The Mill
Creek Trail

Length 7.4 mi · Climbing 250 ft

California > Redwood National and State Parks > Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park

The northern end of the Mill Creek Trail

Background

This trail follows Mill Creek for four miles through sunny moss-encrusted woodlands. The trail offers a nice variety of streamside scenery, but despite some nice old-growth redwood groves along the way, there aren't a lot of really dramatic redwoods to be seen. This is in part because the big redwoods don't grow right along the creek. The trail hints at the greatness of Jed Smith's redwoods but doesn't dive into them.

The trail offers some glimpses of huge but distant redwoods, reminders that the Grove of Titans lies somewhere in the woods off to your right. This storied grove, whose exact location has not been disclosed, contains the largest, third-largest, and sixth-largest redwoods by volume. Its recent discovery was described in Richard Preston's book The Wild Trees.

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Hike description

To begin this hike, park in the Stout Grove parking lot, walk through Stout Grove toward the campground, and cross Mill Creek. In the winter and spring, seasonal bridges across Mill Creek and the Stout River are removed and it's necessary to ford Mill Creek. The creek is only a few inches deep in the spring and summer, but avoid the creek crossing in the winter and instead do this hike as an out-and-back from Howland Hill Road.

The Mill Creek Trail starts in an exceptionally nice redwood grove that's somewhat like a smaller and less open version of Stout Grove, with large trees set among rich green ferns and redwood sorrel. After meandering through the grove, the trail enters a relatively ordinary-looking forest with small redwoods screened by a dense understory. There are, however, a few pockets of more impressive redwoods. As the trail progresses it gets closer to Mill Creek. The redwoods don't grow up to the creek and so trail skirts the redwoods, instead passing through streamside vegetation. The trail can get a bit faint and overgrown in this area. The trail might be a lot more impressive if it were 100 yards further away from the stream, since large redwoods are often visible up on the hillside to your right. As the trail crosses a small flat and then a little valley, you get especially tantalizing glimpses of mammoth redwoods off in the distance.

Switchbacking into the redwoods on the Mill Creek Trail

Across Mill Creek, you may occasionally hear cars grinding along Howland Hill Road.

The trail edges past a huge fallen redwood and then switchbacks up a hillside, leaving the bushy streamside maples below and entering the redwoods. However, the redwoods in this area aren't particularly impressive; the steep, east-facing hillside doesn't seem to encourage the growth of big redwoods, perhaps because it gets less rainfall. The trail climbs and contours around a hillside, then descends to cross Howland Hill Road.

The trail crosses Howland Hill Road several times before dropping into a streamside hardwood forest. The Mill Creek Trail ends at a T intersection with the Nickerson Ranch trail. To the left, the trail leads to a popular swimming spot. Turning right at the intersection, the trail proceeds through one of the most magnificent and dramatic redwood groves in the park. The grove ends after about a quarter-mile, shortly before the trail reaches Howland Hill Road. The Nickerson Ranch Trail ends here, but across the road an unmarked trail continues into the woods.

It's fastest to return along Howland Hill Road, although this route is not particularly interesting. In summer, passing cars frequently stir up dust clouds.

Howland Hill Road