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Standish – Hickey State Recreation Area

featuring the Taber Nature Trail

California > Humboldt Redwoods and Vicinity

The Eel River, seen from Hickey Campground

As northbound Highway 101 enters redwood country, it passes three small redwood parks, each more impressive than the last, before finally reaching the most impressive redwoods of all in Humboldt Redwoods. Standish-Hickey is the first of these parks and, when seen from the highway, is the least scenic of the three. Driving through, you wouldn’t even guess that there’s a redwood grove here, and in fact the park’s most popular features aren’t its trails but its campgrounds and a swimming area on the crystal-clear Eel River.

The trail with the most redwoods is the Taber Nature Trail, north of Highway 101.

South of Highway 101 is a larger network of well-designed and well-maintained trails that wind though relatively dry-looking, mostly non-redwood forest. All of these trails lead to the Captain Miles Standish Tree, a good-sized redwood standing in isolation in a heavily-logged grove. The trails all get some traffic noise, but are otherwise very enjoyable to hike. They as well as the best part of the campground are only accessible in the summer via seasonal bridges.

Hikes

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The Taber Nature Trail

Length 1.7 mi · Climbing 130 ft

Climbs to a small upland grove with a few dozen widely-scattered, small to medium old-growth redwoods and lots of really small conifer trees.

Campground

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Hickey, Rock Creek, and Redwood Campgrounds

$35–$40/night + $8

Redwood Campground is set among small redwoods in the bottom of a gorge; it’s only open in summer. Hickey and Rock Creek are right next to Highway 101 and get a lot of traffic noise.