The James Irvine Trail

Loop hike with the Miners' Ridge Trail

Length 11.6 mi · Climbing 1350 ft

California > Redwood National and State Parks > Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park

The Miners' Ridge Trail

Background

This is one of the world's best redwood hikes, but it's not just the redwoods that make it great. Although much of the trail does pass through superb redwood forest, the most spectacular redwoods are concentrated at the beginning and end of the hike, so you could actually see the best redwoods without hiking the entire trail. That would be a mistake, though, since what really makes this hike great is the way it unfolds through a variety of environments at a satisfyingly slow pace, passing from a redwood-lined ridgetop, to an undeveloped beach, and finally through a lush creek valley.

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Hike description

The Miner's Ridge trail starts with a climb through a spectacular redwood forest. The first mile of this trail, which is at its best in the morning light, is especially magnificent. Prairie Creek is one of the few places where such large redwoods can be found on a hillside. Most of the trees have a light greyish-colored bark which is less imposing than the darker trees found on the flats - the Prairie Creek uplands have their own unique color palette, light shades of grey and yellowish-green. At the ridgetop, huckleberry shrubs line the trail.

The trail descends to an intersection with the Clintonia Trail. Hikers looking for a shorter loop can follow the Clintonia Trail downhill, first through a rather unattractive spruce wood and then through some very nice redwoods, to the James Irvine Trail. This loop takes in the best of the redwoods but is nonetheless less enjoyable than the full loop.

After the Clintonia Trail intersection, the Miner's Ridge Trail is generally less attractive, although there are some nice stretches. The trail takes a scenic turn around a ravine then, at a sharp right-hand turn, it leaves the old-growth redwoods with surprising abruptness. Initially there are some redwood stumps by the side of the trail, but then the trail enters a spruce forest. There's a noticable change in the air as the trail descends through the pine woods toward the ocean.

The trail ends at a dirt road. Here you can turn right and walk up the road to Fern Canyon, or, better, turn left and proceed 100 yards to a campground, where you can cut through to the beach.

Walk down the beach as far as the Fern Canyon parking lot. It can be a slow and tiring slog through deep sand, but this is one of the most memorable parts of the trip. There are very few people on the wide beach.

No signs tell you when to turn inland, and a barrier of brush prevents you from reaching the beach road anywhere except at the Fern Canyon parking lot, which is not visible from the water's edge. If you're not careful you can miss the parking lot and get lost. If it's a sunny summer weekend, just walk until you run into some people standing around on the beach, then turn inland and you'll find the parking lot. If the beach is deserted, look for a pair of notches in the bluffs. The less-pronounced southern notch is Fern Canyon. Turn inland just before you reach the southernmost notch and you should find the parking lot.

Shortly before the parking lot, the sandy beach gives way to coastal grasslands and there's a tidal river crossed by some crude planks. A herd of elk often grazes here, wallowing in the creek and relaxing among the white-bleached driftwood. This is undoubtedly the most scenic place in the park to view elk, and it also lets you get much closer to the elk than the prairies along highway 101. In general the elk seem to be pretty relaxed around people, although they have been known to chase visitors.

The Miners' Ridge Trail

The hike passes through Fern Canyon, which is a striking sight with its sheer vertical walls lined with ferns. The canyon walls start off low but get higher as you get further into the canyon; at its peak the canyon is taller than it is wide. The canyon meanders pleasingly, each bend bringing a new little vista. The stream that flows through the canyon could make it difficult to pass through in the winter, in which case take the alternate route just north of the canyon.

Presently the canyon opens up again. Here a set of stairs climbs out of the canyon to join the James Irvine Trail, but if you're willing to get your feet wet and climb over some fallen trees you can also keep following the stream on an unmaintained trail. After a short distance, the path turns left and enters a mini-Fern Canyon with the same vertical fern-covered walls as the full-size version, but at half scale. Soon after entering the mini canyon, the trail gets narrower, more overgrown, and less worthwhile.

Back at the stairs, climb out of the canyon to join the James Irvine Trail, which leads uphill alongside a burbling creek through a serene and very scenic forest. At times, hiking here feels more like walking through a well-kept garden than an ancient wilderness. For much of its length the trail is on the hillside, elevated slightly above the creek valley. The woods here have a much different look than the ridgetop redwoods of the Miner's Ridge Trail - darker, lusher, more ancient. Somewhat surprisingly, the redwoods in the bottom of the creek valley are not particularly large or dense; perhaps the valley is too marshy. A heavy carpet of ferns covers the ground, and spanish moss drips from trees.

The trail begins to descend toward Godwood Creek. Currently the trail followes the burbling creek through an engaging landscape of marshy lowlands with increasingly impressive redwoods. However, the trail was causing the creek to silt up, so it's being replaced with a new trail that climbs up to the Miner's Ridge Trail. The new trail interrupts the progression from ridge to beach to valley that made this hike so enjoyable. Although in places the trail is very close to the Miners' Ridge Trail, it seems darker and not nearly as scenic as the ridge, and the scenery is more like what you've seen earlier in the hike.

Gold Bluffs Beach