by Scott

part 1 of 3

My original plan was to head to Utah and Arizona and hike and photograph the slot canyons, but after finding most of the trails I was interested in limited to less than 15 people (and completely booked up) we decided to head to Olympic National Park in Washington state, and back down just to see what was there. I had never driven highway 1 past the California border so this would all be new for me. We did some basic research and found some key places we wanted to photograph, but most of it was just reacting to where we were and exploring. It rained the first 5 days straight and the Aliner worked like a charm keeping us warm and dry. We left Tahoe and stayed our first night on the coast at Patricks Point campground near Eureka. This was a great campground with large, secluded forest sites, easily suited to larger trailers. We found a spot on the Agate loop with nobody near us and pretty much had the redwoods to ourselves. This campground is popular with Abalone fisherman. Trails lead from just behind the campsites for several miles along the coast. All these images and many more can be purchased or licensed in from my online archive.

From Patricks point we wanted to get into our first real day of photography at Jedediah Smith Redwoods state park, but first we stumbled upon a giant talking statute. Oddly enough, right after getting back NPR did a great piece on the voice of Paul Bunyan.

After goofing of on the Jetty in Crescent City and getting lunch, we headed to Jedediah Smith Redwoods State park and got our campground. This place has some good and some bad campgrounds. Never get one near an intersection of roads and if you have a larger trailer, make sure yours can fit. We barely fit the Aliner in our spot on the corner, then it rained all night and we were parked in 3 inches of standing water in the morning that ever passing car turned into a muddy wave, so we moved a few spots down to the middle of the row and it was a thousand times better. Trees are thinner and the illusion of privacy in your campground doesn’t exist here the way it did at Patricks Point, but hey, you aren’t here to sit in your trailer, you are here to hike among the giant redwood trees. To that end, I strongly recommend the Stout Memorial Grove. In my opinion the most visually appealing trails, mostly thin paths covered with clover. STICK TO THE TRAILS! There are tons of micro trails through the clover that are already worn. We saw plenty of idiots stomping through the clover fields just to get a picture. Well, if you keep doing that, pretty soon there will be no clover fields left and that is the whole thing that makes this grove so unique. Also, go early or late when the sun is at low angles in the sky or on an overcast day. Bright sun blobs shining through the trees can kill a good forest pictures. If you want mist (we only had a tiny bit and it lasted about 10 minutes) go at sunrise. You often get a fog off the river than can create nice sun beams as it dissipates. The Boys Scout trail and the long drive on a dirt road to get to it is another great destination and grouping of massive trees. The waterfall at the end was a little underwhelming, mainly due to low water, but the grove rivals the Stout grove.