What a Wonderful World: Exploring the South Oregon Coast and California Redwoods

Summer in the Pacific Northwest is kind of like eating ice cream in a cone. It’s delicious, it’s filling, and you want to get to all of it before it melts everywhere and makes you feel icky (e.g. smoke season, heat waves, and the inevitable gray of the Seattle winter).

My friends and I decided way back in April to capitalize on this very special post-quarantine summer by getting outside as much as possible. Inspired by this vision, we booked two campsites for mid-July and planned a 4-day road trip to see the southern coast of Oregon and the Redwoods in California.

What would we do? That part wasn’t so clear. We knew of some scenic views we wanted to experience thanks to Instagram and daddy bloggers, but beyond that, we had No Plan. The goal was to see some sights, have some fun, and come back in one piece, in that order. Turns out, that was the perfect amount of ambiguity and clarity we needed to get the party started.

Day 1: Making our way down(town)

We started our road trip bright and early Friday morning in an attempt to beat Seattle-Tacoma commuter traffic. With our tank full of Costco gas, we hopped on I-5 and drove south for almost 4 hours before making an obligatory stop at In N’ Out for lunch.

The crew from left to right: Mitch, me, Jess, Matt, Remy, and behind the lens is Sarah.

With our tummies full and few more hours of driving under our belt, we made it to our first scenic stop of the trip: the Oregon Sand Dunes. These are natural sand beaches created by years of the ocean eroding away at the rock on the South Oregon coast. We saw a few ATVs and motorcycles racing on the dunes, and it was quite a show.

ATVs were available to rent and race a few minutes outside of the park.

And the ocean is just right there on the other side.

Look at ’em go zoom zoom.

At this point, all the excitement at the Dunes had built up an appetite among the group. If you can’t tell by now, food is going to be a recurring theme on this trip. #NoRegretsExceptMaybeOne #IsThisForeshadowing

Bandon had an art exhibit on the dock featuring elementary school kids and professional artists side by side.

Enter: The Adorable Oceanside Town of Bandon. Famous for the Bandon Dunes Golf Resort, the downtown area of Bandon had a lot to offer! We ended up grabbing dinner at Bandon Brewing, a pizza + beer joint right by the water. Unfortunately, this resulted in some pretty unsettling tummy issues for me (pro-tip: don’t order chicken tacos at a pizza joint by the ocean) but my friends and I loved their pizza and beer so we still recommend the place!

After saying bye to Bandon, we hopped back on the road to continue our way down Highway 101. We made an impromptu stop at Battle Rock Wayside Park to catch the sunset. We were traveling with Remy, the cutest pup in the world, and watching him explore the beach for the first time was such a treat. Look at him go!

Finally, right around dusk, we made it to our campsite at Harris Beach State Park. Three tents and one fire later, we decided to hit the hay early so we could be rested for the next day.

Day 2: Are we on the right trail? Does it even matter?

Day 2 was our day to explore the South Oregon coast. We had a short list of trails we wanted to hit, and they were all within 30 minutes of our campiste. Since we weren’t in a rush to head out in the morning, we took the opportunity to build a fire and have a relaxed breakfast and second breakfast comprised of Costco muffins, instant oatmeal, and pizza leftovers.

Around mid-day, we finally gathered the motivation to leave our cozy campsite and make it out to the trailhead of Secret Beach Trail which was, as we soon found out, not so secret.

A view of the Secret Beach from the top of the trail! You can see a couple paddle boarders gearing up in the bottom left corner.

This was a part of the beach that can only be accessed during low tide. The water was chilly!

There was a rock and I had to climb it! 10/10 would climb again.

Our second beach trail of the day was the Natural Bridges Trail. This one was quite a doozy. The AllTrails description said it was a 62 ft elevation drop, but in reality, this was one of the steepest dirt trails I’ve ever climbed — 455ft per mile according to my fitness tracker! The view was totally worth it, but most of the group (read: everyone but me) was in open-toed shoes which made getting traction quite difficult on the way down. Hikers beware!

I could have stared at this view all day. If you follow the trail all the way down, it takes you over the arch in the foreground which means you get to actually stand on the natural bridge. Pretty surreal experience!

