51st Stop - Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park (Klamath, CA)

Blog Post #62 - Written April 13, 2026

Stay: September 12-14, 2025

So, when people talk about visiting the Redwoods, you might need to ask "which ones?",  because there is ONE Redwood National Park and THREE Redwood State Parks.  They are all part of one system, but I now know there are many different areas to visit.  

Our first Redwood stop was Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park.  We pulled into our campground, which definitely had posted old pictures on their website.  It was mostly vacant and almost looked abandoned, except for the construction crew that was borrowing the campground office.  in fact, you had to drive through the active construction site to get into the campground; Gary thought I had led us astray with this one haha.  Luckily, there were a few other campers that showed us the ropes and shared the best "hot tip" ever: to check out the mouth of the Klamath river (read to the bottom to find out why!). We felt a little bad for the unfortunate tent campers who were probably soaked from the constant mist.

The most populous inhabitants of the campground were the illustrious banana slugs.  So many banana slugs.  And if you ever think it is a great idea to spend your morning collecting said slugs in a bucket, be warned.  They secrete a thick sticky goop that is nearly impossible to get off of hands, let alone rags you use to scrub said hands.  UCK!!

Anywho, back to the redwoods. Prairie Creek had two sections to explore, which are hours apart from each other, so we only visited the interior forest half and skipped the coastal half.  (I kind of regret that.  Fern Canyon is like a prehistoric ecosystem.  So much so that Jurassic Park was filmed in parts of it. But alas, we had just come from the Hoh Rainforest and we already drive too much!)  

The redwood trees are massive, just soaring up into the heavens.  And driving the skinny roads through the forests feels like being on an Indiana Jones ride. Windy, narrow roads that are surrounded by giant trunks.  

One of the most interesting things about these trees was how many trees are able to survive, despite having most of the base burned or rotted out.  They call these massive openings 'goose pens'.  Apparently, the early settlers used said hidey holes for their livestock storage.

The paths through the redwoods are full of tree tunnels: trees that had fallen on top of each other, ones that have grown over the paths, ones that are hollowed out.  The kids had fabulous times climbing up and over tree roots, into hollow logs, and all around the forest.  Z and Q especially loved to play hide and seek. Which was really fun until Z disappeared too long or comfort.  

The rangers at the park were having a Banana Slug competition for who could find the longest Banana Slug.  I think our longest was maybe 12 inches, but the daily record was closer to 19 or 21 inches! The boys love becoming Junior Rangers at every park we visit.

Our second Redwoods was the Jedidiah Smith Redwoods State Park. We drove up to Crescent City to go to church on our way up.  The Chapel and Cultural Hall of the church building were very unique, as they were built with redwood. Very beautiful. 

Jedidiah Smith looks very similar to Prairie Creek.  The Forest Moon of Endor scenes were filmed here for Star Wars: Return of the Jedi.  You could totally imagine Storm Troopers flying by on their speed chasers or Ewoks popping up from behind bushes.  

We all enjoyed climbing on the dead trees (ones without active live growth) and being amazed and the complexity of the root systems.

 

A couple cool things we learned:

* This gnarly root mass is called a burl.  They are parts of the redwood that form from sickness or injury.  If the tree is not able to reproduce, these burls will shoot up new clones of itself.  So many of the redwoods are exact clones of their ancestors, which is cool to think about.

    

* Some bark can grow curly. 

Also, there was this random chicken outside the information center. Not something you expect to see digging a hole in front of a national park ranger station! Apparently someone had dumped it a couple of weeks before and it wouldn't leave.  It was very aggressive, so whenever someone tried to catch it to remove it, it ran into the forest behind.  Which is a patch of poison oak.  So no one really wanted to chase after it.  But it kept digging holes in the yard and the rangers were getting frustrated. 

One of our hikes brought us to a beautiful river.  The kids enjoyed a fun swim and splash (there might've been some skinny-dipping or undies-only going on since we weren't expecting to swim that day!).

As we left Jedidiah Smith, we stopped at an Indian Reservation gas station, with the appropriate moniker Elk Valley.  And lo, and behold, we found a dozen elk that chill around the area.  This one was right by us.  The others were too far away to picture. 

And now, the unexpected highlight of our Redwood trip: the Klamath River. This amazing local spot was told to us by a fellow camper at the campground.  We actually went our first night, and every night after.  This spot is a sacred spot for the Yurok people, where they hold ceremonies.  But beyond the site is where the Klamath River meets the Pacific Ocean.  A perfect place for salmon to spawn (now that the Klamath River Dam was torn down in late 2024) and for seals and sea lions to feast on them as they travel through!  

There were around 100+ seals and 3 sea lions all searching for fish to eat.  We found a wonderful perch along the sandy cliff.   We spent hours watching the hunters scope the edges of the shoreline and fat little babies flop up and down the sand bar. They would chase the fish up onto the sand and try and grab them.  This was apparently a laborious process, since we didn't see too many successes.  The kids once gain built driftwood houses and a garden.

There was this one sea lion that looked like it was on guard patrol.  It would go up and down the confluence, but pop up and stare us down whenever it passed.  

This spot is a MUST if you are in the northern Redwoods!