Jeremiah Smith State Park - Stout Grove

There are two ways to enter Stout Grove from Crescent City, CA. Both are narrow, pot-holed roads. There are places to pull over so two vehicles can pass but they better be small vehicles.

The ground is covered in ferns and Redwood Sorrel, which looks like three-leave clovers.

Trillium grow along the road and seem to like sunny spots.

They come in many colors and are even varigated.

A group of trillium.

If you double-click to enlarge the photo, you can see the ferns on the ground.

At one stop water had collected in a pool where a fallen tree had blocked the flow. Ferns and other vegetation has grown on the log.

I don't think a one-ton dually pickup could make it through this hole!

At one point a large tree had fallen across the road so it had been cut to allow vehicles through. This is just the "small" root section.

The tree was hollow in the middle so you coulds see clear though it.

Nolan just wanted to show you how large the tree was.

The top of the tree continued on the other side of the road and when you looked through it, you could barely see light on the other side.

Our friends, Jenny and Craig, were our tour guides to the grove.

I just had to climb to the end and look down!

We stopped at one point and made a very steep descent to see the river.

This two-lane bridge had been modified so that only one vehicle could cross it at a time.

Once we got to the grove, the road was paved. Our guess was that the paving was put in when Star Wars: Return of the Jedi was filmed in the grove. Remember the Ewoks in the forest?

The trail started off paved but quickly turned to dirt. Nice level trail.

Craig just had to show off on the interesting redwood burls.

At one point, the trail descended to the river where we saw this beautiful view.

I saw these tiny cones on the rocks along the shore but I haven't researched to find out what kind of tree they fell off.

Some trees were covered in this "moss?". Most of the redwoods had lots of stuff growing on them.

Jenny and I posed by this group of fallen trees. It looked like four had grown together but one had fallen and taken down two others while leaving one leaning at a very steep angle.

Nolan and Craig posed by this fallen redwood that the trail went under. They found a beaded band under the tree but didn't know what it was. Nolan hung it on a nearby sign. As we left the area, a man showed up to claim his hat band.

Jenny gazing up in wonder at the height of the trees. The record high redwood is 378' tall.

Don't get too dizzy looking up.

This is so dark but Nolan and I are standing at the base of a fallen redwood. There's a bit of a hollow in the middle.

This is looking along the trunk of the tree.

This almost looks like a face protruding from the tree but the "guy" has "snot" on his face!

Occasionally you would see a redwood with very different looking bark. I wished there was an information panel that explained this.

Just enough room in this tree for me. Ok, maybe Nolan too but it would have been a tight fit!

One tree had these tiny little bell-shaped flowers.

The way the light shone down through the trees was very ephermeral and you could come at various times of the day for different views. The camera just can't catch how pretty it was. Ok, maybe it's just our photography skills: limited.

This Redwood sorrel was growing in a burl at the base of a tree.

Nolan found a tree he could walk through.

Ok, this photo is along Hwy 199 on the way back to Grants Pass. We could have gotten some fantastic shots if we would have stopped. Nolan took this as we sped by in the car.