Tolowa Dunes State Park, Coastal state park in Del Norte County, United States.
Tolowa Dunes State Park is a coastal park in northern California near Crescent City, covering sand dunes, wetlands, two shallow coastal lakes, and open grasslands. Lake Earl and Lake Tolowa sit at the heart of the park, connected to each other and to the ocean by a network of marshes and dune corridors.
The area was designated a state park in 1925, protecting land that the Tolowa people had inhabited for centuries before American settlers arrived in the 1850s. Oral accounts passed down by the Tolowa describe major earthquakes along the Cascadia subduction zone, giving researchers a record that goes beyond written history.
The park takes its name from the Tolowa people, an indigenous group whose descendants still live in the region today. Visitors can find interpretive panels along the trails that speak to this long-standing human presence on the land.
The park is open year-round, but trails can be wet and muddy depending on the season, so sturdy waterproof footwear is a good idea. Several parking areas along Sand Hill Road give direct access to the trails, making it easy to choose a starting point based on where you want to go.
Lake Earl and Lake Tolowa are connected to the Pacific by a narrow channel that opens and closes naturally depending on wave action and rainfall, which means the salinity of the lakes shifts constantly. This ongoing change determines which plants and animals can live there at any given time, making the ecosystem different from one visit to the next.
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