- Drive to the Avenue of the Giants with many sequoia trees
- Short hike through the impressive Rockefeller Forest
- Continue via Eureka to Crescent City
- Second short hike in Jedediah Smith State Park's Stout Memorial Grove
- Continue to Grants Pass
Due to the involuntary day of rest, our program is now a little under time pressure. We still decide to make a detour to Avenue of the Giants about an hour's drive south of Eureka. The section along the old Highway 101 route is really worth seeing. There are huge ones on both sides of the street Coastal redwood trees. Here in Humboldt State Park the largest contiguous area of original redwood forest is protected. Coastal redwoods are close relatives of the Sequoia trees, but in terms of height they even exceed what they are tallest trees in the world power. Individual splendid specimens will be over 100 meters high and have a trunk circumference of up to 6 meters.
Unfortunately, much of the tourist infrastructure is already closed here as well. The most imposing specimens are said to be in the Rockefeller Forest stand. We drive on Bull Creek Flats Road (later Mattole Road) where we park our car and take a short hike through the Rockefeller Grove do. We couldn't find the Big Tree Grove we were aiming for due to the lack of signaling, which is not tragic. The giants standing close together are truly a feast for the eyes. Somehow a mixture between the Seqoia Grove in Yosemite and the moss-rich Olympic National Park. Even if the bulkier Seqoias tend to be more impressive, it is greener here.
Then we continue northwards. This time we leave Eureka behind and want to do a short hike at Fern Canyon. Unfortunately we miss this exit to the canyon known from Jurassic Park and only notice it some time later. The Redwood National Park and Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park are already behind us. Also not too tragic, after all, the last Redwood Park is still waiting for us. After Crescent City we drive into the Jedediah Smith Redwood State Park into it. We're driving on Howland Hill Road to Stout Memorial Grove. Here we take another short hike through the primeval fairy tale world. It is already getting dark as we continue towards our next destination: Crater Lake National Park. At Grants Pass we find a Super8 motel for the night, after all it's pretty cold at night now and the motels don't cost all the world outside of the cities.
