Redwoods Splendor Loop, Redwood National Park, California

When to Go

If you don’t mind hiking in the rain, you can pretty much visit this park during any season. The park gets an average of 70.5 inches of precipitation a year, with most of it happening between October and April. On the bright side though, the rain tends to clear most people out of the park. The trails were not crowded at all on the rainy February weekend when we visited. We only saw around five groups of people in the Fern Canyon, which was a surprise considering how popular it is in the summer.

Additionally, it seems like when it rains in Northern California, it’s mostly just a consistent gentle misting — absolutely nothing like the torrential downpours I grew up with in Texas.

Trip Cost

Fern Canyon was straight out of a mystical video game.

There are wooden bridges like this all the way along the trail.

Before You Go

Redwood National Park is actually a collection of National and State land that includes Redwood National Park, Redwood State Park, Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park and Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park. With all these separate parks in the mix, it’s hard to tell exactly where you’re going. Luckily, the National Parks website treats the parks as one and has information about all the National and State land.

There are four car camping campgrounds in and around the park that are all managed by California State Parks. Starting in 2021, you can make a reservation for one of the four campgrounds through Reserve California. If you’ve never made a reservation through the Reserve California system, it takes patience and it helps to make your reservation very far in advance of your trip. The most coveted campgrounds fill up right when they’re made available at 8AM PST six months in advance.

For this particular trail, the best campground to stay at is the Elk Prairie Campground near the Prairie Creek Visitors Center. This campground serves as the perfect home base to hike the Redwoods Splendor Loop, watch for elk in the giant meadow nearby, and to go for scenic drives on the Newton B. Dury Scenic Byway. Back when we visited, there was no reservation system and we were there during the quiet season, so it was easy to get a last-minute spot. I think it may be harder to get a spot now, so you should make your reservation well in advance.

Getting There

Getting to the trailhead is very easy because the trailhead also happens to be a visitors center. Just type “Prairie Creek Visitor Center” in your map app and you’re good to go. If you’re staying at the nearby Elk Prairie campground, there’s also a short network of trails that lead from camp to the visitors center and trailhead.

The parking lot at the trailhead can fill up quickly in the summer months, so plan to arrive early in the morning. If there’s no parking left in the lot, overflow parking is allowed along the street.

Doing some bridge inspecting.

It’s impossible not to look up every three seconds in this park.

On the Trail

Going clockwise, the loop starts out at the Prairie Creek Visitors Center, heads northwest towards the ocean and then loops back inland to the visitors’ center. There are a ton of variations and side trails to explore, so you can really turn this into a mega-adventure.

From the visitors’ center, you’ll start your hike in the dense Redwood forests that this park is so famous for. Then, the trail winds through steeps gullies and canyons and takes you right up close to so many enormous Redwoods.

After about 5.2 mile, the trail comes to a junction – take a left to visit the hanging gardens of Fern Canyon or take a right to bypass the canyon and avoid some of the busier parts of the trail. Even with the small crowd though, the visit to Fern Canyon was entirely worth it. Beyond the magical canyon walls covered in furry ferns, one of our favorite parts of the canyon was climbing all over the large fallen trees inside the canyon.

After Fern Canyon, the trail opens up to Gold Bluffs Beach and the Pacific Ocean beyond. Sometimes you can find elk grazing in the prairie grass between the sand beach and the forest. The trail spends about 2.5 miles on the coast before turning east back into the forest. The coastal part of the trail is mostly in the sand, so pick your footwear wisely. After that, the next 1.5 miles of trail are the steepest part of the loop, with a climb of about 700 feet from sea level. All in all, it wasn’t that difficult, but it was definitely different from the super-easy, super-relaxing trial we had seen up until this point.

After the steep part, the trail continues to meander around gullies and canyons for 6.3 miles all the way back to the trailhead. This part of the trail goes up and down a lot more than the earlier parts of the trail. I think this is because the canyons on this side of the loop are steeper and more irregular. This stretch of trail ended up being my favorite trail section because the afternoon sunlight streamed into the forest in beautiful sheets of light. Finally, after all the rain, the clouds cleared and we got a little sunlight.

Back at the visitors’ center, we continued on the side trail to our campsite.

After the Hike

Food-wise, there’s really not a lot going on in this far corner of Northern California. We ended up stopping at a gas station convenience store for some sandwiches and snacks on the first day. If you really want something to eat after your hike, there’s a couple restaurants 20 minutes north of the visitors’ center in Klamath. There’s a casual diner called Log Cabin Diner and a fancier seafood place called Paul’s Famous Smoked Salmon.

If you’re okay driving a longer distance or are heading south anyways, there’s a ton of tasty food in Eureka. On our way back to the Bay Area, we stopped at The Greene Lily for a cozy and delicious breakfast.

Thinking about doing this trip? Have any questions? Comment down below!