Lady Bird Johnson Grove

Today was a busy day. We hiked a lot today!

We started at the Lady Bird Johnson Grove which was dedicated to the former first lady by President Richard Nixon in 1969. The trail is just north of Orick, CA up in the mountains. Most of the coastal redwoods are down lower on the coast. It tends to be foggy or cloudy at the LBJ grove but today was beautiful.

LBJ Grove

You start the 1 1/2 mile loop at the parking lot and cross this bridge over the road to the trail.

Bridge to grove

You can either buy or borrow an interpretive brochure at the beginning of the trail. Because we don't want to store this stuff in the trailer we returned it after the hike. We started on the trail.

LBJ Trail

The hike was pleasant. It was a total of 1.5 miles with a 100 foot elevation  change. It has been so nice to have time here to check out different trails. We continue to be amazed every time we hike a new one. There were some monster trees here!

Huge trees

About half way you come to the dedication site. There are several benches here and the dedication plaque.

Dedication plaque

These trees are not as large around as the Sequoia redwoods but they get taller reaching as much as 350 feet.

Huge trees

The trail continues between these two gigantic trees. 

LBJ trail continues

We got back to the truck and decided to go back to the Prairie Creek visitor center. We had started the Nature trail the other day but decided to not continue on it because we were going to Fern Canyon.

Prairie Creek Nature Trail

This is the bridge that we started on the other day. This time we decided to finish the trail.

Starting bridge

We continue on this 2 mile round trip hike.

Nature Trail

The trail quickly and steeply climbed over 100 feet. It was different then LBJ because that was more gradual.  We came to this area heavy with ferns. We loved how the sun was shining through.

Fern Jungle

The trail dropped back down to the creek and we came to this footbridge. 

Footbridge

Pretty soon we came to the Revelation trail which is a loop trail with interpretive signs.

Revelation trail

This is the inside of a chimney tree. It is a redwood tree that the middle of it has burnt out but the tree is still alive. You can see green up through the middle of the tree.

Chimney tree

We finished the loop and decided to go to one more trail. You would have thought we had done enough the way my feet are damaged but I was still feeling alright. I think this retirement is agreeing with me!

There is a short half mile loop called Circle Loop by the Big Tree wayside.

Big Tree

Big Tree is supposed to be the biggest Redwood in the Prairie Creek park. The dimensions are:

Height: 304'

Diameter: 21.6'

Circumference: 68'

Estimated age: 1500 years old

You can see a guy in red standing in front of it to compare the size of this tree!

Big Tree

From here we started the Circle Loop trail.

Circle Loop

Circle Loop was very flat and only about 1/2 mile. Notice the roots coming from these trees.

Circle Loop Trees

At some point this tree had fallen across the trail and had to be cut.

Trail

We walked around the corner and saw this large X. It was two trees that had fallen and crossed each other.

X-Games?

We got back to the truck and decided we had hiked enough for today. We had walked over 4 miles up and down trails. Every step was worth it! It was a GREAT day.

We saw a road sign that said Cal-Barrel Road, Scenic Road. It was a 3 mile dead end road through the same type of stuff we had been hiking through all day. 

Cal-Barrel Road

Here we are at the end of the road. If the truck was clean (and new) I could sell this picture to Dodge for a magazine advertisement! :)

Dodge Ram Tough!

This tree was over the road. I asked Patty to hurry and take the picture so I could get out from under it!

Hurry!!!!

We got back to Klamath River RV Park.

RV Park

Here is another picture of our park. This better shows how it is located on the river.

RV Park

We only have one more day here at the park. Tomorrow will be church and then getting ready to leave early on Monday. We have 275 miles to drive to get to Middletown. That is where Suzie, Patty's sister lives. We will be there for two weeks so Patty can help with our niece Stevie's wedding on the 25th. 

We will also be seeing Crystal, James, Matthew, Jasmine, and Cynthia during our stay. They will be coming in for the wedding. We miss them and look forward to seeing them.

Love you all!

Brian and Patty