Redwoods State Park. Del Norte primarily serves campers, but the challenging Damnation Creek Trail provides a beautiful 2.5 hike to a small beach cove.

Continuing north past Del Norte Redwoods you descend towards Crescent City, California, at the south end of town (and you’ll want a map or directions) you can head east and connect with Howland Hill Road which will take you to Jedediah Smith State Park. Because Jed Smith isn’t right on Highway 101, and because Howland Hill is unpaved, this area receives less traffic than the Redwood NP/Prairie Creek Redwoods SP area to the South, making for a more relaxing and meditative photographic experience, particularly in spring or fall.

Howland Hill Road is the primary scenic route through Jed Smith. This fairly well-maintained dirt road (passenger vehicles present no trouble here) twists and turns for 4-5 miles through the park, crossing and paralleling Mill Creek for a time, and eventually connecting with Highway 199 near the small hamlet of Hiouchi. Off of Highway 199 you’ll find additional trails in and near the Reed-Simpson grove worth exploring, but I’m going to focus here on that main section of Howland Hill.

The headline destination along Howland Hill road is Smith’s famous Stout Grove. A simple, one-mile loop trail takes you through enormous first-growth redwoods, a natural cathedral carpeted with emerald ferns, and connects up with trails that parallel the Smith River. Because there are hills to either side of the grove it’s not hard to find compositions here that don’t show any sky.

While Stout is the “big name” destination of Jedediah Smith, when I think of the park, I think of the grove as only one part of the entire length of Howland Hill. I rarely manage to travel more than a hundred yards along the road without seeing something — a group of trees, rhododendrons, fall color, a trillium bloom, a river scene, a mushroom, something that I want to photograph. I’ll be there again in a few days, and I’m already buzzing with anticipation.

Seasons and Logistics

My favorite seasons for the park are spring and late fall. Summer brings crowds and often (at least inland) more sun, spring brings flowers (lupines earlier, rhododendrons later), and the first winter storms can bring cloud cover and color-popping wetness to the ferns and logs. In late October and early November you may also encounter some fall color (primarily paler yellow ground covers and bushes).

Crescent City is the only town of any size near any of the parks at over (7500 residents) and it makes a great base of operations for Del Norte and Jed Smith, but is a little too far North (perhaps an hour) to really be practical for doing a lot of photography in Redwood National Park. The small town of Klamath just north of Redwood National Park has fairly limited services in general, I based my last redwoods coast photographic workshop out of the Ravenwood Motel there (inexpensive, comfortable– but not large–rooms). For a trip where I didn’t want to change between motels I’d likely stay in Klamath, if I were willing to move my base of operations once during a trip I’d probably work out of Klamath and Crescent City.

Even with two parts, this introduction has barely scratched the surface of an incredibly rich area, and one well-worth spending time in and photographing.

(PS: You may want to consider a quick trip to “get there while you can.” While this is far from certain, in the wake of California’s current budget crisis at least one current California budget proposal calls for the closure of all three state parks I’ve talked about, but the changes wouldn’t effect Redwood NP.)

The coast redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens) of California’s north coast include the tallest trees on Earth, with several examples of individual trees over 370 feet tall and provide amazing photographic and sometimes challenging photographic opportunities. This weekend I’ll be travelling to the California’s north coast (roughly betwen the towns of Trinidad, California and Crescent City, California)  to visit the constellation of four parks (Redwood National Park, Prarie Creek Redwoods State Park, Del Norte State Park, and Jedediah Smith State Park) that to my mind represent some of the finest redwoods photography opportunities available. In this article, I hope to give you a taste of those incredible areas and add a few words about the opportunities and challenges they present.

Starting from the south, Redwood National Park is the most natural place to begin our virtual tour, the National Park Service maintains a visitor center there (actually just south of Orick, CA) and in Crescent City which can provide excellent information and maps of both this park and the three state parks as well. A trip along the Newton B. Drury Scenic Parkway (which runs through Redwood NP and Prairie Creek SP) makes an excellent first introduction to the redwood environment, as the road wanders through enormous columns of tree creating a vast virtual room, carpeted with fern and trillium. The strangely-named Cal-Barrel Road (a quick turn off the parkway) offers an excellent introductory location to start your explorations.

Here you will quickly discover three challenges in photographing redwood groves: scale, contrast, and the incredible sensitivity of ferns to even the slightest breeze. With respect to the contrast and wind your best bet will be to work on a cloudy (or foggy) windless morning. Contrast is a particular problem on sunny days, as the few bits of sunlight that get through into redwood groves are often many, many stops brighter than that most of the scene.

At Davidson Road near the south end of the park you’ll find the Roosevelt Elk Grove which (as the name suggests) often provides opportunities to (carefully!) photograph elk. From that first grove also consider the short walk to Trillium Falls which is a small, but elegant, waterfall which can be particularly beautiful near the very end of autumn (late October or early November). Davidson Road continues as an often-rutted dirt road out to Gold Bluffs Beach and runs along that beach for a few miles to the parking area for Fern Canyon. The bluffs warm nicely in sunset light (on the rare occasion the coast doesn’t fog in) and elk are often found along the road here, often much closer than you’ll find them over at the Elk Grove. The road ends at a parking area for a short, mile-long hike into Fern Canyon, where a small stream has carved a steep narrow canyon, 20′-30′ high in places, the canyon walls lined with fern. Expect to get your shoes wet here. Bring boots or Tevas, depending on the weather, as you’ll be making several stream crossings along the way.

At the north end of the Redwood NP, just south of the town of Klamath, don’t miss the opportunity to explore the park’s Coastal Drive, which follows the top of the ocean bluffs. While the steepness of the cliffs makes it difficult in most locations to get a wide scenic view here, there are often excellent detail opportunities, and the Face Rock Overlook just off the drive provides a stunning view south along the coast, again offering (weather permitting) excellent sunset potential.

While you could easily spend weeks exploring Redwood National Park and Prairie Creek just in the areas I’ve mentioned (and there’s more to see, for sure), in my upcoming second installment I’ll talk about my single favorite redwood park. I’ll also talk briefly about seasonality and other logistics.