Redwoods National Park
From Point Reyes National Park, we worked our way north to the Redwood National Park. It was a nice drive up Route 101 - a little inland from the coast road we had been going up the day before. Went thru some agricultural area including the wine country. Sonoma is the most famous area – and Mendicino County is another area we had heard of. There were still lots of up and down hills, but we could move faster than the day before.
Redwood National Park is a combination of some CA state parks as well as some additional parkland. It extends to the ocean, and includes a salmon stream. There are a lot of elk here, and they are busy growing their rack - still in velvet. They will grow until late August – so they are not near full growth yet. I think the rack gains about a foot a month Got some photos of them in fields and in the early morning fog,
They were real close to the campsite. It was actually a state campsite and the park includes state land. Some fields near there were managed for the elk. It is a subspecies called Roosevelt elk. Apparently the elk herd got to almost nothing with the gold miners using them for a big food source. They seem to be coming back strong in the park at least.
Elk
We camped under some redwoods again and saw some pretty big ones. There were many trails to some of the spectacular groves. On the way out of the park, we drove thru a lot more of the redwood forest. It was pretty spectacular with the mist and the sun filtering down thru occasionally.
Tree Hugger
