Miner’s Ridge and James Irvine Loop

Hello hello! Welcome to Travel Tuesday and I’m back this time with day 2 of my trip from 6 7 years back (hah), when I went on a Redwoods Car Camping trip with Outdoor Adventures. We went on an ~8 mile hike on the Hidden Beach Section of the Coastal Trail on our first day, and on our second day, we had a little discussion…

Did we want to do the 12 mile hike filled with majestic redwoods, a beach, and a gorgeous canyon…or stick to a couple easier ones?

…Obviously, we went for the 12 miles, otherwise known as the Miner’s Ridge and James Irvine Loop! (How could we come all the way here without doing this hike?!)

Located in the Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, this was about 50 miles south of the Oregon-California border, and it’s an amazingggg hike–probably one of the best on the west coast!

Distance: 11.6 miles
Elevation: 1350 feet
Trailhead Location: US Highway 101, Orick, CA 95555 (this is the address to the Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park Visitor Center)
Difficulty: Moderate
Parking: Park at the visitor’s center! (We just parked at our campgrounds.)

You start off at the visitor’s center and follow it through a super pretty redwood forest. We started in the morning so we’d have time to meander around and take pictures if we wanted to (which we obviously did).

There was technically an option to make this hike shorter, which our group leaders did present us with, but none of us wanted to miss the Gold Bluffs Beach or Fern Canyon, so we went the whole way!
There were definitely parts of the road where we had to either scamper or wade across, but for those of us not wearing waterproof shoes (e.g. me), we’d find logs every here and there that we could cross.
All fees were included in my trip, but generally speaking, parking was $8/day, and overnight fees included:

• Camping: $35/night (1 vehicle only, 8 people max)
• Hike & Bike: $5/person

Gold Bluffs Beach was a bit overcast, but it added some nice variation to our hike (and let’s face it, when do I ever say no to going to a beach?). We found a log to hang out on for a bit to take pictures.

Can you find me in this picture!? :O

I also found a hermit crab!

We found some elk on our hike too! :]

Here’s one of em’!

Just in case you couldn’t see him that well in the picture above…

Fern Canyon is a really a sight to behold, with vertical walls lined with ferns and fallen trees all over the canyon floor. (We may or may not have tried to climb/walk up several of them).

Sorry for the blurriness, although I clearly didn’t take this picture… :P

There were some footbridges and such that you could walk on to avoid wading through the creek, and also logs.

We gathered around a campfire that evening to relax, talk, and roast marshmallows. :] It got pretty cold at night, so bundling up and bunching together was a thing.

This was, sadly, the last time I’ve gone camping. I really miss it, but here’s to hoping I’ll get to do that again at some point!

• Have you ever been to the Redwoods National + State Parks?
• Have you ever gone camping? Where did you go?