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With over 200 miles of trails in Redwood National and State Parks, what trail do you pick? My sister and I picked two of the most popular ones: Fern Canyon Loop Hike and Tall Trees Grove Hike. Read on to see if we thought these trails are overrated or underrated.
Fern Canyon Loop Hike/Trail
First, Fern Canyon Loop Trail. Fern Canyon is – you guessed it – full of five types of ferns and has no redwood trees in it! Fern Canyon is a mile-ish out and back (or loop) trail through a lush fern canyon. Parts of Jurassic Park II were filmed in Fern Canyon. I read in several places that Star Wars was also filmed here. Several other sites contradicted it by suggesting Star Wars was filmed north near Jedediah Smith Redwood State Park. If you ask me, Fern Canyon looks like an Ewok might pop out from behind any tree at any moment.
We stopped at the Kuchel Visitor Center to get our parks passports stamped (get yours here, not an affiliate link, although I should be an influencer for them), and confirmed our plans for Fern Canyon and Tall Trees the following day. The helpful rangers let us know to plan on getting our feet wet up to our ankles.
Info on Fern Canyon Loop Trail 
Got a Stamp!
The trailhead to Fern Canyon is down Davison Road, a six-mile dirt road near Orick, CA. I had no problems with the bumps and divots in the road in my AWD car; even a smaller sedan should make it. The parking lot was about half-full of dusty cars when we hiked in the late afternoon of a early-May foggy weekday. Despite the parking lot being half full, we saw people constantly on our hike. Fern Canyon Trail is one of THE most popular hikes around because it is short, not technically challenging, and of course, beautiful.
The hike itself winds through the creek of Fern Canyon. NPS puts out foot bridges for the summer season; however when we visited in early May, they weren’t out yet. We hopped, skipped and waded through the ankle-deep crystal clear water. Plan ahead for your hike, and bring a dry pair of socks and shoes for the ride home. Several people wore Keens or Tevas, but in May, the air temperature was just a liiiiitle too cold for me to do that. My sister wears some hardcore waterproof boots and showed off by jumping into every shallow puddle in the creek. I was wearing my high-top Altra trailrunners, which are far less waterproof as it turns out.
some water at fern canyon 
Is this Endor
We turned Fern Canyon into a loop hike, rather than an out-and-back, but hiking up a staircase and then doubling back on the trail above the creek. The Sitka Spruces and other evergreens looked like Endor. I was waiting for Luke to speed by!
Rating:
Over/Under: Overrated, in my opinion. Fern Canyon was beautiful, but not challenging and fairly crowded on a quiet day. I can only imagine how crowded it is on a nice summer day (picturing the crowded slot canyons in Zion).
Tip: To make it more difficult, pair it with the James Irvine trail (and possibly Miner’s Ridge) to make it 9-11 miles roundtrip. Bonus – you will actually see redwood trees on this longer trail!
Tall Trees Grove Hike/Trail (Permit Only)
Tall Trees Grove is a permit-only hike in the heart of Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park. You can apply online from between 30 days – 48 hours prior to your hike. I applied about 30 hours before our hike day, and received the permit approval the next morning. YMMV – if you are hiking during a crowded and busy time, you should certainly apply as early as you can. (As I read this July 4, the next few days are full but the rest of the month is available) The road is not suitable for longer RVs and trailers. Again, my AWD SUV had no problems though there were some small streams to cross.
Why is Tall Trees a permit-only hike?
The parking lot is very small, so NPS limits the number of hikers who can hike each day. The permit provides a gate code to unlock a large gate across the road. Without the permit and code, you can’t drive the additional five miles down to the trailhead. This was another trailhead located 7 miles down a dusty, divoted, windy, dirt road – sensing a theme yet?
The trail is a 4.5 mile lollipop loop through some of the oldest old-growth trees out there, and somewhat strenuous. The 800ft elevation gain begins as a loss as you hike down into the grove, then have to hike back out on the return. In 1963, National Geographic profiled this grove, kicking off an era of love and study of these trees. While reading The Wild Trees by Richard Preston (Bookshop af link), many of the tallest redwoods that Steve Sillett and other scientists study are in this grove. Imagine that! The tallest and perhaps oldest redwoods EVER on earth, along this trail. This includes the Libbey Tree, at one time the tallest tree in the world. Tall Trees Trail has number markers, which I assume coordinate with some sort of map of notable trees, but despite googling we couldn’t figure it out.
tall trees are tall 
a snug lil parking lot
Even with the permit limits, and going later in the day, we saw a lot of other hikers. We even saw one that scared the bejeebus out of me because I thought he was a bear. Reader, he was not a bear. We saw NO BEARS during this entire hike even though I was convinced we would see one. (Bears do not even merit a mention in The Wild Trees book, which should have given me a clue that bears have better things to do than bug people walking to see big trees.)
Rating:
Over/Under: Underrated. We missed the turnoff to add a spur hike out to the Redwood Creek, where many of the tallest Redwoods have been found (the locations are, of course, secret, unless you are even a modestly okay googler). You can combine this trail with several other trails, like Emerald Ridge, to make a day out of it. The trees are incredibly tall, and being so far off the road with limited parking means the hike is very quiet. Also no bears. Win-Win-Win, as Michael Scott would say.
BONUS: Lady Bird Johnson Grove
A bonus! Mostly because I don’t have another day of redwood content and this lil hike doesn’t fit in anywhere.
Lady Bird Johnson Grove is named after the former First Lady, and is a quiet 1.5 mile scenic nature trail. We added it on after Tall Trees Grove, and even though TTG was dry, LBJG was misting so much we were soaked. The internet tells me that this is because LBJG is an upland grove, 1200 feet above sea level, and often covered in mist. It was built for the Redwoods National Park dedication ceremony, so I assume they knew what they were doing.
The trail is relatively flat and has a number of sign markers along the trail, matching the online trail map on the NPS app. I did an amazing rendition of a number of the stories, if I do say so myself. Only a few other walkers joined us on the trail. I gather it is a popular stopoff spot due to its location and flat trail. A note of caution: my sister said the bathrooms were disgusting. Forewarned is forearmed.
Rating:
Over/Under: Just Right Rated. I thought this matched our expectations, and was a nice addition to our other hikes that day.
In Summary:
In retrospect, we should have combined Tall Trees with Fern Canyon, in addition to Lady Bird Johnson Grove. All three originate near the same turn off near Orick. Had we realized this, it would have saved us the ~hour drive from our AirBnb two days in a row. I tell you so you do not make the same silly oversight we did – add all three to your itinerary for the day.
If you wanted to make an even longer day out of it:
- Add on the Gold Coast Beach. You can camp here on the beach, although be prepared for a chilly wind!
- Add on Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park Visitor Center – a number of small, short, scenic nature loops here. Plus, elk hang out right by the visitor center! Unfortunately, we hit the visitor center after 6pm on a weekday, when it was closed. The posting about a mountain lion sighting nearby made us reevaluate our hiking plans!
For other Redwoods resources:
- Dog-friendly Redwood hikes in Redwood National and State Parks
- How I planned my two-week digital nomad road trip
- All of the Redwoods sites I pinned on Pinterest
- Redwood Hikes – lists all of the hikes in all of the national and state parks
- Well Planned Journey’s Ultimate Redwood Guide and Bucket list
- Embrace Someplace’s 9+ Epic hikes in Redwoods
