Featured Destination Story

Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park

Crescent City, CA

Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park has been described as the gem of the California State Park system. Located in Redwood National and State Parks, the park is home to the Coast Redwoods (Sequoia Semperviren) the tallest living things on the planet. Once covering most of the land of North America, the Redwoods are now only found in a narrow area along the northern California coast, where they tower over the landscape, growing 350 feet tall, and thousands of acres of old-growth forest have yet to be seen by humans.

The park offers a variety of hikes geared towards every activity level from the accessible Simpson-Reed Grove Trail to the strenuous Damnation Creek Trail, each offering the hiker something special. The Simpson-Reed Trail has interpretive signs along the way to help visitors understand the biome that is the Redwood Forest. The Boy Scout Tree Trail visits the park’s only waterfall, and the Damnation Creek Trail drops over 1,100 feet in just two miles for a glorious view of a Pacific sunset. It takes just 45 minutes to go down, but about three hours to travel back up.