Fern Canyon

This first stop today was a permit required stop. I got the permit in March, and glad I did. 3 weeks ago when I looked, the only permits available were for the last 3 days of August.

We drove 2 hours from Brookings, leaving at 7 AM, so we could arrive by 9, which was when our permit time was for.

As we turned off 101 to head to Fern Canyon, the road becomes a single lane gravel road. There are spots that you have to cross that are streams, so high clearance vehicles are the best.

When we parked there were around 6 other cars in the lot.

We walked into the canyon and were immediately overcome with awe. Stunning. The vibrant greens, the contrast of the rocks and the water, the ferns growing out of the canyon walls...magical!

The cliffs are up to 50 feet high, with 5 different species of ferns growing right on them. This is so prehistoric looking that The Lost World, Jurassic Park was filmed here.

This is a trail loop, however in May the bridge washed out, so you must backtrack. I think we all preferred this, because the scenery looks different going back the way you came. We were happy to have worn our water shoes, as it allowed us to go a bit further down the canyon.

Pictures will not do this place justice. But I imagine I will still have to do a second post of just pictures. I took a lot.

Once we went up and back, we took the path for what would have been the end of the loop. This was pretty, but not anything special.

There is a path to the ocean, which we tried to follow. It took us through the forest where Caleb spotted frogs and a snake, I spotted mosquitos as they sucked me dry, and finally out to a meadow, where we caught a deer by surprise. She had this look like "they must be lost." So we turned around and headed back to what I thought was the correct trail. Nope. It was an animal path.

Eventually we thought we should head back to the car, and that's when I saw the actual path to the beach. Haha! We grabbed our cooler bag and headed down to Gold Bluff Beach. On my plan, we were going to hop in the car and head back to the day use area to eat. However, the parking lot were we originally were 1 of 6 cars was now packed. It seemed smarter to forego the day use area and just sit on logs and enjoy the beach as we ate.Read more