After working a lot of overtime last week, I was burned out by mid-day on Friday and decided that for my mental health I would cut out of work a couple hours earlier than usual – and many hours earlier than I have been of late – and hit up a sanity-restoring park. As I had a little more time, I looked a little further out for green spots on Google Maps than usual and eventually decided to hit up Big Basin Redwoods State Park, mostly because I was desperate for trees! I MISS TREES! Big Basin wasn’t terribly far away on the map, but it took about an hour an a half to get there because the much of the second half of the drive is extremely curvy and, in places, very hilly. In places the speed limit was as low as 15 mph! But it was worth the drive (which was mostly more fun than frightening).
Although I had left a little earlier than I’d usually be able to in the afternoon, it was still about 5 p.m. when I arrived, and I wanted to be back on the freeway before it got dark because of all those curvy roads, so I decided to just do an easy 4.5-mile hike on the Sequoia and Skyline-to-the-Sea Trails. I was promised a waterfall on this loop but it was disappointing. So disappointing I don’t have a picture for you because the one picture I took was terrible. The drought can probably be blamed for the tiny trickle of water I saw, but it was also very, very dark and absolutely terrible for photography. Oh well, the redwoods and just being in a forest more than made up for the underwhelming waterfall. Fun fact: Big Basin is California’s oldest state park. I wish it were a little closer because I’d like to spend more time there.
The drawback of the loop I did was it was near a road just about the entire time. I don’t recall seeing more than perhaps one car on that road the entire time, but I certainly didn’t feel as if I were in a remote area of the park.
Though I didn’t see many cars on the road, I did see a ton of campers, and I have to say I was quite jealous of them.
And here are some pictures of the trees, glorious trees!
I can’t say I saw a lot of wildlife on this hike, although I did see a few Steller’s Jays, which we don’t have back in Virginia. I almost said “back home”, oops.
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