Founders Grove and the Avenue of the Giants

Four days ago, on Saturday morning, we packed up the car and left McKinleyville headed south. Our next destination … Napa! However, we had several adventures planned on the way, beginning with the Avenue of the Giants.

The Avenue of the Giants is a popular 31-mile scenic drive lined by titan trees that parallels Highway 101. If I had not done a little research we would have stayed on the 101 and missed it!

Shortly after getting on the road I fell off a fallen Redwood and face planted! I wish I had video of it. Dale said it look like I dove face first into the ground. Thankfully the ground was soft! I’m still feeling it in my right shoulder though. It was pretty funny.

Anyway … our main objective for this scenic drive (other than the drive itself) was a hike in Founders Grove, which is home to some of the tallest trees in the world, including the Dyerville Giant. This giant redwood once stood 362 ft. tall and was considered the tallest tree in the park before its fall in 1991. When it fell, it moved the earth so much that it registered on a nearby seismograph! Not only was it huge, it was old … possibly 2,000 years old.

Another interesting fact about Redwoods is that the greatest accumulation of plant mass ever recorded on earth was a Redwood stand in Humboldt Redwoods State Park. It has seven times the amount of living and dead organic material than a tropical rainforest!

We have been very blessed to see so many Redwood Forests. As you can see from the image below, Redwoods only grow naturally in a narrow 40 mile wide and 450 mile long coastal strip. They used to grow across the Northern Hemisphere.

After taking our time on Avenue of the Giants, we got back on Highway 101 headed south until it split, then we went west on California State Road 1. Yay! We’ve wanted to take the coastal highway for a while now.

Late in the afternoon we arrived at MacKerricher State Park to spend the night. I’ll save that for my next post!