Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, State park and nature reserve in Humboldt County, United States
Prairie Creek Redwoods is a state park and nature reserve in Humboldt County along the northern California coast. The landscape combines dense redwood forest with coastal prairie, small streams, and a narrow corridor of access to the ocean south of the Klamath River mouth.
A private donation in 1923 created the foundation of the park under the protection of the Save the Redwoods League. Later land purchases and transfers expanded the territory until the reserve became part of the larger Redwood National and State Parks system during the 1960s.
The park's name comes from Prairie Creek, which flows along the west side of the meadow and the parkway. The open grasslands inside the forest are locally called prairies. Yurok villages once numbered at least fifty between Little River and the Wilson Creek Basin, and the Yurok lived on these lands before the park existed.
Trails range from short walks under the trees to longer routes into the backcountry and down to the coast. Fog rolls in especially during mornings and evenings and makes paths wet, so wear shoes with good grip.
The park's redwoods include named trees such as Big Tree, Corkscrew Redwood and the Cathedral Trees, and many reach 300 feet (91 m) tall. The 1.0-mile Nature Trail and the 0.6-mile Ah Pah Trail are the shortest walks; the Brown Creek Loop, 3.5 miles, is where hiker Jim Hamm was attacked by a mountain lion in 2007.
The community of curious travelers
AroundUs brings together thousands of curated places, local tips, and hidden gems, enriched daily by 92,813 contributors worldwide.
