Redwood National and State Parks

• George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones.

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A pano stitch shot of beautiful coastal redwood hike we did earlier this year. This was taken at the Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park. We had originally planned to go to Crater lake national park but due to an approaching storm, most of the roads were closed so we changed our itinerary on the fly and drove to the coast to do some hikes among these giant trees. It was a lot of fun hiking the coastal forests on cold foggy day.

Thanks for visiting hope you all like it..

• Niccolo Machiavelli.

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After our time at the Crater Lake National Park we crossed over to coast and took Rt. 101 south for our Journey towards home. On the way we reached the Prairie Creeks Redwoods State Park and headed towards the fern canyon which is located inside the Park. The canyon is narrow and with walls that are around 50-80 ft tall, covered in moss and ferns and dripping with water. This beautiful and prehistoric looking location was used by Steven Spielberg as a location for Jurassic Park 2: The Lost World.

Reaching the parking lot near the canyon entrance is itself an adventure, if you are coming from north on 101 S the turn right at Davison road and drive up north. The road is really narrow and unpaved and turns and goes up and down quiet often so be careful of oncoming traffic and you will have to plan your passing. Also keep in mind that you will have to cross couple of streams, first one a bit bigger than the other. I managed to cross them with some careful driving in a Chevy Cruze so if you have a car with decent ride height you should be fine (this tip doesn’t apply if there are recent rains as I am sure the water levels will be rising and it will be a really difficult). Anyways after the bone jarring journey of about 7 miles and passing the Gold beach campground on the left you will reach a barely there parking lot. Park your car there and walk further north until you reach the opening of the canyon and then there is a mile long trail along the Home creek. You can either hike the entire trail and return or reach the other end and then climb a stair and then turn left to return along the rim of the canyon.

We reached the location around sunset time and fog was slowly starting to come in from the ocean but the peaking sun rays gave an interesting light and the emerald green of the ferns and moss just creates a truly alien atmosphere. It’s a bit hard to reach place but one you should make time to see if you are in the area.

• Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

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The week after 4th of July, like we did last year, my wife and I embarked on a 9-day long summer road trip across the western United States. We set off from where we finished last year, the Fern Canyon. It seems this location has made an impact on my wife and she absolutely wanted it as part of the trip. We really enjoyed the hike and the drive up to the canyon. I didn’t have many photos opportunities as the place was filled with people camping out for 4th of July weekend but it was a great place to start our road trip after almost 9 hours of driving.

Here is a panorama shot of the bend in the canyon which was made from stitching together 5 portrait mode shots with my new 24-70 Nikkor. Hope you all like it have a nice day..

• Zhuangzi.

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Here is another old capture from last summer’s road trip. This particular one is from Fern Canyon located at the northern tip of California. One of the standout feature for me while we were at the canyon was the amazing tinge of green all around us. Being from a tropical evergreen are it felt like home. I wanted to take a shot which emphasized the color and when we came across this makeshift wooden plank bridge I dropped the tripod real low and took a wide angle shot of the canyon and the ferns it is famous for.

Thanks for visiting hope you enjoy the pic.

Soft light filters through the Del Norte Redwood forest. I was lucky to be in time for some Rhododendrons. Those magenta flowers are a nice contrast to the forest greenery.

The Redwoods are just awesome. Besides the columbia River Gorge with it's waterfalls I liked the Redwoods the most during our trip along the US west coast. Other than in the Hoh Rainforest even in direct daylight it was possible to capture some of the Redwoods magic. Here the light added just the missing atmosphere.

Tech: this is a pano of three horizontal shots taken at 24mm. If you are interested in my lightweight pano setup have a look at my video here

cheers