We all needed a good wash after the hikes on this day. Tangential side note: The showers at the Harris Beach State Park campsite were phenomenal: hot, pressurized, and best of all, free.

After our adventurous day in the sun, we were all just about ready for a cool refresher. We made it back to camp, fixed a quick dinner, and then headed into town to visit — you guessed it — another local brewery. This time on the ballot was Chetco Brewing. Little did we know that Chetco Brewing was actually one of the hippest places in town! The locals were friendly and we got in a few solid games of corn hole here. What else could a girl ask for?

On our way back from the brewery, we made a spontaneous stop to go tide pooling during sunset. This might have been my favorite part of the whole trip. It was a truly incredible experience to observe the sea critters in their natural state: fully exposed from the tide, tangled around seaweed, and encrusted with barnacles.

My first time seeing wild starfish! This guy was meaty!

At the end of the day, we were all pretty pooped. We eventually made it back to camp and had enough gas in our tanks to roast some s’mores before turning in for the night.

Day 3: Nature is cool

Day 3 was our dedicated day at Redwood State Park. After packing up camp at Harris Beach, we made our way across the Oregon-California border to arrive at Elk Prairie Campground. Unfortunately, as soon we reached, the aforementioned chicken tacos were doing their thing, so I decided to hang back at camp while some of the group went off to hike the park. This was my brief, but unscheduled interlude of the trip and to represent that here, I’ve put together a collage of fauna that Matt captured around our campsite. Enjoy!

This Steller’s Jay poked a hole in one of the PB & Js. I still ate it.

The infamous Banana slug. It moves surprisingly fast.

This squirrel looks so slick.

Adorable bunny who low-key looks like a robot. Is it just me?

And finally, the biggest “critter” of them all — the elk.

Majestic creatures of the Redwoods.

This is what my friends were up to while I took a nap! Allegedly there are bigger trees, but this one had a sign and a dedicated trail, so it’s special. It’s estimated age is 1,500 years — wowza.

Later in the day, we decided to visit the California coast to explore Fern Canyon, an ancient, winding creek bed lined by 50 ft walls of primal ferns. The Canyon trail was featured in several scenes of Jurassic Park 2 (1997) and after walking through, I can totally see why. The whole experience made me feel like I was in a Land Before Time world.

The road up to the canyon was very narrow and the drivers coming from the other way had no chill. The plants on the side of the road were covered in dust making them seem grayscale which added an extra layer of fun.

This was one of the most magical places. If only walls could talk.

Soon it was dinner time and we decided that pizza was the move (again!). The closest pizza place was 45 minutes away in a small beach town called Trinidad in Northern California. Headies Pizza and Pour was poppin’ when we showed up, and the pizza was fantastic. When we got back to camp we had a small fire before catching some Z’s for the long day of driving ahead of us.

Day 4: The road less traveled

From the very start, we were all prepared for the last day of our trip to be the longest stretch of driving: 2 hours up Highway 101 and 10 hours up I-5. What we weren’t prepared for, however, is that not even 1 hour into our trip, a very kind construction lady letting us know that Highway 101 was temporarily closed due to construction. Upon hearing this news, we decided that instead of waiting for the road to open, we would take a risk and drive an alternate southern route that would eventually connect us back to I-5.

Although the alternate route proved literally and figuratively to be a longer, bumpier road, we saw some pretty incredible views on this road less traveled. From open yellow prairies to recently charred mountain forests, the diversity of the landscape was breathtaking.

The east side of the Redwood State Park overlooking a prairie. The clouds hung so low, we mistook it for the ocean at times.

A 50 mile windy path that led us to the Klamath Mountains and Six Rivers region. The scenery felt reminiscent of Of Mice and Men.

We were shocked by the expansiveness of this burned mountainside in Oregon. On the left, you can see new growth coming in bright as ever.

As soon as we hit I-5, we picked up some Dutch Bros Coffee and let cruise control take us home. We rolled into Seattle around 10pm that night, unpacked the car, and went our separate ways, concluding our 4-day adventure. We had a great time on the trip, and considering that our goals were to see some sights, have some fun, and come back in one piece — I think we did just fine. Until next time!

See ya later, folks!

All photography courtesy of Sarah, Matt, and me.