There's something about ferns that I really enjoy and till this day I still can't pinpoint why I enjoy them so much. I love gardens with small accents of ferns in them and planning to put together a pot of plants with ferns in them in the future. I was looking for places to go camping and fell upon this place because my girlfriend wanted to visit a city nearby so I planned this camping trip around the city she wanted to visit. As we got closer to our destination we drove over a hill during the golden hour that revealed a road in between the Pacific Ocean and a lake, it was such a view that we had to stop to really take it all in and enjoy the last bit of sun before we arrive at our dark campground.
Arriving at Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park was an experience in itself, it was my first time seeing the size of redwoods as they were towering over my little car. We were pleased to find our campsite being very private, every campsite here is private and beautiful. The next day we did a little hiking and ended up hiking a lot longer than we had expected but the gorgeous views kept it enjoyable. One of the first things we saw was a banana slug, you know you're near the coast when you see these.
I tried capturing the massive trees but I don't think it can be captured in pictures, you just had to be there. We found wild golden raspberries on our trail too.
We ended up hiking about 6-7 miles all around and was ready to relax at our campsite.
The next day was our last day and I didn't get to see what I wanted to see on our hike, I remember specifically seeing a huge wall of fern with water running through the ground. This is when I decided I had to see this before making the long drive back and looked into where it was at. As we were looking at the map there was a name that stuck out - "Fern Canyon," as soon as I heard that name I just knew that had to be the place I wanted to see. We loaded the car and was on our way! Before we went too far we were lucky enough to encounter Elks, they're everywhere here but this was our first time getting this close to them so we stopped to admire them grazing for a little bit.
Our drive there was rough, the roads were very rough but beautiful at the same time. I thoroughly enjoyed the drive there even if it was bumpy. There are a lot of rocks and small water pathways a car has to go through in order to get to Fern Canyon, we got about halfway until we decided that my car wouldn't make it across shallow waters so we parked it and walked there not knowing how far away it was but good thing it ended up being quite a short walk. I was in awe when we entered the Fern Canyon, 50 feet high walls with a variety of ferns thriving off of it. Jurassic Park's chase scene was filmed here from what I've heard and that's the best way I can described what it felt like being there - prehistoric.
This was our trip to Prairie Creek Redwoods National State Park and both my girlfriend and I agree this was our best campgrounds we've ever been to. Everything was just perfect, I highly recommend this place.