Sonya's Blog - Day 313 - The Redwoods and Petty Thieves

Sonya’s Blog - Day 313 - April 30th - The Redwoods and Petty Thieves

Today we were off to hike in the Redwood Forest. We were told that Return of the Jedi was filmed in these parts and Blake wants to see the area where the filming was done.

Our first stop was Jedediah Smith State Park. This is a massive park, but we found an area, that was on the Smith River with a little picnic area and campground. We had to take the 199, which is a narrow highway with lots of twists and turns in it. The locals don’t really like others doing the speed limit on their roads, I guess. One guy behind me was honking at me to pull over so he could pass and careen down the road as fast as he could. So, once again, California driver’s are super courteous (we had this same problem in Yosemite). We managed to make it and started to explore. We couldn’t go on any of the trails with Kizmet, but there was lots to see just walking around the road (which was not much wider than a trail, we could never get our big rig in this campground).

We walked along the river first, which was fun. We started skipping stones, but Kizmet went nuts trying to chase them and since we still had her on leash, this didn’t work out so well.

We then walked around the road and looked at all the massive trees, which was great. They had great campsites, with stone fireplaces for cooking and a metal container to keep your food in and the bears out:

Mmmm, won't be long till Isaac is towering over Blake:

Our next stop was Stout Grove, which was where they filmed Return of the Jedi, or so we were told. We had to take Howland Hill Road to get there, which is a dirt road that goes right through the Redwood Forest. There is a sign, as you get onto Howland Hill Road, that towing of trailers is not recommended. This made me laugh, because after we were on the road for 10 minutes, my recommendation would be to never tow a trailer on that road. There are points where the trees are quite close together and I would be surprised if a trailer made it through without getting wedged, even a smaller one. Furthermore, it is a dirt road, so it is full of pot holes all along the road. We drove about 10 KM’s/h along the road, at the most. It was beautiful though.

We made it to Stout Grove and decided to walk around. There was a sign at the start of the trail that said no dogs, so we put Kizmet in the truck. We were parked in the shade and it wasn’t too warm out, only 14, so she was fine. She was depressed about not being able to go on the walk, but fine all the same. It was only a 0.5 mile hike, so we wouldn’t be gone too long. As we were walking though, every other person had a dog with them! I guess we didn’t need to follow the rules in this park, poor Kizmet. It was a beautiful grove, with lots of massive trees. While we were driving in I looked up where Return of the Jedi was filmed and, as it turns out, it wasn’t here. People are commonly told that this was the film site, but it is not. First off, it is a State Park, whose job is to protect the Redwood Forests. Jedediah Smith State Park has 7% of the old growth Redwoods in the world, so they need to protect them. The film industry does not leave a small footprint, so the State Park would never allow that kind of destruction in their park. Sure enough, they filmed in an area that was slated for logging. They had to go in and bulldoze a lot of the area, in order to make it clear enough to get filming. When you watch the movie, there isn’t a lot of underbrush, which is nothing like the Redwood Forest we were standing in. The area where Return of the Jedi was filmed, the major battle scenes and such, was logged after filming. So sad:( Stout Grove has been protected since the early 1900’s, so it should never be logged.

We decided to drive all of Howland Hill Road, once we were done at Stout Grove. If we keep on the road, it will take us right to Crescent City. It was such a pretty drive, if a little bumpy, that we thought it would be worth it. It did not disappoint. I was a little surprised that the road was still there in some spots. It was so narrow and there was a creek far below, I was just looking out my window down the long drop to the cliff, with really nothing between me and certain death. In the end, Blake was able to keep the truck straight, resulting in my survival.

We tried to get a picture of our Millennium Falcon in the Redwood Forests, but it is hard to see:

Traveling the Howland Hill Road:

We were back at camp for awhile, when Blake made a distressing discovery. Someone had cut our bike lock and stolen his bike off the back of our trailer. I couldn’t believe they only took the one bike, but they did. Blake went around and talked to some of the neighbours and there had been a suspicious car driving around the campground. Two thefts in one week, California is not turning out to be our favourite state. We brought the remaining bikes into the trailer for the night, which is a hassle, but we don’t want to lose those too. We will have to buy new locks tomorrow, ones that are harder to cut through.

Sonya