California: First Look at the Redwoods

Majestic

Our fun Labor Day weekend over, it was time to hit the road again. We left sadly left Port Orford and continued south down highway 101, enjoying the beauty of the last 60 miles of the Oregon coast, particularly  the Cape Sebastian State Scenic Corridor.  Crossing into California, we only drove about 20 miles before starting to see those majestic redwoods. This area has parts of Redwood National Park, and two or three state redwood parks. Some of the trees were so close to the road you could reach out the window and touch them. Of course, these narrow, winding roads make for some hairy driving in a 33 foot RV. (more on that later.)

We arrived at Klamath River RV and settled in. Once again we encountered Hughes Communication for internet and it would not talk to the Apple laptop, but the IPAD was fine.  We were right on the Klamath River and the manager suggested we drive down to the mouth of the river and watch the salmon fishing scene going on there. It was a short drive but we had to find a parking space pretty far down the road because the place was packed with cars. We chatted with a women heading to the river to fish and she showed us the way: up a trail, over some rocks, through the woods and finally ending up at a beach where the river cut through to the ocean. Both sides of the river were packed with anglers looking for that big Chinook.

An afternoon fishing the Klamath

Looking for the big one

We were on the side of the river that had a long drop off to the river. You had to cast off the cliff. The river current was very strong, so your line was dragged down river, mixing and tangling with the other lines. If you snagged a fish you yelled out and the others would try and get their lines away so you might have a shot at landing it. Most of the time the fish broke off, or your line was cut by someone else’s. If you did land the fish you had to slide down the sand cliff and drag your fish to shore and back up the cliff. We hadn’t brought any tackle, so we just spent the afternoon watching the show.

The next day was spent driving and walking among the redwoods, mostly in Prairie Creek State park. The coastal redwoods are the tallest, most massive tree species on the planter (I think the tallest was 379 feet) The state and national parks preserve  about 133,000 acres of these beauties. In 1850 old growth redwoods covered about 2,000,000 acres and had existed in the area for 20 million years; Then along came man…conservation was started in the 1920’s, but by the time the National Park was established in 1968, 90% of the original old growth trees had been logged. We hope to see their bigger, wider cousins, the giant sequoia  when we get to Yosemite.

6 foot tall Hubby looks petite by comparison

A path through the Lady Bird Grove